When I took all my watches outside for pictures last month I had the same thing happen to my Frog and my Raysman. It scared the crap out of me at first, but I saw them slowly returning to normal when I brought them in. It was over 100 that day (as it has been for the past 33 days now) so I figure it was the LCD getting too hot. I threw them in the freezer and all was fine within 10 minutes.

Sent from the Office of the Reincarnated President of the Republic of Texas

 

When I took all my watches outside for pictures last month I had the same thing happen to my Frog and my Raysman. It scared the crap out of me at first, but I saw them slowly returning to normal when I brought them in. It was over 100 that day (as it has been for the past 33 days now) so I figure it was the LCD getting too hot. I threw them in the freezer and all was fine within 10 minutes.

Sent from the Office of the Reincarnated President of the Republic of Texas

And the Frog (your Frog) and Raysman are also both older watches. So looks like Casio has improved the toughness of the LCD (or whatever is causing this) in the past 10 years.

Or maybe it has something to do with the domed crystal. The 9700 gulfmans (and raysman too, I believe) have domed crystals. Maybe it acts like a magnifying glass and overheats the watch.

 

Possibly. It happened to my GA Raysman. The NOS one I just bought had a low battery and I left it outside for hours last week to charge it. I checked it every 30 minutes, worrying about the LCD, but it never discolored at all. Where it caught me by surprise is the fact that I've never had one do that on my wrist. I've spent hours outside in the sun and heat with football and baseball practices, and you'd think the watch would get even hotter when you add the body heat to it.

Sent from the Office of the Reincarnated President of the Republic of Texas

 

How peculiar. Sometimes at work I have to work in a industrial sized freezer. For fun, I left my Dawn Black froggy in therefor about 30 minutes only to find that the LCD went partly blank and seconds moved very slowly.

While we're on the subject on older gulfmans, why is it the solar charges on them are so poor nowadays? Did they use different batteries back when they were first produced?

 

It just happened to two of my frogmans: the GW-204K (black and yellow ICERC) and GW-205K (blue and white ICERC). The other 200 series frogmans were normal.

I brought them back inside and they returned to normal within a minute.

Okay, this is freaking me out. No more charging on hot days.... It isn't even that hot outside--maybe 85 degrees

 

Does anyone know if the hydro mod will help to prevent this?

 

Hydro might prevent the screen from going black, but I've heard (not actually witnessed) that if it get's too hot, and there's not an air bubble in the case, the oil will expand and could literally bust at the seams. With that said, I had my hydro Gs out in 100+ temp, in direct sunlight, for an hour and nothing happened. And I don't have air bubbles in mine...at least none that are visible...

 

Ouch. I haven't had these problems yet.
And you guys aren't newbies.

 

The manual explains this phenomenon for ALL solar G-Shocks.

When the display gets too hot, it blacks out. It will return to normal when the temp comes back down.

It is usual, expected behavior.

It is NOT, however, a good idea to let your G's get so hot that the display blacks out. This never happens while wearing a watch, only when it is in direct sunlight off the wrist.

There are varying opinions about any lingering damage after a "blackout," but it probably is not good news for battery life.

I suggest indirect sunlight if charging off the wrist. Some have said they have good results charging the watch while it is submerged in water in a glass.

HTH

 

Once the sun has progressed past the east side of my home, I lay the watch in that area where I'm certain it'll get no direct sun. It does, however, get a boatload of indirect sun. Just trying to look at a clear, sunny sky from that position is really, really bright. Bring it in after dinner and it's good to go. If you wanna go nuts with an L or M battery, repeat for another day or so. Shouldn't be rocket science as long as you follow Casio's recommendations.

 

I like the charging method of putting it in water, might have to try that sometime. Also, leaving it outside facing AWAY from the direct sunlight makes all the sense in the world. I think anything with an LCD is capable of having a blackout like this. I remember seeing an old cell phone do it. So, not just your Solar watches (my Frog is a non solar 6300), but your digitals. Strange how it won't happen on your wrist. I guess because it gets turned away from the sun enough while on the wrist, rather than being in a stationary position facing the sun for an hour or more...?

 

Put the watch in a bow of water when it charges under direct sunlight, I think it might help.

 

hello,
i had bought a gshock 3160 watch 9 months ago..i liked the watch very much ...i thought it was a ordinary watch that ma dad bought it for me..but when i surfed it on internet i came to know how awesome the watch is....i had no info about the watch battery......it had showed low battery and the screen went on fading and reseting so i thought the watch is screwed up.....i kept the watch in ma drawer in complete darkness around 2 weeks Then one day i thought of checking about the watch in internet then i came to know that my watch battery was low......i removed the watch from ma drawer after 2 weeks,,, the battery was completely dead ......no indicator nothing on screen ....just blank so i kept it on ma window to charge ........i kept it for around 45 min then i went to have a look on it.....the screen had turned black i got completely scared i took it inside then i kept it outside frequently for 15 min but no results...the battery is not charging at all....no display plz some1 help me.............plz..plz...plz.....its uregent

 

You mean a G-5600E with module 3160, right? Anyway, assuming that the battery is completely drained prior to charging, it will take a few days of sunlight, not just 45 mins. to replenish the charge. That goes for all solar G-Shocks, AFAIK.

 

To answer the OPs original question, I believe the answer is this, in a not too elegant explanation:

The heat from the sun 'energises' the LCD liquid (remember, LCD = Liquid Crystal Display), causing the molecules of LC to 'untwist', thus making the display black. Normally it would require a voltage to untwist the molecules, but in this case the sun is doing it for you.

I'm not 100% sure I'm fully correct on all this as it's been a few years since I looked at LCDs in school, but I'm pretty sure I'm on the right lines. Anyone with some time to kill can certainly do some research into this.

 

Pretty much true. I have some time to kill, so I'll write a little explanation... somebody may appreciate it, although it really doesn't add much!

The LCD is called a "twisted nematic" type. At room temp the liquid crystals align themselves in a helical config, which rotates the linear polarization of light transmitted through it. The front and rear (linear) polarization filters are rotated with respect to each other*, so for light to be transmitted through both, the LCD needs to rotate the polarization which it normally does! Under the application of an electric field along the LCD's 'axis of twisting', the twisted structure is disrupted as the crystals align with the electric field, and the light's polarization is no longer rotated, hence an opaque black segment. Heat also disrupts the helical structure of the twisted nematic crystals: the extra thermal energy causes them to move about more and break out of their nice ordered structure. When the LCD cools down, the crystals chill-out and reform their structures again, just like when an applied electric field is removed, making the display transparent again.

The display blacking-out due to lots of Sun doesn't damage the LCD, but long UV exposure may well damage the filters and of course the heat is not good for the "battery". (The UV will also de-polymerize the G-shock's resin.)

*For normal displays. For inverted displays, the filters have the same orientation, and the polarization-twisting causes the display to be opaque instead of transparent.

 

Nicely done, mate. Adds a bit more body to what I was trying to say.

 

Thanks

Another thing: the phenomenon that leads to an LCD 'blacking-out' when it gets hot is exploited to make LCD thermometers, like those used on aquariums. (...or like the little stickers that used to come on Transformers, that you warmed up with your finger to reveal the face of a Decepticon or Autobot! Does anybody remember those?)

 

I was charging all my solars at once today. I had them in the sun for about 45 minutes, and I went out to check on them. The two 9700 gulfmans' screens were completely black! I was worried they were destroyed, but when I brought them inside, the display returned to normal within a minute. This did not happen with any of the other models: only the very old 9700's. Does anyone know what this was or the cause of it? Maybe the battery or LCD getting too hot? [hey I have this same problem with my solar watch when it is in hot sunlight like after 1 hour it gets a blank screen

 

@samseeram60,

Did you have a question?
By the way this thread ended Nov 3, 2011

 

His question is inside the quote, so malformatted.

A Blank screen is not the same as a black screen, unless the effect is on a negative display.

 

This thread reminded me of this:

RIP Chris☹

 

Yes directly under the sun for prolong periods of time the LCD display will darken, but should go back to normal once the temp drops back to nominal.

Like I found out recently if you need to charge them back from LOW quickly, just use a high output LED flashlight. If at MED I would just leave it and wear as is, since charging the batteries to the absolute max all the time isn't good for longevity.

If you haven't noticed in the last decade or so the sun has became white and burning hot quick (probably high UV due to something wrong with our magnetosphere). If you leave the watch under the sun to charge, the casing will become burning hot in no time (within the hour). I don't think that's a good thing to practice nowadays.

 

I remember this happening to me to my icerc g5600k. It freaked me out at first. After a couple min everything went back to normal. Which kind of reminds me, I need to change the battery on it and maybe wear it again. It’s my least worn watch; idk why I still have it lol

 

I normally loop the strap of my GW5000-1JF around the slats in the venetian blinds in a south-facing window, but once, I put it down on the window sill, and that time,it got very hot to the touch, and the screen went black. It recovered within a couple of minutes after removing it from the window. It worried me at the time, but that was a couple of years ago, and it hasn't done anything unusual since then.

 

I've blacked out my solars a few times... best way to charge is to put the watch in a glass of water, but sometimes I forget to do that!

 

I attempted to charge my G5600-UE using a flashlight which a places what I thought was a safe distante of 8/10 cm. Luckily o went to see how it was a couple of minutes later, and a parte of the screen was Black. I thought I broke it, but like in your case, it returned to normal in a few minutes. We will have to be careful with the temperature they reach when charging...

 

I attempted to charge my DW5600-UE using a flashlight which a places what I thought was a safe distante of 8/10 cm. Luckily o went to see how it was a couple of minutes later, and a parte of the screen was Black. I thought I broke it, but like in your case, it returned to normal in a few minutes. We will have to be careful with the temperature they reach when charging...

Hi
The DW5600-UE if I am not mistaken is battery powered and not solar.

 

You are right, my mistake, it’s a G5600UE. Corrected.

 

Next time, apply sun screen