Did you buy the watch from Valak?

 

No, my local eBay from some random bloke. I never turn down 3 broken watches for €15 lol

 

Maybe you got this watch:

stops ticking when not worn to extend battery life to around 10 years. Lucky you if so!

 

Look for a loose or dirty battery connection.

 

Maybe it is power saving function built into the watch. I have a gshock that goes blank when placed in my drawer / inactive but turns on immediately when I put it on my wrist and or tilt it towards my view.

If not, perhaps a watch maker could help. In my experience, some tend to do free diagnostics in order to give you a quote for approval prior to service.

 

That is odd. This may be completely wrong but, maybe the pressure from the watch being on your wrist pushes the case back further into the housing which allows for a better ground? It could be that if the watch sits for 10 minutes the case back pushes outward again. I guess you can test this by just putting pressure on the case back with your thumbs and see if it start running. If it starts running again you may want to see what’s keeping the case back from being in it’s proper place.

Not sure if that’s it, but just trying to think of what it could be.

 

That is odd. This may be completely wrong but, maybe the pressure from the watch being on your wrist pushes the case back further into the housing which allows for a better ground? It could be that if the watch sits for 10 minutes the case back pushes outward again. I guess you can test this by just putting pressure on the case back with your thumbs and see if it start running. If it starts running again you may want to see what's keeping the case back from being in it's proper place.

Not sure if that's it, but just trying to think of what it could be.

I was thinking along these lines, loose connection of some sort...good luck

 

Would help diagnose the issue if you could let us know what the watch is.

 

Actually that's where I struggle myself..
I can't find any information about it at all.

The brand on the dial says Champion, which is too generic for me to find much about it on Google, unless maybe someone can recognise the font, I'll upload a few pictures.

The back of the watch makes it only more mysterious.

The text on the back reads AM 091 PROD. Z.F. MANAUS

Z. F. Manaus is Zona Franca Manaus and is a trade area in Brazil, so most likely this watch has roots there. The only thing I can find if I Google "Champion Brazil watch" is some Brazilian watch company that makes knockoff Apple Watches. Deadend.

Strangely enough when I Google "AM091 ZF Manaus" all I can find are some $1000 quartz watches made by H. Stern, only similarity with mine being a similar movement, and that "Z.F. Manaus 091AM" apparently used to be a hallmark on Cartier watches from the 70s and 80s. Can't find any other link to Cartier with this watch so I don't think that brings us any closer.

The other marking on the caseback is 40/23 which I cannot connect to anything.

Any ideas? Here's some pictures:

 

I have cured a few quartz watches by putting a very small dab of dielectric grease on the battery and where there are any contact points. You can get a small tube from any hardware or auto parts store.
Joe

 

I would guess that your body temperature was doing something. For the cost that is involved I’d stick another new battery in it and see if that cures the problem. It may not but you will have eliminated the battery as a cause of trouble and can move on.

 

Second the dielectric grease suggestion.

Good luck.

 

Perhaps something is getting stuck inside and your movement while wearing prevents that? Maybe try giving it a little shake once it stops to see if it begins to run again?

 

Maybe look at the crown, might seat when on your wrist.

 

I have a quartz pocket watch that's the same: it only runs continuously when it's in my pocket. I've cleaned the contacts and tried several fresh batteries so I think it's movement or bodyheat or both that's needed.

 

Interesting development: I think the most likely cause is body temperature.

I laid it on my night stand with a paperweight on top to keep pressure on the watch, it still stopped at night, potentially eliminating pressure as the issue.

Interestingly, when I went to university today and put it on my wrist at home this morning it worked fine, until I stepped outside in the cold late February winter temperates. I cycled to university and when I arrived, it had stopped exactly at the time I left my house. Within five minutes, it started running again. Same when I went from university to the bank: it stopped, and when I was inside it would start running again after a few minutes. The time my watch indicated: five minutes after leaving my university.

I read an old post from 2011 on this forum (image attached) talking about how temperatures may affect quartz watch accuracy. In it, a poster describes that temperature is the main factor that determines quartz watch accuracy. Of course accuracy isn't the issue here - seeing as it doesn't run at all when outside - but the poster also describes that an old or damaged quartz crystal can also change its frequency significantly in colder temperatures.

My theory is now that perhaps a slightly deflated battery in combination with the old (or broken, after all I bought a lot of untested "spares or repairs" watches) quartz crystal may cause the movement to stop when left cold.

My following course of action will be to buy a new battery in order to isolate the problem and eliminate or confirm the battery as the issue. Next step is to either; see if I can find a compatible quartz tuning fork and solder it to the old movement (which could save me $40), or potentially just go through with ordering a new (swiss) movement and replacing it altogether.
(EDIT NOTE: I would prefer soldering a new tuning fork as replacing the movement would be a pain in the a** considering its small concaved caseback. I would have to use air pressure to pop out the crystal in order to remove the dial, hands, and movement. I don't understand why watch manufacturers make these cases, they're f* in annoying to deal with in repairs, pardon my French)

See pictures below for the old Watchuseek post and a picture of the watch movement. Note on the movement the quartz tuning fork says "KDS9E". In case of replacing the quartz tuning fork, would I need to get the exact same one, or would a generic quartz tuning fork work too?

 

View attachment 14889593

If that's how you've been wearing it and it has one battery in it, it looks like it needs another (second) battery. I can't really tell if there's currently one in there or not though.

 

my guess is that the caseback is loose

when you wear the watch, the caseback gets pressed in, which in turn presses the battery into the watch.

 

Hey folks!

I've got a bit of a possessed watch situation...
I recently bought a lot of 3 watches of which their functionality was unknown. Put a new battery in one of them, and... it only runs when worn?

So when I wear it, it runs very accurately without any hiccups as you expect a quartz watch to run.

When I take it off my wrist, it runs for about 10 minutes, then stops. It's not a Seiko Kinetic movement or something along those lines, just a regular 2 hander quartz movement.

I had a few theories, but they don't really make much sense to me.

At first I thought perhaps the battery wasn't connecting well enough with the terminals, so I cleaned it with some contact cleaner and alcohol, and then when that didn't work i 'expertly' folded a thin stip of paper a few times over and placed it over the battery to really keep it clamped down with the caseback on. Doesn't make a difference.

The second thought I now have, could it be my body temperature? That somehow the warmth of my body temperature does something - to the battery or movement - that keeps it running but makes it go flat when unworn?

Very strange situation either way. I mean I guess it works this way, but if I'm going to be wearing it I'd like to be sure it runs okay.

The movement appears to be a non-swiss, entirely unmarked version of the ISAQUARTZ 257 (ISA257), at least it looks the most similar on pictures (and I mean carbon-copy apart from the metal colour and text). I might just need to replace the movement, but if I don't have to spend $42 on a new quartz movement I don't really want to. Especially as I don't know how similar this is to the ISA257 as I imagine it is.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
TJ

Is this an Automatic Watch

 

I think it's heat-related. Try an experiment. Get a washcloth and get it damp. Pop it in the microwave until it's very warm. Take your watch off and lay it down until it stops. When the washcloth is still warm, place the watch on the washcloth and see if it starts back up again. If so, you can confirm it's a heat-related thing. I think maybe some gears are worn just enough that when cold, they don't mesh, but when heated up, the gears expand and mesh back up again. I don't think it's an electrical thing, because heating things up increases the resistance of the circuit, which usually makes things harder to move.

 

Do you wear it tight? Are you pushing the caseback into the contact into the battery when wearing it?