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org/~guido/quartz-watch/
I started with the repair of old analog mechanical watches and I really like them
however analog mechanical watches are always less accurate than quartz
watches because the frequency with which a mechanical balance oscillates
depends to some degree on the amplitude and the position. All kinds of efforts
have been made to compensate an analog mechanical movement for those
effects but it does never really work. Quartz oscillators have no position
dependency and their temperature drift is as well rather small. The only problem
with Quartz watches is that they need a battery and one has to replace that
battery once in a while.
Quartz watches are generally much easier to fix than analog mechanical
watches. The main reason is that they behave "digital". They do either run and
keep time or they have a problem. The "working but not keeping time at all"
state that mechanical watches can end up in does not exist here.
A lot of watch makers just replace the entire movement when it is not working
anymore. This might not be possible for old watches and there they just fit a new and different movement into an old watch. I think that
this is really the wrong strategy. Quartz movements can be repaired in many cases. In those case where you need spare parts you can
often use parts from a similar movement from the same manufacturer and just swap the defect part.
1. Mechanical problems due to "dirt" in the movement. This is by far the most common cause for a defect quartz movement. Just
clean the movement as described below. Broken or worn out cog wheels are rather rare.
2. Salts and oxidation around the battery compartment. Just take the involved parts apart and clean them. Corroded metal contacts
can be polished with a bit of polishing paste. Those tiny parts are best polished with a small piece of leather (2mm x 3mm). Grab the
leather with watchmaker tweezers, dip it in metal polishing paste and then rub it gently along the little contact pin or whatever you
need to polish.
3. A defect coil. The coil that powers the step motor is made of a wire thiner than a human hair. It is easily damaged by somebody
who does not know how to change a battery. A screw driver or just finger nails hitting accidently the coil can break the wire. It's
almost impossible to repair. It's better to replace it.
4. A defect tuning fork quartz crystal. This is a very rare defect but extrem temperature changes or mechanical shock can break it.
You can replace them. Those are 32.768KHz tuning quartz crystals and they cost only a few cents. The watch might be off by a few
minutes per month after replacing the quartz. Some older watches can be adjusted but that is a bit of trial and error without the right
equipment.
5. Defect electronics. It's mostly impossible to repair them unless it is due to a corroded wire track on the circuit board. Replace the
whole circuit board.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
Quartz movements are more simple in their mechanical design. They have very few cog wheels and it's easy to get to them. This open
design does often allow you to wash the movement in lighter fluid without taking it apart.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
To clean a quartz watch you just take the movement out of the case, dip it in a small bowl with lighter fluid and move it a bit left and right
to allow for the flow of lighter fluid through the movement. This will wash old oil, debris and dust out of the movement and you will find
small particles at the bottom of the bowl.
I have installed a new battery just a few month ago and now the watch
needs again a new one
If you are sure that the battery is was of good quality then this is probably a sign of oil in the movement getting old and sticky. The friction
in the movement has increased.
An easy way to fix this is to first apply a bit of very thin Moebius quartz oil. After that you wait a few days (watch running) until the oil
got into all the pivot holes where it dissolved the old and sticky oil. Finally you wash the excess oil away with lighter fluid. Just wash the
entire movement in lighter fluid. Traces of oil will remain in the movement and that is enough. You don't need to take the movement apart
for this procedure.
Old pocket watches have often damaged or scratched crystals and replacing cracked or chipped crystals or polishing scratched ones can
make a big diffrence. The watch looks much better when the crystal is clear and free of cracks.
Plastic crystals need only to be replaced if they have a crack. Scratches can polished out with a bit of 1m diamond polishing paste (or
any univeral metal polishing paste). Just put a tiny amount on a dry cloth and ploish the crystal by hand using circular movements. Most
scratches will be gone in about 3 minutes. Do not use motorized ploishing wheels. They do often rotate too fast and get very hot. Heat will
damage the plastic.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
plastic crystal into the corresponding groove on the bezel. It should just pop-in. There is no glue neede. The plastic crystal is held in place
with a compression fitting. Sometimes you will have to bend the crystal a bit with your fingers (center of the dome up, outer perimiter
down).
Some people just glue-in a smaller crystal but that is not "authentic" for most pocket watches. The correct method of fitting a sligthly too
big crystal is more expensive and requires ususally that you buy a few (e.g 37.9mm, 38mm, 38.1mm, 38.2mm) and then test to see which
one is the right one. If you absolutely need to glue the crystal then stay away from superglue. Superglue can produce some fumes which
cause white deposits. Use a glue called "G-S Hypo Cement".
The task was therefore to swap the movements between the two watches. To do this one has to take out the dial.
The pitfall with this movement is that it has no cannon pinion (like most quartz movements). The dial is not mounted with posts that are
clamped by screws. The posts are just kept in place by friction.
This makes it very likely that you pull a bit on the gear-wheel that holds the minutes hand when you take out the dial.
The movement has a razor blade thin gear-wheel that snaps onto the bottom of the wheel holding the minutes hand. Two tiny metal
bridges going across that gear snap into grooves on the axis of the gear-wheel holding the minutes hand.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
The friction fitting allows you to set the watch hands. This bit of friction allows you to manually turn the minutes hand while it is
otherwise attached to the "gear-box" and the motor.
The problem is you can't just press the cog wheel for the minutes hand back in. The razor blade thin cog wheel will not snap onto it.
The way to fix it is to take it all out and place the razor blade thin cog wheel onto a piece of leather. It should be a firm leather patch.
Take now the cog wheel for the minutes hand and press it between the bridges that go across that razor blade thin wheel. The leather is a
bit elastic and it will push it onto the cog wheel for the minutes hand.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
The dial side of a 644.111 movement. You see the cog wheel for the minutes hand in the middle.
In any case I had the feeling that it is likely a minor problem and decided to open the watch and investigate myself what was wrong with
it. I was suspecting an empty or loose battery.
The battery was however not the problem. Some metal dust had made it into the movement. It says on the movement "swiss parts, china
assembling".
At first I was not sure where that metal dust was coming from but then I took a lint free tissue, put a drop of fine oil on it and went along
the inside of the case. The paper came back completely gray, almost black!
It looks like the cases are not properly cleaned after production and there are small metal particles everywhere inside the watch. It's really
Charles Hubert's fault. They should have recalled all those watches.
I spent a couple of hours cleaning the whole watch and the movement. After that the watch was running again.
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quartz watch repair http://linuxfocus.org/~guido/quartz-watch/
It's actually not a bad watch. Sloppy assembly but the materials and the design is very good. It has rubber seals on the stem and on the
back cover. I would not trust it to be really water tight but it's still very good to have and it protects the watch against dust and lint from
your pocket. The crystal is a mineral glass not just plastic and the movement is good too.
The movement is a swiss Ronda 513 movement with one jewel. The expected battery life of the v371 battery is 45month. (Ronda 513
datasheet, 1.8Mb, from http://www.ronda.ch).
The only "design flaw" that I noticed was related to the seconds hand. If you just take a quick glance at the watch then you will easily
read the wrong time because the seconds hand is black just as the other hands and they are all the same width. I solved that problem by
painting the seconds hand white.
It's a good watch but you need some watchmaker skills to get it to work.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_watch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_crisis
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