Charge / Replace or...? TBI battery question.

[kronin323]

Right, it originally had a true capacitor but it was a faulty design and now the OEM part is a LiOn battery. The LiOn has many times the capacity of the original capacitor. Switching back to the capacitor will not help anything. As said, the weakness of the LiOn version is it will die and not recharge if allowed to discharge completely.

That candle charger setup should do the trick; I haven't used one personally but it's been recommended before. Positioning, IDK - I think the way you have it should be okay, IIRC the "hot spot" to get the charger close to is the lower left when viewed from the back; it's where the coils are. Maybe others have laid it on its side?

There's way TMI on the subject on this thread; induction chargers are also discussed a bit further in:

TB Capacitor vs. rechargeable battery - useless knowledge

(@cacatman perhaps the link above would be of interest to your "library"?)

 

[kronin323]

Thanks kronin323. So, just to clarify the coil hotspot is here, yes? (see pic)

View attachment 501999

No, sorry, I reviewed my old posts and it's actually the other side, the bottom right when viewed from the back. See the 2nd pic in this link to see how the post is positioned, that's the right spot:

TB Capacitor vs. rechargeable battery - useless knowledge

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[Esper]

No, sorry, I reviewed my old posts and it's actually the other side, the bottom right when viewed from the back. See the 2nd pic in this link to see how the post is positioned, that's the right spot:

TB Capacitor vs. rechargeable battery - useless knowledge

.

Thanks for the clarification. Looked at the linked pic and updated mine, just in case anyone else was looking in.

 

[Esper]

So... roughly two days later and the low power skipping hand has gone. Back up to full power and on my wrist.

I placed the watch in this position (see photo) on the back bay and that seemed to do the trick.

Many thanks to all who commented and passed on their advice / experience.

 

[Esper]

One addendum... I find that positioning the watch with the wrist strap undone works best - drops the jewel a lower into the candle charger’s bay


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[mustangjt]

One addendum... I find that positioning the watch with the wrist strap undone works best - drops the jewel a lower into the candle charger’s bay


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Esper How long would you leave your TB on the candle charger? 12hr? 24hr? Longer? I recently got a couple TB1’s and a battery powered toothbrush style charger. I probably don’t plan on wearing either much, maybe on the weekends just to recharge em through natural motion.

 

[kronin323]

@Esper How long would you leave your TB on the candle charger? 12hr? 24hr? Longer? I recently got a couple TB1’s and a battery powered toothbrush style charger. I probably don’t plan on wearing either much, maybe on the weekends just to recharge em through natural motion.

Good luck with that. That's not enough wear to maintain a charge.

That's the catch with TB1 and other watches with Seiko kinetic movements, it's an investment in wear time to keep them running enough so the charge doesn't deplete enough to kill the battery.

Assuming you can get your charger setup to work (which is harder than it may seem because, unlike phones, you don't get a nice LED telling you when it's positioned right for charging...) you should set up a regular charging cycle routine. If you're using the original capacitor that's charging once a week. With the replacement LiOn, you can get away twice a year. Which is easier said than done - you also don't get any indicator when it's fully charged... As carguy mentioned elsewhere (actually in the thread I posted at the top of this page full of info) the most ideal situation would be where if your display position had a built in, constant charger.

 

[Esper]

@Esper How long would you leave your TB on the candle charger? 12hr? 24hr? Longer? I recently got a couple TB1’s and a battery powered toothbrush style charger. I probably don’t plan on wearing either much, maybe on the weekends just to recharge em through natural motion.

Kronin323's bang on the money with his advice. At present I have two TB's and the simplest solution has been to wear one for day, one for night, so as to keep them both happy. I know I'd like to have a few more TB's but by then I'll be looking for some kind of motorised display cabinet thing.

As for re-charging times - depending on whether your TB's have the original capacitor or the LiOn battery, the capacitor seems quicker to recharge than the LiOn. That said I haven't done this under lab conditions so I can't offer any exact timings as the charger alignment can still be a bit tricky.

 

[mustangjt]

Good luck with that. That's not enough wear to maintain a charge.

That's the catch with TB1 and other watches with Seiko kinetic movements, it's an investment in wear time to keep them running enough so the charge doesn't deplete enough to kill the battery.

Assuming you can get your charger setup to work (which is harder than it may seem because, unlike phones, you don't get a nice LED telling you when it's positioned right for charging...) you should set up a regular charging cycle routine. If you're using the original capacitor that's charging once a week. With the replacement LiOn, you can get away twice a year. Which is easier said than done - you also don't get any indicator when it's fully charged... As carguy mentioned elsewhere (actually in the thread I posted at the top of this page full of info) the most ideal situation would be where if your display position had a built in, constant charger.

@kronin323 Thanks to your post showing proper positioning, I was able to start charging immediately. The TB was completely drained, started doing the 2-sec ticks for a bit, then went to normal 1sec tics. It’s been on the charger all night (about 10hrs as of this post) and still showing the 1 sec tick.

So based on that I would assume it still has the old style capacitor right?

So it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just left it on the charger until I am able to wear it?

 

[kronin323]

@kronin323 Thanks to your post showing proper positioning, I was able to start charging immediately. The TB was completely drained, started doing the 2-sec ticks for a bit, then went to normal 1sec tics. It’s been on the charger all night (about 10hrs as of this post) and still showing the 1 sec tick.

So based on that I would assume it still has the old style capacitor right?

So it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just left it on the charger until I am able to wear it?

No I think the low charge indicator would go away that quickly with the LiOn too. If you want to figure out what's in there without taking it apart, you should test how long it takes to run out from being fully charged (without recharging again by charger or by wearing, of course). The original capacitor has about a week's power reserve while the LiOn should be good for six months on a full charge; if it's still running after sitting idle for three weeks after recharging then you can be sure it's LiOn.

Leaving it on the charger full time? I can only speculate. My guess is no - most LiOn chargers these days, such as for your cellphone or the 18650s commonly used in flashlights and vape devices, they have electronics (either in the charger or in the device) to prevent overcharging. I don't believe that same safety cutoff exists in this setup; the charger is dumb and the battery's too small to have protection electronics in it. But I haven't tried it firsthand, perhaps you'd get away with it.