Curious longlived battery

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

ca 1995 I bought some 7yr diver watches from Woolworth. WHen they doed I
tried to replace the battery but the entire watch was sealed in silicone and
could not be salvaged. I had tied one of those watched to the handlebar of my
bicycle, face towards the sky. It still runs. Is it because the battery
remained flat? It is kinda miraculous!

- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Phooey on GUI: Windows for subprime Bimbos]

[Jim Yanik]

vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote in
news:japfqp$goa$3...@reader1.panix.com:

probably a lithium coin cell. some can run for 10 years or more.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 01:36:25 +0000 (UTC),
vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:

>ca 1995 I bought some 7yr diver watches from Woolworth. WHen they doed I
>tried to replace the battery but the entire watch was sealed in silicone and
>could not be salvaged. I had tied one of those watched to the handlebar of my
>bicycle, face towards the sky. It still runs. Is it because the battery
>remained flat? It is kinda miraculous!

15 years from a 7 year battery is quite impressive. I would guess(tm)
silver oxide battery. Lithium batteries can do almost as well, but
unless your dive watch is huge and can fit a coin cell, Lithium is
normally not used in watches.
<http://members.iinet.net.au/~fotoplot/accbatcc.htm>

I'm fairly sure you can disassemble the watch with the proper tools,
instructions, and main force.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[William Sommerwerck]

"Normal" is a matter of opinion. I've owned watches that use coin cells.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:57:09 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzle...@comcast.net> wrote:

>"Normal" is a matter of opinion. I've owned watches that use coin cells.

Yes, but were they lithium or silver oxide coin cells? One or two
cells in your watch?

These daze, you can get either chemistry in almost every size coin
cell. However, as my foggy memory vaguely recalls, 15 years ago, the
smaller cells tended to be silver oxide, while the larger cells were
lithium.

Of course, the real difference can be measured. Single cell silver
oxide cells have a nominal voltage of 1.55V. Lithium is about 3.1V.
If your watch had 2 batteries, they were probably silver oxide. If
one battery, probably lithium manganese dioxide. If the OP would
kindly disclose the maker and model, perhaps the correct battery could
be identified.

There's also a small chance it might have been a mercury battery. They
were banned in the USA in 1996, but may have been available in 1995
for the dive watch.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_battery#Product_ban>

Drivel: I gave up using a watch years ago and currently perfer the
clock and calendar on my cell phone or iPhone PDA.

[William Sommerwerck]

>> "Normal" is a matter of opinion. I've owned watches that use coin cells.

> Yes, but were they lithium or silver oxide coin cells? One or two
> cells in your watch?

They were lithium. Single cells. To be honest, I've never seen a
silver-oxide coin cell -- only button cells.

[Jeff Liebermann]

The buttons on my jacket look more like coins.

A bit of Googling showed that you're correct. Lithium cells are
usually called coin cells, while silver oxide are the somewhat smaller
diameter and fatter button cells. I also couldn't find any thin
silver oxide coin cells, but I did find plenty of lithium batteries in
both configurations. I stand corrected.

Note the first paragraph, which also trys to make the distinction:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_cell>

[Chris K]

Bought and early Casio lithium powered digital watch circa 1980 labelled
'5 year life'. Buttons stuck quite quickly making it impossible to
operate light or change settings so it was put to one side. Came across
it earlier this year and it was still going after 30 years - probably
because the light had never been used.

Don't know whether there are any records for this but this must be near
the upper limit.

Chris K

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:36:55 +0000, Chris K <neb...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>Bought and early Casio lithium powered digital watch circa 1980 labelled
>'5 year life'. Buttons stuck quite quickly making it impossible to
>operate light or change settings so it was put to one side. Came across
>it earlier this year and it was still going after 30 years - probably
>because the light had never been used.
>
>Don't know whether there are any records for this but this must be near
>the upper limit.
>
>Chris K

I couldn't find any statistics for digital watches.

Incidentally, Smart Meters require similar long battery life. 10 to
20 years specified battery life is typical. Here's one product that's
been going for 25 years:
<http://www.tadiranbat.com/pdf.php?id=waterworld-article>
They use lithium thionyl chloride chemistry.

[IanM]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:50:42 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
> <grizzle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>>> "Normal" is a matter of opinion. I've owned watches that use coin cells.
>>> Yes, but were they lithium or silver oxide coin cells? One or two
>>> cells in your watch?
>> They were lithium. Single cells. To be honest, I've never seen a
>> silver-oxide coin cell -- only button cells.
>
> The buttons on my jacket look more like coins.
>

I've got a Casio [248] W-750 ALARM CHRONOGRAPH wristwatch I've been
using since the mid '80s. Its on its 5th or 6th replacement lithium
coin cell. Can't remember whether its CR2032 or CR2025 - the latter I
think as I keep the former in stock for motherboards. Still working
reasonably well, though the time setting gets glitchy with a fresh battery.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
[at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & >32K emails --> NUL:

[John Robertson]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 01:36:25 +0000 (UTC),
> vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
>
>> ca 1995 I bought some 7yr diver watches from Woolworth. WHen they doed I
>> tried to replace the battery but the entire watch was sealed in silicone and
>> could not be salvaged. I had tied one of those watched to the handlebar of my
>> bicycle, face towards the sky. It still runs. Is it because the battery
>> remained flat? It is kinda miraculous!
>
> 15 years from a 7 year battery is quite impressive. I would guess(tm)
> silver oxide battery. Lithium batteries can do almost as well, but
> unless your dive watch is huge and can fit a coin cell, Lithium is
> normally not used in watches.
> <http://members.iinet.net.au/~fotoplot/accbatcc.htm>
>
> I'm fairly sure you can disassemble the watch with the proper tools,
> instructions, and main force.
>

A, fifteen years is not so impressive...how about a number of sets of AA
batteries from 1980 that were found in factory original equipment and
these still have a charge of 1.2VDC each (this was opened on Saturday at
out shop - sealed since 1980 - that's 31 years in circuit holding a
charge!)? They were the battery backup for 5101 CMOS RAM memory in a
video game called Robotron by Williams Industries.

Not the first time for us either, both Rayovac and Duracels have (in
some cases) retained a charge all these years in these old New Old Stock
video and pinball games.

Unfortunately this game (Robotron mini/cabaret) was our last NOS game
from that time (we had about twenty pinballs and videos sealed from
1980, that were sold and then opened in the past ten years)...but I've
kept some of the batteries.

John :-#)#

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"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

[Jeff Layman]

At the end of 2007 I replaced a Toshiba AAA battery (alkaline manganese)
in a
desktop clock-calendar (12.5 mm LCD display), which was given to me in
1983. It was not new then, as it had already been working for at least
12 - 18 months.

Just before I removed it, I measured its on-load voltage (if you can call 1
microamp a load!) as 0.956 volts. For comparison, the current with a new
replacement battery was 1.9 microamps.

--

Jeff