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I have temporarily resolved an issue with my recently purchased mid 90s Empathy and was curious as whether any of you had run into similar problems with "older basses". When I bought the bass of of e-bay, one of the battery boxes was loose and had come disconnected, so I re-soldered the connection and hot glued the box back into the cavity (it appears this is what Rob uses). I thought my troubles were over.. At my last gig, I noticed some crackling, and at one point the bass cut out completely !! After a several seconds of frantic poking and prodding, I detected the problem was originating from the battery area and pulled both out and re-inserted. This worked for the time being, but on closer inspection, I found that the little "trap door" that presses the batteries against the contacts was not exerting adequate pressure to maintain constant flow. I folded up two pieces of matchbook and inserted them between the batteries and trap doors as shims, and the problem was solved... FOR NOW. Is this a common problem, and are new and/or improved battery boxes available? Steve P.S. I am proud to be the first Status technician to post here... this in no way indicates that I have a clue.