The Energon Pub

I'm just suddenly curious. Is everyone else like me, or am I in the minority?

Who else yanks out their new Transformers' batteries almost immediately upon buying them? I think most Transformers that make noise and lights are annoying as hell. Right now, the only robots in my collection who have gotten to keep their batteries are Armada Overload (the first to have the transforming sound, it's easy to activate on command, and hard to activate by accident), Armada Unicron (NO NOISES!! All he does is light up, and never on accident!), Armada Optimus (the auto-transforming trailer is just so cool it outweighs his annoying sounds), and MP Optimus (It makes the Matrix light up, and it's one of those tiny batteries that adds almost no bulk to him).

That's four bots out of hundreds.

Anyone else regularly gut the battery chambers, or do most people actually like hearing "I am Optimus Prime" from half your collection every time you sneeze?

You're not alone! I've taken out the batteries from most of my figures that do have electronics. The exception is 20th Anniversary DVD Edition OP and RiD Ultra Magnus. The only reason I haven't removed them from UM yet is that the buttons aren't easily bumped into. I removed the batteries from Leader Brawl an hour after unpacking it. The gun noises were fun for the first few minutes.

Bar a few exceptions most of my figures keep there batteries.

Notably Cybertron Dark Skorponok lost his batteries 2 minutes after opening. That tail whirring sound is incredibly irritating.

I pull the batteries from all my toys whenever possible, unless I'm actually playing with them. I had to gut and rebuild my vintage Omega 'cause the batteries leaked.

Yep, I take most of them out too. Exceptions are MP Prime & Megs, as their gimmicks are non intrusive, and Reissue Purple Galvatron, because I actually think his voice clips are quite hilarious. Oh, and I forgot to take out the Animated Leaders' batteries, but I don't transform them often enough to get annoyed anyway.

TF batteries run my bike lights! The amount of TFs that come with them means I hardly ever need to use my rechargeables in my bike lights. The only TFs to keep their batteries are Unicron, MP OP and MP Grim cos it's too fiddly to get them out. It's not THAT fiddly, I just can't be bothered. I haven't found sounds and lights interesting since I was 10. I'd much rather have better articulation and mold accuracy.

I always take out the batteries then clean the terminals, because I've had a few toys damaged by battery acids. Now I never leave any batteries in any of my Transformers toy, mostly cause as batteries age their chances of leaking increases. So if you are collecting to keep them in good condition, please take the batteries out for the health of your toys!!

Well that's my two cents on this topic so now I'm broke.

I usually leave them in for about 6 mos to a year and then yank them out. If they are really annoying, they get removed sooner.

Every loose figure I have has had them removed, since all but the last six months of figures are stored. It's the MISB ones I worry about, especially the later Leader class figures (Movie '07 and Animated) that switched to AA style batteries instead of watch batteries. The watch batteries almost never corrode, but AA, particularly the cheap ones like the POW-R-FUEL Hasbro house brand, have a tendency to leak.

Roadbuster UM, Shadow Blade Megatron, Nightwatch Prime, Premium Prime, Premium Megs, and Deep Desert Brawl may all get opened one day to get batteries pulled. It sucks because some of them have difficult to get to compartments.

I usually take the batteries out. But I left them in ROTF leader Prime because I never ever get tired of the I am Optimus Prime. Damn straight he is!

I almost always pull the batteries out of my Transformers. Normally the noises are obnoxious, only a few exceptions have survived the screwdriver treatment:

MP Prime - the light up matrix is out of the way and rather cool.

Henkei/Classics Frankenstein Powerglide - my friend was making whoosh noises while she was playing with it, so I sighed and put the batteries back in.

I pulled the batteries out of MP Megs trying to reduce the weight pressing on the tiny shoulder joint, did not seem to help that much. I would love to mod a G1 scope to fit, for both appearance and weight reasons, but cannot justify the cost of buying a loose scope.

I bought big ol' Devestator and his sound effects just wouldn't stop working. Pulled them. I left them in both my Animated Megs and Shadow Blade Megs. I love making both of them laugh in unison.

But those power fuel batteries suck. I've pulled them out of tons of things and only used maybe 2 in other things. I've had 2 of them blow up in my tv remote when I used them. Only took 2 days before they blew. I took all the batteries out of my toys and replaced the few with batteries with good ones.