Citizen Cyber Aqualand that's rechargeable???

[camrok]

I recently purchased a case of five watches of gumtree, our online classifieds in Australia.
It arrived in a case with a set of pretty impressive watches.

I thought these were a standard digital Aqualand (cyber) and proceeded to attempt to change the battery.

I got to the lithium ion button cell battery to find a code US2025 and a capacitor cap thingy on it
So I googled it and turns out the brass points on the side,

Are a charging point.
It's not solar, it's not kinetic, it's like your Tamyia Radio Controlled car... It's rechargeable for when you want to play!

It sits in a cradle powered by 4 x AA batteries

Now either the batteries in the charger are crap or the connections dirty or broken or the watch capacitor is fried. Cause there is no lcd or lights displaying on my watch or charger.
It's a pretty awesome 2003 release.
Here is a link to a release write up:
www.sportdiver.com/article/news/citizen-introduces-cyber-aqualand-nx
I will try and get one powered up by its rechargeable components.
The other I'm thinking of swapping to a traditional 2025 cell.
I'd never come across these and thought some may find it interesting.

[tritto]

That's bizarre, why would anyone want to lug around a charger for their watch? Oh yeah, your Mrs :-)
If it needs regular charging then it must use batteries very rapidly.

[longbike]

Aloha Sir,

Cam ,
They look great and especially that case..... . Those cells have some technique's so be careful with them when
removing or installing them. I found that some might have loose screws or bent contact legs some time. That Remote Module
you can use it to hook up to your computer to record ...Diving Time Data ...for records. I had one that needed to be cleaned under
the digital area then it ran good again. The one on the ...( Lower Right ) , if it does not fire up, remove the Sensor 
and contact carefully (Little Screw on Plastic Strip) and then remove the Metal plate then Q-Tip the ( Gold Contacts ) on the
circuit board very lightly.
When doing this area use a ..... ( Plastic Tweezer ) for that.
I have found that when they shut down or not used for a while some how they get moisture on the circuit boards.
Note:
( Just a few points if needed to help. )

Beside all that they are simple to do. Congrat's on a great score and enjoy them also. Keep us posted on your results
also please to see how they come around.

Aloha Sir
Louis

[tritto]

Ah, a FitBit for your diving. :-)
If anyone would know it's you Louis.

[Adrian-VTA]

Looks like they use a coin size lithium battery. It would be easy enough to replace that but I daresay you'll need the ginuwine CITIZEN part.

I'd have to see a photo to give you any more info.

Now, I'm usually pretty lax on safety, I cut towards myself etc etc.

Lithium batteries are not something to mess around with. DO NOT try to solder them and don't pierce them, even if they are dead.

They contain an incredible amount of energy and nasty bits and pieces and could easily take an eye out.

Back in the day, I used to do a lot of laptop battery repairs around the time Lithium Ion batteries were just starting to come in, so for the most part we dealt with NiCd and NiMH batteries. GREAT, you can solder these and make new packs. So we would gut the old pack, install new high capacity cells and the customer would have like an hour longer battery life than new, happy times.

Now, We had the first LiIon pack in, and my tech didn't check the cells and started to pull the pack apart. A bridge between cells had cracked so he made a new one and started to solder it on. BANG! He ended up with no eyebrows for a week and got a mouth full of something, no idea what it was, but it was some sort of chemical foam that shot out of the battery. Luckily, he was wearing safety glasses.

So you can't really hack together LiIon anything without a spot welder.

[camrok]

Thanks for the warning I'd never have known.
A quick search shows up some specialist battery shops with them but the site had scrolling banners and other fancy html 95 coding.
The good news is the plate the battery sits on looks similar to those yachting digitals. The one with the floating contacts. They look interchangeable. The capacitor connections are just spikes that extend from the battery. So I'm hoping to just swap in a cell with a contact plate. If that makes sense.
I got one of those electric voltage meter thingies and figured out it was the battery pack that is the source of my recharging issues. So I bought one for $1.65
Fingers crossed.

[camrok]

Ok. So problem one.

There was a heap of green goop on that circuit board and despite my now electric voltage meter thing wires fell off.
Problem 2-

That is the capacitor with a base plate attached.
If I use a standard cr 2025 I will have to make something to contact the battery and the plate on the Aqualand.
It would be cool to get one of the two watches charging.
I love the concept coined by tritto Fitbit diver.
Out of interest I did get a small bit of life out of the standard cr 2025 test. It started up like an old Nintendo game boy
The watches have gone to a much more learned electronic and watch guru....