All his Base are belong to me

I had a friend who came to me with some problems on his 'toys'. These are the very-hard-to-find-figures-die-die-also-cannot-get Star Trek Enterprise action figures from Art Asylum. Their spacesuit version is even rarer, something which I wanted some time ago. But, well, wallet said no.

So, what is so special about these figures? First, their facial sculpt is amazing as it looks very real. Some of these figures comes with a Base which, not can it interlock with other bases to form the bridge of the Enterprise, it also plays phrases as spoken by the actors at the push of a button.

I tried to shoo him away by throwing some spare
batteries but he offered me a Malcolm Reed
figure which I could not refuse.

The symptoms were that these boards have a very
scratchy sound and on one of them, the volume is
also very soft. I know what the problems are but
just for the figure, I will have to open up the base
to confirm my suspicions. I just hope its not the
voice module chips which would be a lot of problem.

Soft sound, eh? Lets take at look at the power
department.

Aha. Two bases have corroded battery contacts
and not only that, the batteries are weak. This is
not so serious compared to the normal AA or AAA
types which, when they leak, they really leak. So,
the only thing I can do here is to clean the contacts
as much as possible since I do not have an electro-
plating facility in the toilet.

As for the scratchy sound, once I opened up the
base it was not a problem anymore. In fact, after
I closed it back, the sound, after a few presses of
the button, came back to normal and in fact, was
even louder than before. Which stumped me until
I remembered I put a set of fresh batteries...

And so, everything is now OK and I have to remind that friend to ALWAYS remove the batteries when not in use. I could have set up a DC power system for him but I don't think he wants it since it would be a bit 'bulky'. The lighting up of the base and remote control did interest him but this would mean 'overriding' the original circuits and also, the bases would need to have some holes cut as well. Oh, well. At least I now have an action figure which has a rubbery waist (to create that jointless jumpsuit uniform look. Its a great idea and the figure would stand out form the rest of the normal jointed ones. But as you know with PVC, PU, plastics and rubber, they will deteriorate over time, more so in the ever friendly weathers of Malaysia.