Re: obsolete mercury batteries

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:35:19 -0500, "Jack Denver"
<nunuvyer@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Still, makers should use a common size battery whenever possible. As I
mentioned with the Seiko perpetuals, its wrong that they used the hard to
find 2412 when the 2016 is a common as dirt. The .4 mm of thickness could
had easily been dealt with in the design stage.

I'd say it was to be able to do a simple one piece battery and circuit
clamp. A 2016 would have been a further .2 away form the edge right
around making that more difficult. Then again, it could have been just
a 'uniquity' thing. It does make you wonder why on earth designers do
some moronic things in this trade. I could probably make up a list of
stupid things, but posting it would bog down the internets. :-)

The other thing that's wrong is making the battery too hard for the consumer
to change. Ideally watches should have a battery hatch and any consumer,
even an 80 yr. old man with bad vision should be able to open the hatch with
a coin and pop in a new battery in 10 seconds without getting dirt in the
movement or spending $15 instead of $1. The only reason this wasn't done is
that they wanted quartz watches to resemble mechanical watches rather than
electronic devices.

Ahhhah! No.
By all means, one could provide a hatch(and as you no doubt recall,
early Seiko digitals did have those), but once we're talking wheels,
pinions and magnet, they would have to put extra safeguards to prevent
the owner form meddling with those wheels or dropping bits of dirt
inside the watch.
So now we're looking at an elaborate sealing system between the
movement and the battery compartment. Such thing would be difficult to
do on a 5 and a half line movement withotu substantially increasing
it's height and possibly it's width too.
It would also make water resistant watches a pain in the arse and a
foot thick, as the battery would need to be always in the center of
the movement to accomodate for the screw on back with the hatch being
in the middle. Unless we go back to push on backs, but those do not
quite stack up against screw on ones. Not without a fair amount of
effort anyway.
Not to mention that spotting a failing seal on the hatch would be
beyond the average user nor would they notice the subtle sound of
slicing thought it, when refitting..
Personally, i don't want owners to poke around in a watch, even though
i could and do make a nice bundle on just that.

Current patient on the bench is a pristine looking gents Omega, which
the owner figured he could adjust. Ripped the regulator right off the
***, he did. 4 screw back, so it was "made" easy for him to open, by
our user friendly Omega designer.
It's a bloody mess, but i hope he had fun for the 2-300 bucks it'll
cost him. I'd have adjusted it for between nothing and 10 bucks,
depending on him and how i felt on the day. Alas..

--

Regards, Frank
.