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Are any of these vintage watches worth fixing?

3K views 29 replies 15 participants last post by  mithan 
#1 ·
As the title suggests, some of them are armitron and few are no-name brand I suppose and some just look plain cool(me thinks) :)

Appreciate any help and advise if they are worth fixing and replacing a battery? Thank you

 
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#6 ·
Honestly, probably not. Depends on the type of repair though. You would be surprised how often I think folks mistake a broken watch for one that just needs a new battery.

New batteries are a small investment, I would maybe start with that.

On the other extreme, the kiss of death for a quartz watch is a leaked battery that corroded the insides. Impossible to tell where in the spectrum these would fall.

If you really like one of them and will wear, could be worth more investment. Sometimes watch makers will assess and give you a quote for free, then you can decide if to proceed.
 
#8 ·
If popping in a new battery won't work, then I doubt it will be worth your while paying to have it fixed, that is assuming a watchmaker will even be willing to work on it... Picture quality is too grainy for me to tell, but they look like some digital Casio's and such. There are plenty of brand new watches in the same style if you like that sort of style.
 
#13 ·
They are worth fixing if you would enjoy and wear them. For the price of a new battery you will be able to see if any other work is needed. There's a good chance most will fire right up. Let us know what happens.

When taking the back off keep track of any tiny springs that are used as contacts. An old shoe box as a work area will reduce the chance of tiny parts disappearing.
 
#15 ·
There's a channel on youtube, Vintage Digital Watches, the host goes way deep into repairing almost everything you can find wrong with just these sorts of watches. Excellent videos, I recommend watching them.

Much of the time, the watch just needs a new battery, and it wasn't worth the bother for the previous owner. But other things can go wrong as well. Screen fade, LCD bleed, missing segments are pretty common and sometimes fixable. Corroded battery terminals or traces are also common and sometimes fixable, and the corrosion residue can removed. Button contacts can be cleaned. Even broken traces and circuit boards can be fixed sometimes with very careful application of silver conductive paint or a tiny bit of solder.

Using his inspiration and techniques I recently repaired a BabyG (BGM100/module 1891), the quartz crystal contact pad had come detatched from the circuit board and required both silver paint and soldering a new wire, but now I have a watch with an alarm that plays "Bomboleo", so I'm very pleased.

If you're a fan of a particular watch, it can be fun to diagnose and repair it. The better quality digital watches are much more repairable (Seiko, Casio, Citizen and others), while some of the old digitals are kind of trashy on the inside, cheaply made.

If you're curious or you like them, give it a shot! You'll learn a lot and might find your next favourite watch, or be ready to fix it when it comes around.
 
#17 ·
no, none is worth fixing :cry:
 
#18 ·
Okay so first Armitron, 3rd from left and 2nd one from right in the first row is a runner - replaced the battery, cleaned control buttons - they had a lot of green goo type residue.

But it's super light weight and I think it's cool in terms of analog-digital.
 
#25 ·
I have been struggling to set time since yesterday on this simple beauty, would anyone has any advice? Tried so many different options in terms of pressing keys but no luck:

Without a manual it is difficult to know which combination of buttons to get to the different functions of this and many digital watches. Often times each button will have more than one function depending on which mode the watch is in, this is evident by the printed label over the buttons. At least you have more than 3-4 buttons to choose from! My guess would be to first find out how to change through the modes, then attempt to figure out how to set time, date, year, chrono functions.

I had a very stylish digital watch which had only 2 buttons. I also did not have a manual to follow, which was nearly impossible to find online because of the age (1980's) and brand of the watch. There were functions where you had to hold a certain button in for up to 3 seconds before it would change the readout.

So good luck to you with this complicated piece if history!
 
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