Omega Equinox Reverso 386.0013/1655 LCD Restoration

This has been in my watch list for an eternity. I made some lowball offers back in January. For some reason I just keep coming back to it.

The recent thread on a too far gone LCD made me really want to have a go at this. Even though it seems a bit overpriced. I could get something really nice, but what is the challenge in that? I have dozens of three handers with more parts on the way.

This one looks really bad. I guess it probably had a gold bezel. The crystal(s) and dial will be next to impossible to find. I suspect that the value here is the bracelet.

Interesting that the battery look impossible to access.

Will be interesting when it arrives.

There are a few threads here with some clear photographs of the bezel/crystal dial so I sort of have an idea of what it should have looked like. The real question is can the glass be salvaged? The gunk on the front may be the polarizer screen. According to the data sheet these had either a white or yellow reflector.

I could have added this to the eBay addiction thread, but it seems to warrant it's own thread. I did binge a bit this month, Pipe organ projects (which provide for the funds to play with this stuff) Have been taking most of my time.

more like a safe jester

Bit too complete for my taste.

There seem to be a few parts in spain and france. But for the embargo tarrifs that rules out non domestic binges. Otherwise I might have gone for the val-206 case.

It arrived!

Much quicker than I expected.
I can hardly wait to start pulling the movement apart. I have gardening and pipe organ stuff to do first. Not to mention the bench is still covered with bumper automatic balances and hairsprings, what I sort of stalled out on.

One thing getting it in person is this photo (shown above from the auction listing.) was confusing.



Turns out the movement was installed the wrong way round. Probably also flipped top to bottom.

This style is not particularly rare. So there are plenty of photographs from past and current sales. Supposidly they only made these for the one year. Must have made quite a few. I think there are currently 1/2 dozen or so listed worldwide at the moment.

Photographs are really useful for seeing what the missing case parts look like. There are hands and dials listed in the EU.

The glass looks to be intact. The reflector has some of the distortion. There is some spotting on the front, but it is not on the glass surface, So the liquid crystal may be crystalized. I can see the transparent traces if I hold it at an angle.

There is a sort of black corrosion on everything. Looks a bit like soot. No obvious tells of heat damage. The watch in the EU that was scrapped out has similar black corrosion on the circuit board. Will not know too much until I remove the glass. The battery is still in place. The gunk on it looks more like insulating tape than dielectric. More likely this was water damage.

The display is not that much different than the ones given out as cereal box prizes. So a temporary fix might be all than could be done. There may be someone in Germany who rebuilds these on a swap exchange. Many complain though that such removes the family heirloom status. One suggestion was to replace the quartz (or non functioning.) side with an engraved plate.

The oLED display I have are too large and to power hungry, or that could be a fun option. Apple watch electronics are also too large to fit into the 20 or so mm space, although the missing bezels are quite thick.

There is a listing for the service manual in Austrailia. https://www.ebay.com/itm/257484924519

I have no idea of what the tariffs on printed materials are. The most useful page is shown, which gives the electronics readings. Would be nice though if there were formal disassembly steps. By the time I would get this, I probably will have everything apart. The operators guide is online although page photos and not a pdf.

If the coil is good then the analog side could be made to work. The bezel and crystal difficult to source. Probably just as easy to make a dial and hand set from tuna can sheet metal. Might be possible to make a temporary bezel with 3D printing.

Not a lot of experience with bracelets. This one is way to large for my wrist. Looks like there are removable links, but not sure how to do that.

As noted compared to 571 and 712 calibers (which had short runs.) these are not particularly rare.

The maintenece sheet arrived yesterday. And the new frame today.


No tariffs were billed on either item.

I have been avoiding powering up anything (other than to measure the coil resistance.)
I did make a frequency generator for testing LCD glass. Managed to drop and step on the test LCD so a bit wary to try the actual glass to see if the segments still light. There is spotting in the display.

I had purchased an 'earth pin.' because one was listed in Canada. Turns out I may need two. Plus the connector which goes on the front of the dial. This is to connect the alarm speaker which is in the front bezel (which is missing.) None of what I did not know before reading the maintenance docs.

I also learned this shares parts with 1365 movements (different motor.)

Surprisingly there are a fair number of parts from overseas sellers. The prices are most reasonable as well. Scarcity and rarity does not really affect pricing as stuff that is truly rare has a small market demand.

The maintenance sheet does not give the motor pulse timing (other than once per minute.) I giggled it and got some interesting AI on lavete motors, plus some AI code for the tiny 25/45/85 which may or may not work. There was also a link to a hakaday project what does much of what I want to do. Even with a buck boost part number. This though to drive common quartz clocks, but from a single battery cell.

I really need to test the electronics. Got side tracked with a miniture test bench (audio scope) using an arduino NANO. That should also work with the pipe organ stuff.

This also presents the real issue working with this old scrap stuff. Since the watch was water damaged, some of the button contactors are broken off. It might be possible to laser and rivet new contacts onto it. The alternative is that there is a contact plate listed in Dubi, for a really reasonable price. So the temptation is to rush in and order the part, while it is available.

It is also my intention (for the last few weeks) to put the tear down photos into a watchmaking thread.

I have not had the courage to power test it again.

The hands should turn for a few seconds when power is first applied. That is really the only way to know if it is working. The analog part is a 1365. Which is a sweet minimalist design, and really thin. The simplest watch possible.

It the set button is jammed or the contact shorted to + then the hands will spin indefinitely. Such is another is it working test in the manual to intentionally short this contact with a probe. I think these tick about once every 2 minutes so waiting for a tick is like watching paint dry. Yet when one looks at the watch the time is usually close on.

It is also impossible to move the gears when the watch is stopped. They can only turn one direction. The 1346 has a pawel jewel what keeps things fixed. I do not see this on the 1655 which uses a different motor and rotor. The rest is the same.

As for the LCD. The contacts connect though a rubber strip called a Z bumper or Z contact strip. This has hundreds of tiny wires embedded in silicone rubber what make for a sort of zebra pattern. There is a top contact and a bottom contact. So typically if there is only half a display it will be one of those. This display only has one backplane, so if that is not making contact, then the whole display will fail. For half a display going vertically one side of this is corrupted. Sounds like this watch also had issues with corrosion. I had to replace one of the metal clips as the one I had fell apart. I probably should replace the other. Still have not had the nerve to test it again.

If you do open the watch, be really careful of the dial side. The speaker is part of the front crystal. There are little tiny clips what pass through the dial onto something called 'earth' pins. Mine were snapped or rusted off. Same for the motor contacts when the plates are split apart. As for the LCD, get some cheap ones or some cheap kitchen timers or digital volt meters. Such things are everywhere. Practice on those first.

Service manuals for these are hard to come by. They are not online. I found one on eBay from Australia. By chance I found another service sheet for which an eBay seller was offering laminated copies. That one is more of a quick reference chart. The seller is offering additional copies. The actual data sheet is available online.

Having the manuals is almost a requirement. Mine came with the movement loose from the bracelet, and jammed into the frame upside down. I was trying to figure how to get it together since the pins only work on one side and the others are somewhat fixed. Turns out to be a really simple trick of turning the movement 45 degrees while it is 90 degrees from the bracelet.

I am still missing the dial bezel and crystals. Which is why I am not in a rush. I got this to play with the LCD and had to get a new one. So once I got my LCD tester and it worked I sort of lost immediate interest (even if I think about it all the time.)

At the moment there is a non working 1655 equinox on the bay, I suspect though that it will go for quite a bit more than it is worth. There are not too many willing to work on these. Many have been bodged with one side or the other replaced with a metal plate. A lot of them, like other quartz watches were service awards or other sentimental presentations.

A bunch of 1365 turned up cheap a month ago. So I started playing about with quartz movements. One of them is ticking and wearable. The other started working. For some reason, the offering prices on these has remained high and in line with the mechanical versions from the same era. Ladies watches remain significantly lower.

The real distraction is the 1342 coils and the coil winder. I wound up getting AI involved in the conversion of the winder. Which has cause me to get lost down the AI rabbit hole working on projects that stalled out 2 to 4 years ago. AI really wants to keep you engaged.

I got pretty agressive with the elecronics cleaner which I think is heptaine. You should be working in an esd space with the mat and ideally a ground strap. Which I am guilty of rarely using.
I made a simple LCD tester which is an old AVR Tiny25. Running a simple AI generated sketch to create the out of phase waveform. Most likely though once the screen is removed, that will probably get rid of a lot of the gunk. The pc board is surprisingly crude. No solder mask on mine with quite a bit of rework.

good show.
I usually take the rubber z strips out and clean both sides. You managed to get what ever was not connecting to connect. Does look like there was some rework on the circuit board.
the button paddles are +V. If it gets shorted then the hands spin. There is a lot of test points on this. Not all are documented.

I should power test mine.

Well I did not win the one that sold today. Does however establish that these things worth around 550 or so bucks not working. Sat all week at 120 and today at 250 then in the last seconds shot up to 500+.
This has a cracked crystal on the analog side. Will probably cost an additional 800 to 1200 if the buyer can find someone to work on it. Had I got it I would have listed the braclet, as I had the bracelet on mine sized. So I guess it is back to 3D printing a bezel and dial.