I recently picked up an ebay lot of dead watches that included an Armitron Animated Dixie Cannon Watch:
They arrived today and the battery that caused that reflector damage was still in the watch, a Union Carbide battery that had gone black over time and was stuck in the module.
Carefully disassembled it and gave it a light clean to neutralise the worst of the damage but didn't expect anything from this watch at all. Reassembled and put a new battery in, and there were a few faint segments, although they were fixed and it definitely wasn't running.
That was enough though, pulled it apart again and into the alcohol bath for a soak, cleaned with a kids toothbrush, reassembled and replaced the reflector from a bad Sexum module, and this was the result:
To say I was impressed was an understatement! There was no sound that I traced to the piezo still being coated with black battery gunk so cleaned up with a fibre brush and tried holding the piezo on the spring while touching the outer ring against the case - bingo, Dixie.
Now for the weird bit. When I pop the back on, there's no sound, regardless of how the piezo is rotated. The watch functions correctly though, just no sound.
If I leave the circuitboard uncovered I get the music every time I press any button, although the functions go a bit crazy and it's pretty much unusable. So it's constantly triggering.
Trying the module in a different case does the same thing.
What do you think? Funky electronics from years of battery gas? Or am I missing something obvious?
I can make a video of what it's doing if it would be helpful, but if you have the answer at hand that would be better. Thanks.
They arrived today and the battery that caused that reflector damage was still in the watch, a Union Carbide battery that had gone black over time and was stuck in the module.
Carefully disassembled it and gave it a light clean to neutralise the worst of the damage but didn't expect anything from this watch at all. Reassembled and put a new battery in, and there were a few faint segments, although they were fixed and it definitely wasn't running.
That was enough though, pulled it apart again and into the alcohol bath for a soak, cleaned with a kids toothbrush, reassembled and replaced the reflector from a bad Sexum module, and this was the result:
To say I was impressed was an understatement! There was no sound that I traced to the piezo still being coated with black battery gunk so cleaned up with a fibre brush and tried holding the piezo on the spring while touching the outer ring against the case - bingo, Dixie.
Now for the weird bit. When I pop the back on, there's no sound, regardless of how the piezo is rotated. The watch functions correctly though, just no sound.
If I leave the circuitboard uncovered I get the music every time I press any button, although the functions go a bit crazy and it's pretty much unusable. So it's constantly triggering.
Trying the module in a different case does the same thing.
What do you think? Funky electronics from years of battery gas? Or am I missing something obvious?
I can make a video of what it's doing if it would be helpful, but if you have the answer at hand that would be better. Thanks.