Timex indiglo light

[SherwinManuel]

My timex indiglo doesn't light up. I've just changed the battery. The Crown button seems to be working fine but it does not light up. What could be the problem?

[clockboy]

Most likely the LED has failed. A replacement will be difficult to find, if found fitting will be difficult too. You might just have to accept the fault.

[AndyHull]

There is a possibility that the battery contacts are not very clean.

The watch movement would be less likely to be affected by this as it draws very little current, but a higher resistance in the contacts might be enough to stop the light from glowing.

LEDs do fail, but typically last several orders of magnitude longer than old fashioned filament bulbs, but white LEDs require a minimum voltage before they will light, somewhere of the order of 3.3 Volts, and in a watch that uses a 1.5V battery, this is produced by a boost circuit. The circuitry needs a relatively high current, typically 10 to 20mA compared with the tenths or hundredths of a mA, or even a few uA  needed to power the movement of the watch.

Some glowing watches use electroluminescence, and this also requires a voltage boost, and a relatively high current to make it work.

Try carefully cleaning all of the contacts including the presser for the light with contact cleaner or alcohol and see if that helps.

This link might also be useful.

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by AndyHull

[vinn3]

   IT  would be a real challenge  to change  out that LED light.   if I could find one, I'd try it !   vin  (spell check working again)

[JerseyMo]

sorry but it is not an LED that lights up -

The dial is coated with a compound of zinc sulfide mixed with copper, a substance which becomes luminescent when an electrical charge is applied.

 

[HonorPaul]

Hi there, Ive just purchased a Timex Easy Reader and the indiglo is not lighting up at the 6 o clock position. Is this a defect or should it be like that. The rest of the watch face the indiglo works perfectly. Thanks

[jdm]

30 minutes ago, HonorPaul said:

Hi there, Ive just purchased a Timex Easy Reader and the indiglo is not lighting up at the 6 o clock position. 

Just wanted you notice that we have a watch repair section for questions, this one should be for  everything but watches so this thread was also posted in the wrong place. 

[Lstein]

Light is not lighting up on Ironman digital indiglo watch.   What should be done ?

[Lstein]

Light is not lighting up on Ironman indiglo digital watch.   What could be done ?

[watchweasol]

Hi   if the watch is working ok it could be that the substrate of the dial is u/s or insufficient voltage is being applied.     This is a thread which has been docmented beforeon the site. Look up previous threads on the subject using the search window. to avoid repeating ourselves.    Cheers

[vinn3]

Timex Jersey Mo says its not repairable.  vin

[vinn3]

1 minute ago, watchweasol said:

Hi   if the watch is working ok it could be that the substrate of the dial is u/s or insufficient voltage is being applied.     This is a thread which has been docmented beforeon the site. Look up previous threads on the subject using the search window. to avoid repeating ourselves.    Cheers

    is it posible to find a easy way to locate old threads via subject?   vin

[AndyHull]

Most of what you need is in this thread. The one other thing I would check first, If there is a separate pusher for the light, then I would suspect the contacts on that pusher. Try giving it a clean with small drop of contact cleaner. Also make sure the battery contacts are very clean. The high resistance of dirty contacts may not stop the movement, but it may starve the boost circuitry for the EL light. 

[AndyHull]

If the search function on this site is not getting you the results you need, try using Google with the "site:" verb. Something like this...

wombat site:watchrepairtalk.com

Substitute "wombat" with whatever you are looking for, so for example

In the google search box type..

timex indiglo site:watchrepairtalk.com

This trick works for pretty much any search term (and of course any site, not just wachrepairtalk.com).

See here for even more google trickery.

https://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search

Edited February 12, 2020 by AndyHull

[luiazazrambo]

I do not know if every indiglo watch work the same way, but I recently cleaned up one where the light did not come on. The reason why it did not light up was because an incredible amount of dirt was beneath the crown so the crown could not go deep enough to activate the switch on the side of the movement marked with red. I advise to replace the battery and operate the switch manually with a pegwood/plastic etc so you would eliminate the battery and crown issues.

This is what I found on the web about the light:

"Timex received the patent for the Indiglo® nightlight in 1988. The nightlight's bluish green light illuminates the entire dial of the watch evenly at the push of a button. The dial is coated with a compound of zinc sulfide mixed with copper, a substance which becomes luminescent when an electrical charge is applied. This layer is sandwiched between two conductive layers which act as electrodes. When the button is pushed, energy is supplied by the battery across the two electrodes, which in turn lights up the dial."

More here: Timex indiglo light

Edited December 26, 2020 by luiazazrambo