Uranus Module

[james_stan]

Further to my earlier advice post I have acquired a somewhat shabby looking Uranus watch with a nadgered module via 'the famous auction site'.

The module pictured was a Frontier but somehow I think this is wrong (partly since one of the photos shows the display rotated).

Does anyone know what type of module I sould be looking for ?

command and set buttons appear to be at 1, 3 and 5 o'clock.

Cheers

James

[james_stan]

Update to the previous post the Frontier module is not in fact 'nadgered' but working ! Although it does feature what loooks to be a mod in the form of a very non-70s looking 10MOhm surface mount resistor close to the crystal..

Hmm..

James

[Old Tom]

Some Frontier LED modules do have surface mount resistors on them- they seemed to select the values to best suit the crystal, later ones have printed resistors on the circuit board that are trimmed to value with a diamond saw. SM resistors have changed very little in appearance since they were first introduced in the late 1960s. Possibly someone has replaced the one in yours with a more modern one to make the oscillator run- sometimes they go low, or high!, as they age which stops the oscillator dead.

[james_stan]

Old Tom

Thanks for the reply - I just saw a picture of another Frontier
and this looked the same so I guess thats just how they are/were. I wasn't aware about the availability of SMD all that time back. Not so smart as i thought I was eh ?s

BTW any idea what type/make of modules Uranus used ?

Cheers

James

[retroleds]

Old Tom

Thanks for the reply - I just saw a picture of another Frontier
and this looked the same so I guess thats just how they are/were. I wasn't aware about the availability of SMD all that time back. Not so smart as i thought I was eh ?s

BTW any idea what type/make of modules Uranus used ?

Cheers

James

James - welcome aboard. Uranus made some of their own modules - infamous for poor reliability, wires ran back and forth across the circuit board(rather than working out a cleaner circuit using traces. It seems they gave up on making their own modules at some point, as the paperwork with their Ariel models suggests other brands of modules being used. Hughes,Frontier and a host of others make good replacements for their original modules.

[james_stan]

Hi Retroleds (Ed ?)

Thanks for the welcome

Here's the Uranus in question. Kind of an impulse buy ( the worse sort I guess) before I had done adequate research. I have to say the case looks decent quality - All I need now is to identify a module likely to fit - I measure 29mm diameter.



sorry for the outsized picture !

Cheers

James

[retroleds]

Oh snap, that case has two recessed buttons on the side, doesn't it?
That's a harder bill to fill, although, there were a few Asian made modules that had multiple contacts to fit a wide array of cases(albiet they are a shallow/thin module, so some mucking around with the battery contact is necessary). Someone had a thread recently regarding a Hamilton module and they wanted to swap circuit boards...they show a green module in their pictures...that's the one I'm thinking of(or my brain may be thinking of something else...who knows). I have a couple if you are bound and determined to get that one working.PM if so. I have that case here, so I could pull the whole deal together for you.

[james_stan]

Hi Ed

That would be very interesting. I also thought that maybe a module
with just two out of the three buttons could work. Obviously command needs to match but then just one set button either at 3 or 5 is fine - isn't it ?

Cheers

James

PS You mention asian modules, do you mean new-ish 21st century ones ? Not the end of the world for a daily i reckon since I really love the case even with the patina.