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ALARMED

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jagmad

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ALARMED

Post23 Aug 2015, 18:34

:Hi: All

My alarm watch turned up and I am having problems getting the alarm to work properly.
All other functions are fine but the sound is being a pig. :bang:
I'll start at the beginning..
First, it arrived with batteries but they were not in the watch.
Although when I inserted my own 357's (as he had included, see pic) they seemed a little fat when I offered
up the case back. So I decided to try 386's which worked the display ok, so I'm sticking with those unless
anyone knows different,
I did get a noise from it when/ I first offered up the case back with the 357's, it was very distant and very
high pitched and continuous.
Then when I put in the 386's I got a loud much lower pitched beep when I was pressing it home (once only).
(I may have been pressing buttons as I pushed the back on.)
I set the time etc and left it for a week. It kept good time but still no sound.
So I just tried cleaning the piezo connections with glass pen and now when it reaches the set time it beeps
just once and then displays the two centre dots and renders the buttons inoperable until I hold all three
for 3 secs then it resets to 1am back to battery change start.
I pressed all three together as I know its the way to find out if the alarm sound works but it resets everything.
I have never got it to beep that way.
And I know that pressing the top left button twice quick to make the set time flash to put the alarm on.
Any ideas would be most appreciated before I contact the seller with the bad news. :sad:
Thanks in advance Pete.
:Prost:

:dwf:
Alarm crop.jpg
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Last edited by jagmad on 24 Aug 2015, 19:00, edited 2 times in total.
"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member" Julius Henry Marx

"If necessity is the mother of invention, then mother is now standing at the door calling us in to do our home work"

IF YOUR MOBILE PHONE OR SMART WATCH DOESN'T NEED CHARGING AT LEAST EVERY WEEK YOU EITHER...
A. HAVE NO LIFE/FRIENDS. OR NEED FOR ONE.
B. YOU NEED TO SWITCH IT ON.
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Ole Joe

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Re: ALARMED

Post24 Aug 2015, 02:32

Hello Pete,

The 386 batteries are the correct ones for the Frontier 2007 Alarm Module which your picture shows. There is a good chance that the ceramic substrate will break or crack when attempting to use 357 batteries. The cavity depth that hold the batteries were designed for 386's, or equivalent.

When new batteries are inserted into the module, the alarm will sometimes go off. This is not normal but easily explained as too why it does so. When power is first applied, the internal reset circuitry of the integrated circuits reset the innards to a specific order. There are actually two large integrated circuits in the watch, the real time portion and the alarm portion. First thing done upon reset is to synchronize the real time and the alarm time display registers so that they talk to each other nicely. Like booting up a computer so to speak. The reset circuitry can sometimes get confused depending on which way the batteries make contact with the battery clip. When the chips were designed, the engineers realized this could happen, so included logic to perform a proper reset once the module was placed into a case. The proper reset function can be performed by pressing all 3 "pressable" buttons at once. This should then set the real time and alarm time to 1:00 AM, Date to 1-1, Day to Sun., Alarm Time to 1:00 AM, Unarmed. The real time and alarm time portions of the module should then be set to the correct time for your time zone. Upon doing the "three finger" reset, to check the Alarm immediately, set the Alarm to 1:01AM with the Set Alarm button and then Arm the Alarm. If you set the Alarm and Arm before the real time has reached 1:01 AM, the Alarm should sound at 1:01 AM with the colon blinking for about 15 secs. If there is no sound from the Alarm, one of two things has happened; the spring contact/s that make contact to the piezo crystal from the module are somehow not doing so or the output driver circuitry in the integrated circuit were compromised when you inserted the 357 batteries and heard that high pitched squeal. Not your fault if the seller shipped you the wrong batteries. If your problem isn't solved by doing a proper reset ( "three finger"), and you run into a hassle resolving the problem with the seller, you are welcome to use me as an expert witness. I just happened to be listed as one of 4 people on the patent issued to Frontier for this Alarm watch.
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jagmad

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Re: ALARMED

Post24 Aug 2015, 09:58

:Hi:
Thanks very much for the detailed reply. :Prost:

It seems then that the problem is in the circuitry?
As I said the alarm doesn't sound when pressing all three, and when I set it as you said to 1:01
it only beeps once (so contacts ok) and leaves the centre : dots lit up continuous until I press a button.
That then renders the display dead until I reset by pressing all three together again. :bang:

I guess I'm going to have to point him here to help explain.

If there's a chance I've got this wrong please let me know.
Thanks again friend, :Prost: :Prost:
"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member" Julius Henry Marx

"If necessity is the mother of invention, then mother is now standing at the door calling us in to do our home work"

IF YOUR MOBILE PHONE OR SMART WATCH DOESN'T NEED CHARGING AT LEAST EVERY WEEK YOU EITHER...
A. HAVE NO LIFE/FRIENDS. OR NEED FOR ONE.
B. YOU NEED TO SWITCH IT ON.
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Ole Joe

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Re: ALARMED

Post24 Aug 2015, 16:05

jagmad wrote::Hi:
If there's a chance I've got this wrong please let me know.


No Pete, you've got it right. Problem is not due to springs not making contact with the piezo if it "beeps" once. It could be that the output drivers for the piezo were compromised when you installed the 357 batteries and heard that high pitched squeal.

Joe

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