Lovely 1970's TRAFALGAR LED Watch with NO POWER | Can I FIX It?
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- This watch was very kindly sent over to me by Ashley. It's a retro 1970's LED watch and it appears to be completely dead.
Let's try and get it working again!
Hope you enjoy!
Steve
PS. I'm not an expert in repairs at all. I do this for fun, and it may not be the best or safest way to go about repairing broken stuff. I'm pretty good at melting plastic though. Please don't copy me - I'm an idiot.
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Omg its my watch! Well done, so chuffed to see it running again. Sorry it was a bit anticlimactic though, i was hoping youd have to try and source some 1970s bits. But well done sir, enjoy it.
Thank you so much for sending it over. I can't tell you how much I love this watch! Although, it still has a fault, which I don't think anyone has noticed yet! 🤔
@@Cyphus101 Not on this generation of watches, it hasn't any buzzer or alarm setting. There are so date settings too, only hours, minutes and seconds on a 12h base (no AM/PM). Alarm quartz watches came a bit later, in the late 70's with LCD watches.
@@StezStixFix I saw it, if anyone else didn't they better watch it again. :p
@@mattjohnson6276 You talking about the broken rubber ring
*GET IN!*
Something a bit different today. Or something.
Another good one Steve! In five years you can plot in "make me an upload fixing the main unit of a space shuttle" while you are drinking a beer🙂 AI is scary stuff!
Why did they ever go out of fashion?
Really cool video.
Nice job Steve!
Amazing work
Pre or post the famous Hamilton one I wonder?
I’ve loads of led watches from the 70s including this very model in stainless. They are when working very collectible, that model is £100-300 all day long.
Push the button for time and the date button gives you running second and the date only as in 15th
Is a rarer Trafalgar two button module.
All I do with them is submerge in a small jar of alcohol and cycle in my ultrasonic cleaner for 30 minutes as it’s clears all the electrolytes out the way.
Good thing with this one is all the tiny wire bonds that go to the leds are sealed in that hard resin. The earlier ones the bonds are exposed and generally fail.
It’s early tech and predates LCD digital watches that came within a few years of these and of course took the market as battery life was superior. Even Omega made led watches and the most famous was Pulsar who made the first. Even Roger Moore wore one as Bond!
Nice to see a watch on your channel Steve. Pleased you could save this one.
Yep, Bond wore a Pulsar (Time Computer) in the opening scenes of Live And Let Die, funnily enough M arrives and gives him his Rolex which he swaps over, and the Rolex supposedly has a magnetic field generator (impossible - As he makes M's coffee spoon twang off and stick to the watch, ''it can even deviate the path of a bullet'' Says Bond - ''I'd like to test that theory now' says M) and it also had a rotating saw blade bezel. Also just about impossible, though they must have made a working model as you saw it spin (and almost stop as he tried to cut a rope).
LCDs were developed in the 60s but were not commercially viable until the early 70s when Seiko introduced their beautiful chronograph in 1973! (everyone else had to wait a few years) Live and Let Die came out in 73, so really the LCD was only a couple of years behind LED. LEDs ruled until about 1977 when LCD took over completely. The market was flooded with cheap Seiko chronograph rip offs in about 1978. Cheap LED watches were available in plastic resin cases by 1976 for a tenner and again the cheap LCDs came a couple years later. The Swiss were having a massive panic and continued having one for twenty years.
@@martinda7446 Bond wears 3 watches in Live And Let Die
Hamilton Pulsar P2 2900 LED digital watch
Rolex Submariner 5513
Tissot Visodate Automatic PR-516
The Hamilton Pulsar P2 was a technically advanced watch for the time, but function wise it was quite basic in it's features. It only had the capability to show the time (hours, minutes, and seconds) no date, stopwatch, alarm, or other functions. But the P2 was the world's first successful, mass-produced digital watch. LED (Light Emitting Diode) watches were only popular during the 1970s and were quickly replaced by LCD watches.
The time is set by using a magnet, which is stored in the clasp. Holding the magnet against the Hour or Minute position in the back of the case enables you to adjust the time.
Hamilton created an homage to the Pulsar P2, the Hamilton PSR H52414130 in 2020, a watch of which the design is almost identical to that of the Pulsar P2. The watch doesn't have a LED screen, but an LCD screen and is powered by an automatic movement. It's available in steel and a limited edition steel gold-pvd version. It also says Hamilton on the bottom right unlike the P2's Pulsar branding.
@@martinda7446 the first Seiko digital was the 61LC in 1973 but it was not a chronograph, that came in 75/6 with the 0634. There were 3 models with the 0634-5019 being the most desirable. I have all 3 that I have managed to save 6-7 years ago when they were still really cheap.
Also have quite a few early Casiotron which were the first Casio watches proper well built and in their day were worth a fortune new. Funnily enough I have an advert for the Seiko 0634-5019 and it’s priced more expensive than a speedmaster on the same advertisement!
@@MyRetroWatches My memory is getting completely shot (or I didn't know in the first place - can't remember which😸). Thanks very much for that MyRetroWatches..
Whatever, I loved that Seiko chronograph (the 0634 thanks again) utterly timeless. (Well lets hope not completely timeless).
Ha, ha, I have a Speedmaster Albino. Funny I think that it is the most perfect analogue watch, and its been in space and on the moon. I've had three of em.
I used to have a collection of LED and LCD watches but stupidly sold them.
I'm hoping you have a channel I can join..I'll look now
Martin.
@@MyRetroWatches I have a casio lcd from70/ 80's? which says its solar powered, with a bar on the front. Im pretty sure thats straight up B.S. ( I contacted casio au and they have no records that far back here)
That watch is cooler than most watches out today. Good repair!
A great repair! Nice to see something from this era being brought back to life.
0:57 and there was much rejoicing (yay)
Great video!
Thanks Vince, I think I may have the watch bug now. Really enjoyed working on this!
Watching your video and what you didn't notice was the back cover has to go on in the proper orientation so the battery clip touches both battery's it looks like it has an arrow that points up
and if you watch the video when you got the watch it was in the wrong possession
I had one of these ! Identical. Never thought I'd see one again.. What a blast from the past !
This so reminds me of a watch worn in a Mel Brooks movie called High Anxiety. Now I’m obsessed with finding out if it’s the same watch! Cool stuff as always! 😁
Awesome work! You’ve saved a piece of history
Bloody good job on this one, I’d never have seen the corrosion hidden in there. I was expecting some kind of intermittent problem with the display but it wasn’t as bad as that.
Steep learning curve on that one. Lovely watch.
you are a genius! my dad had a friend at work back in the 70's that had the same watch. it was considered sate of the art at the time (no pun intended!) but we always thought it was funny that you had to hold the button in to tell the time.
@ 9:05 - this is a capacitor preset to tune the crystal frequency during manufacture (small square recess in centre for the adjustment tool). It's then soldered in place (the arc-shaped area on the left with the two contacts) to set it permanently.
The flickering might mean that the push buttons have corrosion around the contact points (the upright contacts on the PCB) and the case, preventing completion of the circuit.
I REALLY thought there was a broken connection from that one surface mounted capacitor..but I GUESS NOT!!! lol :)
NICE JOB!
Lovely watch... Great to see it working!
I own 2 such watches that time and in that time it was very impressed
Great video! Used to have one of those. In fakt it whas my first watch. Nice!
Wow! That is a rare kind of watch. That potentiometer is a series capacitor connect to the quartz crystal in order to tune to the right the frequency of the watch.
I remember when these type of watches were very popular. Wore a few myself. Expensive when they first came out but could then me had for a few bucks.
Retro cool, retro old school cool…good fix.
Too bad you couldn't fix that watch for Ashley...it looks amazing on you and will keep perfect time. Full retro look is back in again.
I just bought one of these led watches. I hope to be as lucky as you
Great fix Dave, looks like you had a lot of time on your hands to fix the watch
bad joke man. take it back.
@@BenRush I can’t, as I don’t have the time
I second this...
Dave's sidekick, Steve, deserves a little bit of recognition as well.
Oh SNAP! :O) That was way to punny.
My Father had a watch like that in the early 70s as well, the welder killed it though :)
This was a good watch.
Well done. The round component is a ceramic air trimmer capacitor (which regulates time in combination with the crystal), Removing the carbon resistive coating may cause timing variations. Johanson was the most prevalent manufacturer.
Johanson was working on surface mount at that time, IN THE 70S! everyone should have a good look at the transistors and caps etc on this Hughes module (I'm pretty sure this is). Extraordinary advancement for 1973 when these became available, They are almost identical to modern surface mount devices. I was in the electronics industry and was in fact learning my trade as a youngster from about 1978. I simply didn't hear about surface mount until maybe sometime in the 90s, at which point I was collecting LED watches.. I was too stupid to see how really clever they were.
@@martinda7446 Yes but can you type 5318008 & then turn the watch upside down?
@@jonathanwright1507 😁 I used to do that on my calculator in school!
@@StezStixFix I think we all did & back in the 80's, also, we thought the kids who had a calculator watch, were the coolest kids in the school?!
Mid 90s i had the calculator and remote watch. It was cool to have 😂
1:03 I saw my little buddy and he made a funny noise! My weekend is complete.
I heard somewhere that these watches use one battery per minute. 😂
You might wanna convert it to AC and just sit at home by an outlet all day. That's what I'd do if I didn't have a cat.
Nice watch, nice fix.
Great fix. I think it the first not stupid video from you😊
Nice repair. The 7542 on the chip is probably a date code - in this case it would be week 42 of 1975 which fits in with the age of the watch.
I remember looking at them in a catalog when they first came out and wanted one so bad but back then they cost hundreds of dollars. Some time later they became super cheap and I can remember wearing a very cheap black plastic one and being so happy. Not sure how much it cost. Pretty sure it was under $50 when I got one.
Honestly a top 10 ep. Well Done DAVE/STEVE
Conductive glue is what was used on that trimmer cap
Think the green stuff is called Verdigris .Great video btw 😊
Also keep in mind, these weren't always on all the time, only when you pressed the button to preserve battery life
What you expect to be a potentiometer is a variable capacitor ;-)
Thank you! I knew somebody would know what it was! 👍
You may want to get a new gasket and rub a little marine grease on it to restore the waterproof seal, if there was one.
Agree Iron(man). Also, a Technocolor coat & Walking stick might go well? Ok. I'm just envious! I'll let myself out.
@@ovalwingnutlol
I bought one of those, a couple of years after leaving school, it cost more than a weeks wages for me.
i'm glad to see you come so far, i love your videos and i'm glad you surpassed 100k!
Nice fix Dave :D
I've got 1976 Zenith 'Time Command' ,it has a big plastic module with two slots for batteries exactly like here, quartz part is standard for the time ,but mechanics it's not a typical gear train , there's a 3 gears directly kicked by the large stepping motor ,so there is no visual damage whatsoever, the watch is unusual ,its around with thin lugs ,they didn't make a lot of those.
Are you familiar with that kind of movement??????????😁
I must know the lore behind “pop up” bear.
It's a secret! 🤣
Good job
Legend love the uploads 👍
Vinegar is great for cleaning battery corrosion! Glad you were able to fix that beautiful watch!
Thats so cool! Awesome repair :D
The buttons on that type of watch are usually shorted to the watch case, whether that is pulling the connector to either high or low, whichever the CASE, may be...😀 see what I did there ??😂
😁
I freakin love this kind of stuff from that era, when you see sot-23 (or whatever it is) packages from 1975 when regular consumer electronics could still have vacuum tubes in it, awesome
I remember my uncle having a similar one and you are right he hated pressing the button because the battery drained so fast 😂
Love your work Steve, keep up the good work and content! Look forward to every episode no matter the fix!💖 much love from - Taylor in Seattle! 🌃
Back in the 70's, there was a program on every Thursday i think called Tomorrows World. It was a science program of all the latest inventions of the time. A watch just like the one you were showing, was shown complete with a box and stuff. The presenter made a really big show of it, how great it was and high tech it was. A price tag of £300 or so for it so only the well-off at the time could afford it. Well, it flopped and in the end, you could go down to your local petrol station and buy a digital watch for a quid and that was the 70's for you.
I remember Tomorrow's World also. I believe James Burke - who went on to do a show called 'Connections' was on that show too.
Tomorrows world were wrong in just about everything........"in the year 2000..all the work will be done by robots".
Nice Fix as always, Love the Monkey Island phone Background too.
The '7542' on the chip is the manufacturing date, the 42nd week of 1975.
Ah, awesome, thank you! 😊
Missed a trick here, could've used the old month python "and now for something completely different"
Great fix though
Damn, can't believe I missed that! 🤣
God I love the old bubble led displays
WOW, I do remember those digital type watches when they hit the market. Funny how technology has changed and cost reduced... Thumbs Up!
Yeah - they sell similar LED style displays (just larger digits) in pound shops now! They even have a "funky" animation when you press the button (the individual LEDs light up in sequence and then turn off one at a time, rather than show the full display at once)
I would put a bit oh captain tape between the oscillator just to be sure
I believe it would've had a rubber gasket around it originally, so yeah I think you're right! 👍
Fun good I like
Was definitely a Nike watch very similar they did black or silver aluminum, just seen one for £450 online scratched to death think I paid £80 back in the 2000s
That was fascinating to watch. Thank you. I had a similar LED watch in '76 or so. The problem was, if you were carrying a package or a briefcase or something you had to stop and put it down to read the time. Getting the time was a two handed job!
You help give me the confidence to mess around with broken electronics, and learn from my mistakes. Cheers! (Keep your process in the videos! )
Great to have the rap at the end 😁👍
😁
Nostalgia from the 70,s great looks like your crystal was manufactured in 1975 42 week So an led watch very rare survives to live another day. Alkaline battery leakage is better cleaned up with spirit vinager and neutralise with bicarbonate of soda solution afterwards😎
Nice fix, that watch looks amazing!
Yes I do remember when digi watches came out you had to press a button to see the time. We thought it was space age stuff! Nice job, great video.
Excellent as usual. I await anxiously each of your videos!
Thanks Niall! 👍
Man, Dave did a great job this week! (You did okay too, Steve.)
Dave is the MVP! 😁
As a child of the 80's, I love OG red LEDs😁
You should invest in a can of contact cleaner. Then you can simply soak the parts in the cleaner to chemically dissolve and neutralize the corrosion. Follow that with a bath of IPA and you have a perfectly cleaned and preserved piece of electronic history!
Hello Dave / Steve 🤣😂 20 seconds in and I'm in stitches.
Lovely. 1970s. Trafalgar LED. Watch. With. No. Power. Can. l fix
Appreciation for a device that is 50 years old and all it needs is some cleaning to work again.
Kojak used to have a watch like this, my dad used to always comment on it.
I'd really like a Sinclair one from the 70s.
Ooft, you'll be lucky to find a sinclair one working. They only had one of their 5 generations of models that actually kept time. They're so expensive because of that.
@@medes5597 yeah I'd be happy with a modern copy for that reason, if they made them.
@@DaveMcGarry there was a company licensed to make official sinclair black watch copies, but apparently the aftermath of Sir Clive dying and The Spectrum Vega has apparently killed that deal.
The extinct two handed watch, cool but most people prefered watch you could tell the time by just looking at it, instead of pushing button each time.
I think you'd benefit from a small ultrasonic cleaner filled with IPA.
The part you cleaned is probably a variable capacitor perhaps in pf range to finetune the clock with the second capacitor on the other side. and take a look at the lid, you installed it the first three times in the wrong orientation, maybe that was part of the fault :)
Hey Dave, kick Steve up the but*, clearly you (Dave) know you clean corrosion with white vinegar first , then clean it with IPA, stupid aah nothing.. lol lucky fix but good also, keep up the good vids Dave/Steve
I owned one of those in the 70s
Interesting fix, Steve! Keep up the great work!
Button seems to capacitive or something, it detects a change in capacitance or flux
Neat'O Brother. Totally Cooled-Out awesomeness of a watch 😀👍♥️🇬🇧🇨🇦❤️💯💯
Push your RAP segment to the "end of the video"? NOOOOOOoooooo OK, if you must ooooooooo. You (do) RoCk p.s. GR8T FIX and some sweet BLinG! Bro
Loved it
I have learned much from watching your fixes. Some vintage watch batteries may have different voltage or opposite polarity.
Yes, a same look button cell can be diffrnt volt ohms, by big amounts.
Motorola used to be manufactured in Malaysia so maybe ..........great upload..........🤠
Great video. I particularly like that the rap part is at the end.
I actually like rap end of the video. I not hate it but it was boring to watch you rapping while unscrewing the device. So i usally skipping it. But now its on end i can listen it while i looking commands.
When I see that greenish blue residue and can isolate the part I often just submerge it in vinegar for half a minute, it does wonders. Just don't breathe it in I guess? O_O
I had one of those in the late 70s (from memory). As a kid, you kill the batteries by constantly looking at the time :D
5:15 lol should have used the aerobic championship music lol
That corrosion might be "tin pest"?
Also, the case is electrically one half of each of the switches, so connectivity is important.
😦 at least 96% of your problem is that you kept putting the back cover on in a different orientation everytime lol
Cool watch! I'm an 80s kid and remember those everywhere, great vid!
For perfection i don’t like that you don’t resolder that composant or all solder not good meaby it well do the same thing after. perfection friend perfection
Thank you for putting the rap in the credits
So the problem all along was the spring contact on the back cover were not contacting the batteries to complete the series connection but was pushing partially on the crystal and one of the batteries. Once you rotated the back cover 180° at the end this completed the connection between the positive and negative of the batteries.
Nice fix! I read a 1970s digital watch repair manual that talks about conductive epoxy instead of solder, so I guess that's what the grey gunk is? It might be worth treating it to some Renata 357 batteries - they are a lot less likely to leak than alkalines.
Hard to imagine those are nearly fifty years old...
I had one of these back in high school. I remember thinking then, ‘this is stupid’.