I have one of these and I haven’t powered it up in years. I don’t even know if it works to tell the truth.
Update: 2011-04-06
Well, I dug this unit out and powered it up. It wasn’t doing so well.
It would post which MIDI channel it was set to and then glitch with a random display. Seemed well dead. I did a reset on it (Press and hold the (-) and (5) keys at power up) and it fired right up. Sounded fine. When I cycled the power it went back to glitchy display mode.
I cracked it open and this is what I found.
There it is....
..in all it's corrosive, gooey glory.
I guess we can add the Peavey Add Verb II to the list of devices with leaking Nicad batteries.
The good news is the board is fairly unpopulated in this area. This looks like a mess but I’m going to guess it will be fairly straight forward to clean up. The capacitor to the left is well melted and will need replacing. I’m unsure of its value at this point.
The other good news is it also didn’t effect the sound of the device. When I reset the memory it works fine.
Aquirred 1990s
In early 2012, a customer brought one into the shop this way. His had exactly the same problem. After a little cleaning and sourcing a suitable substitute battery, it’s rocking again. We subbed a CR2032 holder and cell, if you are interested. As of Dec 2012, it was still holding his presets, the battery just isn’t rechargeable like the OEM.
It’s now May 2014 and the CR2032 finally gave out. That’s pretty decent life for this type of device. We heartily recommend this fix for the Peavey AddVerbII