> If you want to use non-rechargable batteries you'll have to disable the
> charging circuits. Non-rechargable batteries don't like being charged.
> Charging them could even cause them to leak which was what you wanted to
> prevent.
>
> Since I do not know how you can disable the charger and you probably
> won't like modifying your Poly6 I have two suggestions.

To disable the charging circuit, replace R91 with a diode, anode goes to
the battery end, cathode to cathode of D15, on KLM-367.

> If you go for non-rech.. then you'll have to use 3 1.5 Volt cells which
> give you 4.5 v. Connect it using a diode to let the voltage drop to
> about 3.8 volt which is close enough I geuss.

Anything up to five volts is sufficient, but you need a diode anyway, so
the method you describe will work. Using a 3.6V lithium battery should
work.

You might try removing C40 on KLM-367 as the leakage through this
capacitor could be more than the current drawn by the RAM chip.

Only question mark I have here is how much current the RAM chip actually
uses, and if there are any surges at power on/off which could cause a
non-rechargable lithium cell to die prematurely (apart from the RAM, a
4011 also gets its power from the battery). But it might be worth a try.

NB. I haven't tried the above mod myself.

/Ricard
--
I measured this some years ago and there is a significant surge
(spike) from the battery when the synth is switched on. After that the
current drawn is negligible.
The Ram is of the low power type and other synths which use lithium
have a similar circuit design. So a lithium should work fine. But it's
a good point to remove that cap.
_____________________________________________________
Ingar, Norway.

-----------------------------------------------------
Q:
Do you think the current spike would completely discharge a lithium 
battery after a couple of turn-ons?

It's hard to say since it's a very short pulse and difficult to
measure. Guess only a practical test can tell for sure. 
After I saw this on the P-6 I did a similar check on a Prophet-5 and
that showed the same behavior. And I've seen many Prophet's with an
original battery that's still well above 3.0v... (It's also using a
permanently powered Cmos for the reset circuit).
_____________________________________________________
Ingar, Norway.