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Goodbye old friend....

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AlmightyTallest

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Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 03:15

Boy I just hate it when this happens.....

I got this watch from a kind forum member here about 7 years ago, and loved wearing it to work almost every day. It was my go-to led for most occasions and I got a lot of compliments about how nice it looked all those years.

I kept it running until about 3 months ago, that's when I decided to put it in long term storage, it was still working, so i removed the batteries. Even checked around but didn't notice any leakage from the batteries when I removed them....

Then I looked at my old friend today, and found him truely dead. :(

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Just wanted to also give a shout out to fronzelneekburm, and thank him again for selling me this Zeon sport watch so long ago. I really loved it and enjoyed it on many occasions, and have memories tied to it, I just regret that I wasn't able to notice the leakage before I stored it.
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bucko170

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 08:26

The crusting under the magnifiers on the display and around the QC does look pretty bad however it might be worth giving it a formic acid, vinegar or bicarbonate bath and seeing if anything springs back to life, can't see what harm it can do to try if the module has already been pronounced dead.
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vpn

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 10:16

That's scary. :eek:
What's all that crusting on the wirebonds and the QC? I wonder what could've caused that mess on the module. Where did you keep the watch? I guess that before you stored it, there wasn't that thing on the module...
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AlmightyTallest

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 15:41

Thanks for the advice bucko. At this point I'm willing to try anything, after seeing the crusting I just figured it was hopeless.

vpn, that's what surprised me, I've seen battery leaks before. In this case however, there was no visible sign of leakage, I took cotton swabs and gently moved them around the battery contact areas and they came up clean and dry.

As for the front side of the module, it did not show any signs of damage, in fact it still functioned fine 3 months prior. I have a nice storage area that's cool and dry year round so I simply put the watch a case for a few months before I happened to look at it again yesterday. To be honest I was shocked at how this corrosion seems to have climbed around to the front of the module and followed all the leads into the LED's. Even made bluish crystals on the end of the quartz.

The crystals that formed remind me of the old science project that uses a piece of coal with blueing that causes colored crystals to grow on the coal.

Don't have time at the moment to give it a bath, but I'll be sure to post pics and see if it can be revived. If not, I'll just keep it on my bookshelf away from the other watches as a momento. :)
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vpn

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 16:08

This picture shows how much deadly can be the leaking acid of batteries... Even the less noticeable leak, can lead to great damages like this one. And I agree with you, AlmightyTallest: it's very shocking, especially because there was no apparent sign of leak on the batteries. I doubt it can be salvaged, but I hope that a "bath" will make it work again.
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BENRUS

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 16:09

Just curious, but what brand batteries did you use on this watch?
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retroleds

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 16:22

Damn shame...
I've toyed with the ideas of placing some pads or such in watch cases that could neutrilize the gases. It gets tricky with battery chemistry although most of our batteries, alkaline and silver oxide, turn acidic as they discharge, and their gases are acidic. So something that would neutrilize acids would be best. How about this idea, at least for Pulsars: spacers for 357s made from acid neutralizing product? 8-)

In my experience, alkalizes will physically leak liquid, but it's a rare silver oxide that does that.
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AlmightyTallest

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Re: Goodbye old friend....

Post15 Nov 2012, 20:58

I must be pretty unlucky in this case.

For my entire collection I always use name brand Silver Oxide batteries, for this Zeon I used two Duracell 386 Silver Oxides.

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