Seiko 3863 quartz serviced but still won’t work

[d3xmeister]

I have a Seiko 3863, never opened, that worked fine until it some day started to stop randomly, and then more and more often, until it completely stopped. You can see the seconds hand trying to move every second (impulse in the seconds hand) but can’t make even one step (one second) Actually at one point it was before opening it, it seemed to run fine with dial down, but stopped with dial up. After a while it stopped no matter what position. Seemed pretty simple to me to fix it, I was sure there was gummed up oil or dirt inside.

So I serviced it, I completely disassembled the movement, clean it, re-oil according to the service manual. It’s actually pretty simple the most challenging is to re-seat the train bridge over so many pivots when you assemble. I inspected every part, every wheel tooth under a microscope.I made sure the hands are installed correctly. Stepper motor looks fine under a microscope.

But the end result, the watch is in the same state, it tries to move but can’t. Actually sometimes it does move just a couple of seconds after inserting the battery, but quickly stops. Position of the hands doesn’t matter.

So my guess at this point is either the stepper motor is too weak do to age, but is that possible ?

I have another 3863 movement that do exactly the same thing, this one was like that when I got it, though I haven’t open it yet.

Any ideas ?

Edited March 13, 2022 by d3xmeister

[watchweasol]

Have you tried it on a line release/demagnetiser,  what they do is to spin the hands round faster than dnormal, mainly used ti clear jammed modules due to dirt or oil.  The two second jump of the second hand (stepping every two seconds) is usually indictative of a duff battery. If you have an external psu try driving it from that at 1.55v

I have attached the parts/tech sheet for the watch  hope it helps

4613_seiko 3819A, 3863A.pdf

[d3xmeister]

I tried new batteries (and also that work in another good 3863 I have) unfortunately I don’t have any tools for quartz watches, I only have a classic demagnetizer that I use for mechanicals. Cloud my demagnetizer work ?

Thank you

[LittleWatchShop]

56 minutes ago, d3xmeister said:

Cloud my demagnetizer work ?

Yes it will work.  Just bring the watch into the loop and it will start spinning.  Sometimes you need to change the orientation of the watch w/r to the loop.  I have done this many times.

[d3xmeister]

I did it. It spanned fast, I did it 2 times, each time I let it spin for 2-3 hours on the dial which doesn’t take that long. It spins constantly, doesn’t look like anything would hold it, it does not stutter or anything
 

But still it doesn’t work, after demagnetized it does the same as before, tries to move but can’t.

[JohnR725]

How exactly did you clean the watch? In other words what type of cleaning fluids etc. Then even though they give a specification for the lubrication it would be better if he used to oil for quartz watches like 9000. It's a much lighter oil and it really does seem to work better for problematic watches like this.

11 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

I inspected every part, every wheel tooth under a microscope.

When you're inspecting everything did you  inspect the pivots and the holes that they go into. The jewel bearings should be fine but it looks like there's at least one bearing it's not jeweled. As this is a really old quartz watch it is possible that things can wear.

11 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

I don’t have any tools for quartz watches,

One of the unfortunate problem were working on electric watches is you really should have test equipment. As because you can't tell what the circuits doing by looking at it. Just in case you find test equipment I've attached electrical specifications for the watch.  what's interesting is the current consumption by modern standards it be a very unacceptable but this is a watch from the early 70s so you would expect the current consumption be much much higher.

[watchweasol]

Hi  If you have another watch of the same type 3863 and swap the cct board into the good watch an a test that will at least prove half of the watch, either mechanical or electronic. If you coule try this and come back      cheers

[d3xmeister]

All good suggestions. It could be the electronics or the stepper. I have a good 3863 watch but honestly I’m a bit afraid to take it fully apart after my experience with this one. I could as suggested at least switch the boards and see what happens. I do have another 3863 that does exactly the same as this one, I will see what I can do with that.

I used 9010 oil, which I know is not quartz oil. The watch did behave exactly the same before cleaning and oiling though. I did inspect the pivots, jeweled and non-jeweled and haven’t seen anything suspicious like wear, excessive side play or end shake.

One thing I did noticed is that I could take out and put back the cannon pinion with no effort, I can’t feel any friction. I think that’s normal for this quartz but I’m not sure. Check the photo below to see what part I’m talking about. As you can tell I’m an amateur at best, maybe not even at that level.

[watchweasol]

The part you are refering to is the center wheel and pinnion loon on the sheet Pn 221-832 shown in two parts from memory they fit together and are driven,

[HectorLooi]

As @watchweasol says, swap the circuit boards with your good watch to determine if the problem is mechanical or electronic. 

Then we can proceed from there.

[d3xmeister]

So, let me tell you how stupid I am. After servicing this watch twice, and numerous tests and parts swap, really a ton of time wasted to get this watch working, turned out I was using LR44 batteries instead of the correct SR44. I have strips of different batteries and after I checked what this watch uses, I accidentally pulled out the LR44 instead of the SR44 strip, and that strip stayed with the watch the whole time, even when I changed batteries I still used the same strip. 
 

What made me to continue with this error is that I used the same battery to test another 3863 watch, and that one worked for a few minutes so I took it off assuming the battery is fine. I store that watch without a battery. And of course at first this watch also worked with a LR44 until it didn’t. I’m guessing something happen gradually in the electronics if you’re using LR4f that lets it work for a little while but then it doesn’t anymore.

Than you everyone for trying to help a useless hobbyist

[jdm]

10 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

And of course at first this watch also worked with a LR44 until it didn’t. I’m guessing something happen gradually in the electronics if you’re using LR4f that lets it work for a little while but then it doesn’t anymore.

There is just a relatively small voltage difference (less that 1V) between the two types. But, I find electronics to be largely black magic in itself, at the end it works and that's what matters.

[d3xmeister]

30 minutes ago, jdm said:

There is just a relatively small voltage difference (less that 1V) between the two types. But, I find electronics to be largely black magic in itself, at the end it works and that's what matters.

1V is a lot, maybe you meant 0.1V 

Also the big difference between the two batteries, as I found out, is that the LR44 is Alkaline while the SR44 is Silver Oxide. That may be more important than the max voltage output.

[watchweasol]

Lr44  is i.5v the sr44 is 1.55v  The alkaline LR44 the power out put is constantly draining whereas the SR44 silver oxide maintains a constant out put untill almost discharged. Therefor for watches which are under constant power the SR is far better in performance and more stable.

[JohnR725]

12 minutes ago, watchweasol said:

Lr44  is i.5v the sr44 is 1.55v  The alkaline LR44 the power out put is constantly draining whereas the SR44 silver oxide maintains a constant out put untill almost discharged.

 

1 hour ago, d3xmeister said:

Also the big difference between the two batteries, as I found out, is that the LR44 is Alkaline while the SR44 is Silver Oxide. That may be more important than the max voltage output.

 

1 hour ago, jdm said:

There is just a relatively small voltage difference (less that 1V) between the two types.

What will be interesting to see is how long the watch actually runs? Because without proper test equipment there is a certain mystery that we don't know about? One of the tests you're supposed to run normally would be the lower voltage limit test. This is where with a variable voltage power supply to drop the voltage until the watch stops. Depending upon the watch you can usually get down to around 1 V. Or even the basic tests like current consumption how much current is this watch consuming? But the low-voltage watch test that would be interesting?

Normally like the quotes above say the battery chemistry and the voltages shouldn't of been a difference or a problem except? In the past I used to change way more batteries that I do. I'm not a fan of load testing so I tested the batteries with a digital volt meter which is basically no load testing. This is where for brand-new silver cells fresh out the package if they are good they're usually like 1.59 V. Which is slightly different than what the specifications says isn't it? Or is it?

To understand this I've attaching some PDF tech sheets this is Eveready's equivalent for both the silver and the Alkaline battery. You'll notice their nominal voltages the silver cell is 1.55 the alkaline is 1.50. But I've also snipped out the  discharge curve. Look at the very beginning of each discharge curve. This is where we get the interesting things like right at the very beginning silver cells can be over 1.6 V. Although I think I almost never saw any that fresh very seldom. Then it looks like the alkaline could be around 1.55 Volts.

Basically when you look at the tech sheets the initial voltage difference is considerably higher than you think it is. They should settle down relatively fast to the nominal voltage and a be interesting to see if the watch still runs. Of course there could be some battery chemistry difference that we don't know about but hard to tell without running electrical  test on the movement so this means the only test is let's see how long the watch runs before it stops. 

a76z- LR44.pdf 357-303z SR44.pdf

[d3xmeister]

Very interesting. For now all I can do is let the watch run and see what happens, I’m almost 24 hours in and the watch runs great, haven’t lost even a fraction of a second it seems. We’ll see.

[HectorLooi]

The current consumption of a healthy quartz movement isn't so high that running it for a few minutes would deplete a LR44 to the cutoff voltage of the movement. 

I think a current consumption test would be the best way to determine if your movement is functioning properly.

[jdm]

9 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

1V is a lot, maybe you meant 0.1V

Yes, thanks for correcting me.

 

9 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

Also the big difference between the two batteries, as I found out, is that the LR44 is Alkaline while the SR44 is Silver Oxide. That may be more important than the max voltage output.

It is important about how long the battery last, and what is the discharge curve. But when powering with new batteries of different chemistry, the circuit doesn't know about that, it only reacts to voltage and current provided. That's why it's strange that the alkaline battery wouldn't get the watch to at least run. For curiosity, you may want to check its voltage.

 

7 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

This is where we get the interesting things like right at the very beginning silver cells can be over 1.6 V. Although I think I almost never saw any that fresh very seldom. Then it looks like the alkaline could be around 1.55 Volts.

Indeed, it's exactly so in my experience. Less than 100 mV is a small difference for pretty much any type of circuit that is to be battery powered.

[d3xmeister]

Well, seems like all my Maxell LR44 are busted. The ones I tested with I measured at 1,346, and even the new ones won’t measure more than 1,41.

I still can’t explain why these exact batteries worked with the other 3863 watch I have, but I haven’t let it work for more than 2 minutes so that would have probably stopped too if I let it long enough.

Edited March 17, 2022 by d3xmeister

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, d3xmeister said:

I still can’t explain why these exact batteries worked with the other 3863 watch I have, but I haven’t let it work for more than 2 minutes so that would have probably stopped too if I let it long enough

I suspect the problem you're seeing is your watch would fail the low-voltage running test in other words it would stop really fast if the voltage dropped at all.  Then of course you alkaline batteries are way under specification proof that as soon as the voltage drops the watch stops. I suspect the alkaline batteries have a relatively short shelf life is what the problem is. Sometimes the packages have a cryptic date codes you could see how old they are.