Help! Quartz Battery Malfunction

[Bedford 0]

Got quite a peculiar one at the moment, and it's something that I've never personally encountered before.

The clients watch is an Armani AR5905; he thought he needed a new battery and so here I am, 

Upon taking the case-back off and placing a new battery in, I heard the circuit do the all so familiar whirring noise like it was springing back to life, however when I flipped it over it wasn't ticking.

So I pulled the battery out and again put it back in, but what I noticed was that the whirring noise was only happening when the battery was halfway seated and thus not making full contact, and as soon as the battery was fully seated everything ceased. This time I put the battery in halfway and then flipped over the watch to see it working, and to my surprise the seconds sub-dial at the 6 position was spinning around wildly. However again stopped when the battery was fully inserted.

Anybody have any ideas as to what is going on?

I could upload a video if that would help.

[JohnR725 1,359]

so the client thought he needed a new battery? Why would a person think that? The reason for asking is its always assumes 99.99% of the time if a quartz watches not running a battery will fix the problem.

when changing batteries in electric watches you should always measure the battery voltage of the old battery to make sure it really is bad. This way you can tell the clients right away your batteries good it's the watch. Then the battery voltage isn't 100% ruling out problems if the customer notice their watch stopped and doesn't bring it in for repair for quite some time which occasionally happens.

then the other thing you didn't tell us the movement? Did you follow the reset procedure for this watch? a lot of movements require being reset when the batteries changed as it powers up in a totally unknown state and things aren't always working correctly until it's reset.

[Bedford 0]

I guess when you don't really know so much about watches your natural instinct would be to lean towards the battery. 

And in all fairness when I checked the battery it was flat..

The movement on the watch is branded PE902, and I've been looking for an a/c point but with no prevail!

[JohnR725 1,359]

1 hour ago, Bedford said:

I guess when you don't really know so much about watches your natural instinct would be to lean towards the battery.

actually I find that's what everyone thinks about electric watches including those people changing batteries in the trade. the problem with electric watches is most the time it is the battery but occasionally it's not. it's one of the reasons I fuss at work about people changing batteries check the battery before putting a new one in because that way we can tell the customer your battery is good your watch isn't. then of course they will insist we put a new battery just in case because it's always the battery isn't it.

didn't recognize the movement number but doing a search found the manufacture. They have instructions in Chinese then specifications in English that appear to include everything in the instructions. Nice even give you the current consumption of the movement not always found on cheap watch technical data. Doesn't appear to be any sort of reset at least nothing is mentioned. Sometimes on multi function watches there is reset set of pushing the buttons all in and the holding when it's in setting but doesn't appear to be here.

so rereading your question normally when you insert the battery you shouldn't see wildly spinning hands. It's possible of one of the buttons in stock the watch thinks it's in a return to zero mode perhaps? Check to make sure all the buttons appear to be functional and not stuck. Then insert the battery and attempt to set the watch if you can't set the watch then there's a movement problem. watches like this are all plastic basically break down into either it's the battery or it's not. So. The battery is not the buttons are the stem is in the wrong place it's a movement. So now you can sell the customer on a movement swap providing you can find the movement.

http://www.sunonwatch.com/EN/products_view.asp?id=706

[Bedford 0]

Hi John

thanks for that, I've just stumbled onto the specification myself and came to the same conclusions, I found the Chinese version first and was tempted to write back to see whether you could read Mandarin haha. 

I agree with you on the making them know it's the watch and not the a battery and too true about them asking you to put one in anyway.

I've checked the buttons and they seem to be fine, I guess what's throwing me the most is that the sub dial only spins wildly when the battery isn't fully inserted, as soon the whole battery is inserted correctly everything stops. 

I guess that made me wonder whether the battery was touching something and shorting itself when it was fully seated, but I guess that wouldn't explain why only the seconds sub dial spins like a mad thing.

[Bedford 0]

What's also interesting to note is that when the battery is in and I push in the lower chrono button the seconds sub dial spins like it should when it's resetting, which in turn spins the minute sub dial.. so the circuit is still working but somethings falling down when it comes to getting the actual seconds hand to move

[eezy 45]

In my experience, making electricity jump a contact will often increase the voltage (batt half in/half out). 

Used to do this on old cars with an oiled up plug i.e. hold the lead away from the plug. I think this happens with any form of electric hence burned out switches when they are arcing.

Maybe that's causing you to blast more voltage through the movement. Just one of my crazy theories!

[JohnR725 1,359]

10 hours ago, Bedford said:

but somethings falling down when it comes to getting the actual seconds hand to move

the unfortunate problem is this is an all or nothing watch either all of it works or its garbage. This is where if you could purchase a replacement movement it would be the easiest solution to the problem.

then from a business point of view time versus fixing the watch? To understand I've attached a tech sheet for another watch companies chronograph. So typically all the functions have separate stepping motors. Then the main part of the watch usually has one stepping motor. So in your case chronograph functions all seem to be working the main part isn't. So if you had a tech sheets like this you can take it all apart and see if you could fix the problem except, I found you a nice YouTube video. Plus a picture out of the video this is probably a quantity price but a four dollars movement you really can't afford to do with a lot of disassembly and troubleshooting other than for educational purposes and the fun of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Riqj3rZ81Q

Technical Instruction TI_TA Z50.pdf

[Bedford 0]

Yeah, I think it's a sensible conclusion to replace the movement, I've sourced the exact SUNON movement from CousinsUK a wholesaler across the pond from you.. they're £5 + VAT, hardly worth my time or the clients beginning to troubleshoot it. 

Although I would like to get to the bottom of it in my spare time, as my skills definitely fall down when faced with a quartz movement.

It's quite funny really when you think about it, an Armani watch that retails around £200-£300 with a £ 5 movement inside. 

Interesting technical document too, thanks for the find.

Appreciate your help John

[hokavan 14]

I wonder why dont you use the quartz movement tester?

In similar case, I often test the movement itself before placing another good/sealed battery