Jump to content

Timex Electric Won't Run With New Battery


eyebidder

Recommended Posts

My Timex Electric stopped so I put in a new battery #357(LR44) but I can't get it to start up. I pulled out the crown and then set the time but it still won't start. Do these need some sort of 'jump start' electrically?

 

Thanks for any assistance!

 

eyebidder

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try giving it a bit of a rotary shake for want of better description. There is an electrical contact that energises the coil on the balance and if you shake it as described it should rotate the balance wheel and make contact allowing the watch to start............unless the fine contact wire is broken or bent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apart from testing the coil with a meter it,s difficult to determine what the fault is. Normally I would suggest changing the movement but being a Timex that I would have thought not a possibility. I don,t know how easy the Timex is to strip & clean or if it,s possible.

I don,t know what caliber you have but this PDF,s might help 

 

 

 

Timex SB101.pdf

 

 

Timex Electric_Manual.pdf

 

Edited by clockboy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There IS a way to "reboot" a lot of quartz movement watches, though - similar to the old Ctrl-Alt-Del on a PC. (Wouldn't it be great if we had one of those for real life?)

 

On the back of the movement, usually somewhere close to where the battery sits, have a look for a tiny contact labelled 'RC'. If you find it, put one point of your metal tweezers on that, and put the other end on the positive side of the battery, to short them across.

 

That performs a reset of the ECB.

 

I can't remember where I first saw that, but I got an old Timex quartz watch going again (and an old Casio) by doing that.

 

But not all quartz watches have that function, so look carefully.

 

--
Pete, Brisbane
============
 

Edited by DrRock
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part of the PDF I downloaded on my original post

"To start the watch, depress the crown to the

"running" position: The watch will start running immediately. If not, slight

finger agittion of the watch may be necessary to start the mechanism."

 

 

​So there you go just give it a little wiggle (is that a song??)

No No the wrong song should it be "twist & shout"

Edited by clockboy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

On the subject of Timex electrics, does anyone have a service sheet for the Dynabeat 255? I bought a runner recently but I want to service it before I start wearing it. It's such a pain to set the day and date that if I put it on I want to leave it on and wear it daily until the battery dies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry I didn't mean to offend anyone. The shop that I served my apprenticeship and as an improver at used to stock Timex watches. Customers would come in and ask if we could repair them we always said no because the old windups were always riveted together and you couldn't take them apart. They were of such poor quality I'm surprised they worked at all. Every now and then we would take the old Timex watches and hit them with a hammer and put them in the bin. It was a good way of getting rid of frustration.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know Timex pretty much symbolises the lower end of the market and the mechanicals don't lend themselves to servicing but when all's said and done many more people will have owned and enjoyed a Timex than will have owned a high end watch.

I came to this forum as a complete novice and I remain a complete novice, as I've never serviced a watch in my life. Having said that, I'm a helluva lot more capable of servicing a watch now than I was before I joined simply because of the enthusiasm of all the members on here and their help and encouragement. A group of complete strangers who have become familiar, and even friends, simply by exchanging info and support for the shared passion that is watch collecting and repair.

A watch is a watch is a watch! Rolex, Timex, Artex, Lurex! When a mechanism is ailing, my instinct is to try and fix it. The Bergeon Basher should be an absolute last resort, otherwise what are we?

(I highly recommend the cheap Cotes Du Rhone from Carrefour - it focuses the mind wonderfully!)

'Night all!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I make no secret of my admiration for Timex mechanicals, not because of their Rolls Royce build quality, nor their "no expense spared" choice of materials, but because of their design.

 

That's right, their remarkably successful design.

 

No, they're not easy to service in the "Swiss tradition", but if they are serviced the way that they were designed to be serviced then they are a cinch. What's more, because they were so cheap in the first place, and because watchmakers, who insisted on trying to fully strip the movement to service it and therefore needed to charge twice the price of a new watch to do so, nobody bothered, and yet they still turn up at car boot sales, 50+ years old and beaten up, and still run (just about), and run properly after a half hours service (the way Timex intended).

 

They were never intended to perform to COSC chronometer levels of accuracy, they were designed as a cheap utilitarian time keeper for the "every day man on the street", requiring the minimum of maintenance to keep going. And they do. The "V-conic" balance staff had no shock protection and yet I've never come across a Timex with a broken balance staff, despite some of them looking like they'd been through a cement mixer. Timex even strapped one of their watches to the prop on an outboard motor and ran it under water for one of their ads with no apparent ill effect.

 

A lot of people deride Timex watches and yet they sold in their millions, and as for achieving their design objectives, they out did many other brands costing 10x as much.

 

As for the Cotes Du Rhône, I have to be careful not to focus the mind too sharply on a school night but may well give it a go at the weekend.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don,t like Timex watches because the ones I have worked on I could not find a way to clean correctly i.e. separate the plates.

They were never made to be serviced but were remarkably reliable watches but when they stopped that was it you just bought another.

I have worked on similar alarm clocks where the plates are riveted together the work round is to wash the whole movement with paraffin dry as best a possible & oil. It works but I don,t like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you sent a Timex watch back to them they would replace the movement or replace the whole watch. I think they were based in Edinburgh. Even the buttons never screwed onto the stem they were just pushed on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Topics

  • Posts

    • I voted leave too, my reasoning was the the EU is undemocratic, no elected officials. I don't regret it but I  am sad that both sides acted like petulant toddlers.  Shameful.  I'm not on other forums but if I was and left this site, would you shun me? Of course not, we aren't petulant toddlers.  
    • This is a type of tool that may be suitable to remove the bezel - though note that I'm pretty sure the watch should be face down - not face up, as in some of the photos of these tools on amazon & ebay! If you try one one of those, put the movement screws back in first to avoid accidents. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Removal-Professional-Remover-Watchmaker-Diameter/dp/B09XCH4QVN?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&smid=A296NCMMFVXSDN&th=1  
    • Hi, I’m constantly asking my wife to help me with removing the stem in order to complete casing. To expand, this is not a challenge for me when the setting lever is secured by a screw (older calibers). However when the setting lever is attached to a spring loaded setting lever axel, like on more modern calibers, I simply don’t see how to apply enough pressure on the button to get the stem out short of putting the movement face down with the dial and hands attached, which I’m loath to do in order to avoid damaging the dial/hands? what technique should I be using? thanks  
    • Many thanks for your advice (being borne in mind at present) & offer Dell. When I was given the clock the plastic anchor was loose on the arbour (it had split at the 'hole') &, after repairing this, I have been trying to determine whether the spindle (pin) should be perpendicular when the pallet is sitting on a flat surface; or whether, when installed, its L-R extremes (or alternatively its tick & tock points) should lie at equal angles from the vertical when moved with spring absent. I can get the clock to run but in every such configuration the top block has to be turned anti-clockwise (from above) by quite a bit in order to be 'in beat' & it always runs fast (despite the pendulum being set to as slow as possible). This makes me wonder if there is any particular feature of/fault in a torsion spring clock which determines which turn direction (if any) is necessary to get it 'in beat'; & whether there would be a different set of settings that would get it running nearer to time at somewhere around the mid timing/inertia position which would then allow tweaking of the fast/slow setting.
    • Now this has happened I bet China or India just to name two will start to produce none genuine parts.  I did. But idiot Boris Johnson failed miserably in his negotiations. The E U stitched up the UK like a kipper. Nigel Farage  offered his help but big head Boris declined. So this is why we are in this mess all because Johnson wasn't clever enough.  
×
×
  • Create New...