Giving your broken Watch Winder a New Life

Sometimes a watch winder breaks down just when your warranty expires. Sad!

Two choices you can make; get it repaired or throw it out!

To get it repaired, you’d probably have to send it to the seller who then delivers it for you to the distributor and in turn collectively sends it to the country-of-origin (factory) to get it repaired. Sounds familiar? Read on.

This takes time and money. You’ll probably have to pay enough money to get at least 50% of a new watch winder. Cost of freight to and from, applicable customs taxes, the replacement parts, seller’s and distributor’s service charges all add up to a substantial amount. So you decide to part with it.

Where do all these broken winders end-up? Perhaps it’ll go to the dumpster on the way to land-fills. Very Sad!

Instead of throwing them away, why not give it a New Lease of Life? Salvage any usable parts and throw what’s not working. Watch Winders could easily be rejuvenated.


Here’s what I’ll do if I have one on hand.

1) Identify the problem; instinctively if the watch is not rotating when ON, it must be the motor. I have never encountered a burnt circuit unless the board is poorly designed.

2) Unscrew the base-plate or the cover, and then locate the motor. Some motors can only be released once the rotating cup is removed.

3) Once you have the motor, you can now go to any surplus stores to find an equivalent. Please take note of the original RPM and voltage the dead motor provides.

4) After some modifications (much will depend on your handyman skills) you will be able to fit it all back (with a stroke of genius or plain luck) and get it working again.

5) But let’s say the housing is damaged.

6) Again with some handyman skills, you could build a new housing using all usable electronic and/or mechanical parts from the old unit. Do take a look at my other homemade watch winders to get an idea.

7) When making the housing, don’t forget to have the rotating cups tilted at an angle. There are certain technical principals and some calculations to this and I do apologize if I won’t elaborate much on this for business and personal reasons. Just follow the older unit.

8) Lastly, don’t expect the modified winder unit to be a top-of-the-line piece. It’s your very own one-of-a-kind masterpiece watch winder that you have put your heart into.

I had a defective winder brought to me by one of a friend’s friend. After turning ON the unit, the motor was moving but rather sluggishly and was noisy to my standards. My instinct tells me it was a motor problem. I took apart the motor and the gear-head, tested the motor first and found it ok. When I opened the gear-head, I was surprised to find most of the lubricant (motor grease) had dried-up or wasn’t put enough in the first place.
 
Picture 1 shows the extent of “dryness” inside the gear assembly. Most of the oil turned into flakes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A quick test and the motor started whirling again much quieter now. After assembling the motor into his watch winder unit, it performed well enough…like new!

Do recycle whatever you can. I’m not on a campaign to save the earth or anything; I’m just helping you save some money.

Labels: Watch Winder Repair