Quartz watch repair, that’s how I do it

In this article I am going to show you how I repair quartz watches and how you can bring your broken watch back to life. Maintenance service is very important in quartz watches. The repair process is similar in many ways to the repair work on mechanical watches.
Why hurt a maintenance or repair quartz watches?

A quartz watch, like any other, can fail, it needs repairs and revisions. Clocks are made up of a multitude of tiny parts that are in motion. In some cases, the watch has been running for years without stopping rubbing one piece against another. Failing to damage a set-up can result in loss of time precision.

On the other hand, there are quartz watches that the opposite happens to them, that have been sitting still for years and have all the lubricants dried up. This means that all the wheels are locked and therefore the clock does not work. In the worst case, it can happen that the battery is sulfated and the acid it contains damages the inside of the mechanism.
What is the operation of a quartz watch?

Although quartz watches are made up of many parts, for me there are three that are essential:

The running gear: It is where the mechanical part of the watch is and is the one that most closely resembles mechanical and automatic watches. As in them, in quartz watches this running gear is also made up of toothed wheels.

The electrical circuit: Where is the quartz that vibrates at a frequency of 32.7 kHz. In the electrical circuit, the current passes through a frequency divider and transforms the quartz frequency into 1 Hz, this is what we need later, to get one movement per second.

The motor: It is where the energy of the electrical circuit is converted into movement thanks to an electromagnet turning the rotor. This in turn transmits the movement to the undercarriage and finally to the hands so that we can see the time.

At the end of this article I leave you a link, in which you can go deeper into reading the operation of a quartz watch.
Quartz watch repair and maintenance service

Once I have explained how it works, I will now show you how I do a complete repair service on a Swiss quartz watch. The first thing I do is disassemble the case, glass, hands and dial, to be left with only the movement to be repaired.
Quartz watch repair

Little by little I am disassembling all the pieces and separating them for cleaning, later I will explain the detailed process.
Quartz watch repair

In this photo that I show you below, you can see how I have been disassembling and I have reached the running gear, which is the mechanical part of the quartz watch. As can be seen, it has remains of dry lubricants that have been the reason for the failure of this watch due to lack of maintenance.
Quartz watch repair

Once one side of the movement has been disassembled, we turn it over and start with the disassembly of the calendar wheel. This part is especially delicate, because in my opinion it is the most mechanically complicated part of this type of movement due to the number of small parts that interact with each other.
Quartz watch repair
The arrangement, cleaning and lubrication in the repair of quartz watches

Once we have everything disassembled, we proceed to place the baskets in their support, to be taken to the cleaning robot. These baskets are special for this fact and have a very fine grid that makes it impossible for the pieces of the watch, no matter how small, to escape from them.
Quartz watch repair

For cleaning quartz watch repairs, it uses a rotating robot that, through various stages of cleaning and drying with special watchmaking detergents, makes the pieces so clean that they seem to have come out of the factory recently.
Quartz watch repair
Put everything back in its place

Now we have a clean watch free of dirt and oil from previous repairs. You can see in the photo the shine of the metal. For me it is one of the moments of the repair that I like the most, seeing the movement shine in a watch after having spent so many years without maintenance.

Now we do the same operation we did before, but in reverse, starting to assemble the undercarriage. This assembly operation is the one that takes the longest, because unlike before when it was only disassembling, now you have to observe wear, check clearances, possible malfunctions and re-lubricate the watch.

While I am assembling, an important step is lubrication, for this an exclusive oil for Swiss-made quartz watches is used.

After several hours I already have the movement clean, lubricated and mounted again. Finally, I am about to put the dial, needles and the new battery.
Placement of the movement in the case and new glass

After this, I mount the movement in its case. On this occasion, apart from repairing the watch, the inside of the case has also been gilded again and I have put a new crystal on it.

For the placement of a new crystal I use a special adhesive for watch crystals that is cured through ultraviolet light.

In all quartz watch repairs, the final test is essential

Once we have everything rebuilt, we move on to the consumer test and accuracy test. The Swiss quality chronocomparator shows the running and consumption data that have to coincide with those provided by each manufacturer.
Quartz watch repair
In quartz watches always quality batteries

Finally, when I repair quartz watches or do maintenance, I only use brands of recognized prestige. A quality battery is a short investment that we will only make every two years in a watch. A poorly sealed or poor quality battery can, among other things, leak inside the watch. I never advise you to put cheap batteries in your watch, placing a low-quality battery can cause your watch to not perform optimally and to break down prematurely, causing expensive breakdowns to repair.

To finish, I put a photo of how this Tissot was once restored and working.

Apart from this, if it is a submersible watch, it is also advisable to do a hermetic test. If you want to know more, enter this link where I show you what the hermetism consists of in the submersible watch

In summary, what are the fundamental parts in a quartz watch repair job?

Complete disassembly of the watch piece by piece
Go through a cleaning process
Assembly and lubrication of moving parts
Tests and control of the running state
Hermetism, if it is a submersible watch

If you are thinking of repairing a watch, but you don’t know how much it might cost or how you can do it, leave me your message below, I’ll receive it right away and we’ll talk about it.

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