Didling with the dark side ...

So I work with microlectronics on the pipe organs. I make boards like this.

The problem with online auctions is while one is waiting or looking for something, Something else pops up.

I have not given much thought to Apple watches. (I did want one of the rainbow promotional ones bac in the 1980s.) I have an iPod nano what has watch faces on it.

Still I have been seeing Apple Watches on Goodwill going for around 17USD. So I bid that on a couple of them. To my surprise I won them. These showed up along with all the chronograph case parts yesterday.



I had to go out and get a charger puck, which cost more than the watches. One of the watches had a torn band so I splurged on a leather band with traditonal lugs for more than I paid for the watch.

Took all day to update the firmware on the Series 1 watch. It actually synced to the phone and looks to be somewhat useable. The other watch has a cracked screen diagonally across it.

That watch will boot, but it does not pair to the phone. It seems who ever gave it to the goodwill (charity shop.) did not remove the activation lock.

I actually got these to take apart. I was sort of thinking A fun waste of time would be to see if there was a way to put a mechanical movement into the case. I have many of the tools needed for the disassembly.

I really need to get back to working with the Quartz Heuers. Fix my timegrapher and come up with an electronic balance hairspring vibrator.

Not too impressed with these apple watchs. I can see the reason for the security lock. I hear there are work arounds although most of what I found is pretty sketchy.

These are also really old ones, although most of the so call 'features.' seem more like novelties. Curiously one of the apps what can be used to tune pipe organs has a option to be installed on the watch. Not sure how useful that would be.

The payment and GPS stuff seems like too much intrusion. There is too much emphasis on being connected to the cloud. My interests are more in being self sufficient and fixing things what do not work.

Still such watches fit into a gap in my collection. These things do seem to be popular. We are almost a quarter of the way into the 21s century.

The electronics bench is even more of a mess than the optical bench. The question was, how easy are these things to open. There was not much pont getting a thermal opener when I already had a heat gun. I found the multimeter that has the thermocouple (left over from the 3D printer projects decades ago.) Heated the brick up to about 160F and

Got the thing opened. I had the special triwing in the iFixit kit. The driver is magnetic, which is a bit of an abhorition. Interesting working on electronics and seeing a watch screw fall onto the deck. At least it did not bounce.

put the PoS back together and


It still lights up. Cracked screen and all.

Of course it is still a brick as it is locked. I tried the iPhone 6 that does not have a sim card.(connects to wifi to check in with big brother.) Curiously there was an updated for the 6. Must have not been much of an update. Fastest I have ever seen a phone update. Tried to update the watch but there was an error screen that was too short to fully read. Something about something being out of date. The iPhoneX prompts at this point for the prior user's password.

What is the point in making reliable of hardware, if you use software to disable it? Still considering putting a mechanical movement into the case. Bit tricky with the offset crown. I know there were rectliner chronographs. Angling pushers is a bit complex. I have a ladies backwinder, but this is a 42mm case.

A curious novelty. And there are over 32,000 straps and bands for it on greed bay.

There really needs to be a better way to recycle these things. And the industry as a whole need to open up more access to self repair especially for the older mechanical watches.

Perhaps there will be improvements in metal printing that could make older parts.

How to really waste time:



So a while back I got some apple watches to play with. Cracked screens are the main issue.

I got a watch for a screen and it wound up with some scrap swatch watches. Did a battery swap and the damn thing pairs. Well after a three hour software update.

Now I need to get the tape gasket to put it back together.

Downside is this was supposed to be a parts watch. So I still have the one with the cracked screen.

WOW! Apple watchs really are repairable.

So unlike the ebay stuff I ordered two weeks ago. The Ifixit hot pad came last night.

I was able to glue the watch back togther.

I also found that one can get the glass what cracks on the screen display. Cheap. But there is a catch. Some of the parts are serialized. Firmware updates might alleviate some of this.

The display module might also be possible to remove from the glass. The displays do still work. Just the swiping does not. Downside is that it takes heat and high strength Alcohol to removed the shattered glass from the display. Also fine wire with of all things molybdenum coated insulation. Is that just a fancy word for teflon?

Sadly pure alcohol is restricted from sale by retailers in this state. (causes global warming. aka smog) Just because you can measure parts per billion, it may lead do increased risk of cancer. Or so say the proposition 65 warnings plastered all over these repair parts.) I think people tend to confuse probability and statistics. They are not the same thing, no matter what the AI tells you.

Anyway the heat and alcohol soften the glue and the teflon wire works like "judgement day" in three body problem (I kid you not. The real world is really weird.) A similar process was used to read the Pomepeii/Herculanim scrolls in the 19th century before we had NMRI, which does the same things with electrons.

I suspect a lot of stuff sold in china Is refurbished using these time consuming techniques.

It is also interesting how it take a large company and an even larger collection of lawyers to manufacture stuff (and protect ideas.) In this day and age.

The only way to manufacture stuff is in high volume. Or else the costs in time are too much.

At least I know the clear glass digitizers are available for future experiments.

I wonder if Steve Jobs was Cryo frozen like his idol Disney was said to be. His estate sure seems to have it's hands in some interesting things. Curiously my family members are buried in the same graveyard as he is rumored. When a great aunt died at 100 about the same time, a few of us looked at the place where the gravedigger said his remains may or may not be. But where is his brain?

I am sure this is all a conspiracy by the USPS to delay the shipping of my Omega watch parts.

Either that or the solvents in apple watch glue are effective.

Oh wait. I just binged watched Three body problem.

... sorry for any spoilers.