Restoring An Altimeter Watch To Former Heights

Finding cheap damaged {hardware} on the market, shopping for it, and restoring it to working situation is a long-standing custom for hackers on a restricted budge. But there are some units which can be so tough to restore that it’s often not definitely worth the bother. [Vintage560] is braver than most, although, and restored an internally-damaged Casio AW-330-AT altimeter watch.

The exterior of the watch was in good situation, apart from lacking a readily-replaced strap, however the battery had leaked into the inside, and the watch didn’t reply in any solution to new batteries. Cleaning out the center with isopropyl alcohol, repositioning a plastic insulator, and bending some contacts again into form at the very least bought some segments of the LCD show to activate, whereas over two days of turning the crown smoothed out resistance within the analog prepare.

Actually getting the LCD to work correctly required disassembling the watch, taking explicit care with the altitude sensor. It wasn’t clear what was incorrect with the LCD — the controller gave the impression to be working correctly, and a number of other rounds of cleansing and adjusting the ZEBRA connector didn’t make any distinction.

Eventually, [Vintage560] merely bought a brand new display screen. On shut inspection, it appeared as if chemical substances from the leaking battery may need dissolved a few of the clear indium tin oxide contacts on the outdated show. With the watch now working [Vintage560] examined it on a visit to the Alps, and with a couple of periodic calibrations, it remained fairly correct.

Usually once we see Casio watch hacks, the watch in query is the F91W, whether or not it’s getting used for contactless payments, being retrofitted as a smartwatch, or going 5,000 meters underwater.