Replacing Solar cell questions.

[clockace]

hi mike, did you check the voltage right where the battery leads are soldered to the pc board? the wires or at least one of them may be bad or ready to break off. i have replaced those wires on the ones i have gotten working. it is a delicate soldering task. i have a battery[nicad] rechargeable soldering iron with a fine microtip that i use. the wire i found is hard to get in stranded form. i have been using solid wire of the same gauge that i got at a tv repair store. you should have at least 3v at the solder pads of those wires. i use 389x2 cells hooked in series to test things. they are hi drain cells. i am not sure of the 386. i just installed the dot matrix i repaired in a new red top i got from howard. unfortunately there is no way to fill the module with gel, so it has to be a close fit. it is now set and running and on my wrist. i am not going to glue it together until i am sure it is ok. it is held together now w/scotch tape. peter

[Sully008]

hi mike, did you check the voltage right where the battery leads are soldered to the pc board? the wires or at least one of them may be bad or ready to break off. i have replaced those wires on the ones i have gotten working. it is a delicate soldering task. i have a battery[nicad] rechargeable soldering iron with a fine microtip that i use. the wire i found is hard to get in stranded form. i have been using solid wire of the same gauge that i got at a tv repair store. you should have at least 3v at the solder pads of those wires. i use 389x2 cells hooked in series to test things. they are hi drain cells. i am not sure of the 386. i just installed the dot matrix i repaired in a new red top i got from howard. unfortunately there is no way to fill the module with gel, so it has to be a close fit. it is now set and running and on my wrist. i am not going to glue it together until i am sure it is ok. it is held together now w/scotch tape. peter

Hey Peter,

No, I didn't check the voltage at the pads. I did solder extra wire to the existing ones, but I was getting funky reading from that. I already put the module away for this evening, maybe I'll give it a go tomorrow. I did try connecting the AA battery tester I made, but it only lit up one or two segments as well.

Congrats on getting your Synchronar working! One of these days I'll figure it out. There is another Ebay auction up, hmm....

[Sully008]

Hey all,

Another update on this thread, I de-soldered the battery wires attached to the circuit board and measured voltage directly on the board. Still measures low, ~.89v. Unfortunately, something must be pooched because I should be reading ~3v from the solar cell, correct? Attaching a 3v source does nothing now, the display doesn't light up. Ugh.

[clockace]

hi mike, does the sc put out 3v when you measure the +/- leads on it? if it does, it should also measure 3v at the 2 wires. if it doesn't, must be a problem somewhere on the pc board. i have been working with a mkII that was giving me fits. the sc measured 3v at the pads. i soldered 2 new wires to the pads and got a strong 3v at the end of the wires. i installed 2xvarta80's but it would only lite a single digit, and it was random. not the same one all the time and not all the time. tonight when i came home i decided to replace the qc. i was able to do that w/o removing the sc from the topside, just heated till the solder melted and lifted it off. it was a little more delicate than that but you get the picture. i shaped the leads on the new qc and inserted them in the holes and resoldered it in. the vartas were still there and fully charged 2.7v. i put a slider magnet to the reeds and viola' all the digits lit up and it is running, keeping time, date and secs. what a thrill. zantech has the qc's for $1.00. i bought 5 of them for future use. i still have 2 more pc boards that are missing parts, but have the display. i am going to try those soon. i have not tried to open the sunwatch yet. regards, peter

[Sully008]

Hi Peter,

Yes, the SC measures 3v on when I probe the leads attached to the circuit board. I don't get 3v at the pads where the battery leads were soldered to.

For the hell of it I attached a pair of Varta batteries to it, and for awhile it would lite up the top half of the left digit, but nothing else. Eventually it just stopped working. I unsoldered one battery lead and put it away. Do you have a part # for the QC from zantech? I might as well try that too. (Edit- I tried googling zantech, but I'm not sure if they have a website?)

Thanks for all your help, Peter. You wouldn't want to sell me a working Synchronar, would ya?

[clockace]

hi, just a quick note, www.zantechinc.com is the website. the qc part # is 64.CTX13. i have now replaced 2 qc's and both modules lite up completely. hope this helps. i did have a good 3v at the wire ends, tho. that was before i soldered in the cells. peter

[Sully008]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the link. I'm going to visit a local electronics parts store this weekend. According to their website they carry QCs for watches. Other than it needing to be 32khz and a "can" type, is there anything else I should tell them? If they don't have it, I'll call Zantech on Monday.

[clockace]

mike, zantech has 4 different styles. one is close to what is in the MKI/II's. it is a little shorter and the leads are on the bottom end instead of the middle but they will fit the original spacing if you bend them properly. peter