Help Replacing Watch Battery (and, in the process, the band)

November 21, 2016 1:09 PM

I have a nine-year-old watch I like very much, inherited from my dad (though not an heirloom or anything), which is a Casio "Wave Cepter" analog face self-setting watch. Battery replacement with other watches in past experience used to be easy. Apparently this is no longer the case.

I have thoroughly documented this with photos.

First, the explanation. The battery apparently died. I removed the back only to find a mysterious sticker over the batter and which obscured the battery retaining mechanism. It also instructs on how to do some sort of closing a circuit with tweezers or otherwise after replacing the battery to reset something. After removing the sticker, I was still unable to puzzle out how to remove the retaining mechanism.

I'm not a newbie at this sort of thing, I have the tools and a loupe, but in my manipulations of the watch I inadvertently broke the rubbery plastic of one side of the band.

This almost caused me to chuck it into the trash because the watchband retaining mechanism is totally opaque. But, in the end, I pried the broken bit of band off of the retaining hinge, revealing some of how it works, but I'm still a little baffled. And who knows if I can find a band replacement that will work.

Advice on both battery replacement and band replacement (if possible) would be much appreciated.

So I've got photos of all of these things. Here they are:

Watch Front Face
Watch Back
Interior of Watch Backing (with a sticker)
Interior of watch with backing removed
Close-up of sticker across battery retainer
Close-up of battery and retainer with sticker removed

and

Inside of intact watch band at retaining hinge
45 degree view of side of intact watch band hinge
Best macro photo I could get of the band hinge (intact and in place) with the broken band mostly stripped away.

The one thing that I forgot to take a photo of is that the edges of that rectangular (from the face) band hinge has, from the side, small circle-like insets for the hinge with may or may not be on springs and the means to remove the hinge. I can't tell. I gave it a try with no success.

posted by Ivan Fyodorovich to Technology (6 answers total)

Best answer: Advice on both battery replacement and band replacement (if possible) would be much appreciated.

Maybe it's time to take your watch to someone who repairs watches for a living. Lem's Watch & Jewelry Repair (Overland Park, KS) looks like it might be a good bet.
posted by John Borrowman at 1:24 PM on November 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

Best answer: The mechanism over the battery is a hinged 'door' of sorts. You have to use tweezers to pull out a retaining clip on one side (in your pic, it looks like the left side), and the door will come up, hinged by the other side.

As for the band, I'd be willing to bet (especially from that close up pic) that the hinge is spring-loaded. It's just a super pain to get the ends to compress. I did this a long time ago but don't remember any 'tricks' to make it easier.
posted by destructive cactus at 1:27 PM on November 21, 2016

Best answer: Normally I advise people to give it a try themselves. However, it might be time to decide if repairing the watch yourself or having a repaired watch is more important to you.

I found a jewelry repair/watch repair shop near me that replaces both battery and band for $10 + cost of the band. If you bring in your own band, you can even save some money. You may have something similar where you live.
posted by Guess What at 1:55 PM on November 21, 2016

Response by poster: Okay, thanks for the advice destructive cactus and, of course, everyone else. It rankles to pay someone to do something that I've done a thousand times before. I'm the kind of person who does this sort of stuff, I have a complete set of tools for this sort of thing. But if it's so inexpensive to have someone fix it, that might be a better alternative.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:31 PM on November 21, 2016

Best answer: That appears to be the exact model of watch I killed replacing the battery. I went in there like a big ape and apparently damaged the antenna beyond repair or something like that. Replacing the band was plenty easy, if a little fiddly, but replacing the battery was disastrous.

I kind of know this stuff, so I thought I'd save a couple of bucks replacing the battery myself, but I completely spaced out that there was an antenna in there, and once I replaced the battery, it couldn't receive a signal anymore (and I am unusually close to the atomic clock), and no amount of randomly fiddling around with things could get it working again.

So I will heartily second taking it to a shop, if you can find one that'll work with you. Some shops won't even open radio controlled watches in my experience.

(I replaced mine with another Wave Ceptor in a similar style, but with a solar battery. They're still the best watches, and I am going to try really hard not to murder this one too.)
posted by ernielundquist at 4:45 PM on November 21, 2016

Response by poster: Yeah, I noticed right away that there's an antenna connection to the watching housing that would be very easy to damage ... and I might already have done so.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:06 PM on November 21, 2016