Seiko Kinetic - battery/capacitor faulty? (5M85 caliber)

[Dan83bz]

Have recently purchase a used Seiko Tuna, brilliant watch, however it doesn't seem to hold a charge, so I wanted to hear from owners of similar watches, hopefully with the same or similar caliber, 5M85, this particular model is SUN019P

The symptoms are:
- it arrived stopped, which I guess could be normal, although it only took about 4-5 days to arrive
- after shaking it a bit it started running in the "jumping" mode, not 1 second at a time but more which indicated low-charge, I've had Kinetics in the past, so that was expected
- after shaking it some more, to try to get it past the 5 second charge-check, according to manual and some threads I read on this movement, it soon went to 10 seconds (after quite some carpal-tunnel inducing wrist-strain might I add ), and then after some more, all in all probably at least 5, maybe 10 000 side to side shakes, as I was doing it while watching a movie last night, it also went to 20s, indicating close to being fully charged, so definitely should have lasted for a few weeks if not months
- then just before bed, I thought of checking again, and unfortunately it had gone back to a 5-second charge indication, so I've then shaken it some more, for 10-15 minutes before sleep, it went back to 10-seconds, meaning should be a month's charge.
- this morning, its gone back to 5-seconds/low charge indication



After reading thru some threads on WUS, this is a indication that the battery/capacitor might be faulty and can't hold a charge. The seller described is as excellent condition, so definitely didn't expect it to be not holding a charge, but at the same time he did mention wearing it only a handful of times for the last 3 years, which might explain why the capacitor might have lost its ability to hold a charge.

I don't really want to bother the seller at this stage, I'll keep trying over the next few days to wear it/shake it which hopefully might revive the capacitor, but at the same time I would appreciate any input/feedback from owners to know what to expect, any tips would be well appreciated.

Many thanks in advance!

NSeiko SUN019p

[Sinnlover]

It does sound as if the capacitor needs replacing
I have the black and orange version of the watch and I only wear it whilst travelling, I have noticed a distinct reduction in battery life as it lies unloved for months at a time.
They need to be worn every week and do not like to fully discharge (or so I have read)
They are a really great watch for their designed purpose but not great in a collection where they may not get worn.
I would not buy another Kinetic watch based on my experience and use patterns. They are a fantastic watch though.

[timor54]

The fact that the watch runs briefly when shaken suggests that the quartz movement is basically OK.

Kinetic capacitors degrade over time, in my experience after 5 or so years, and will no longer hold their charge. If worn they’ll run OK but will rarely display the charge level at more than 10 secs.

I’ve just recently replaced the capacitor in mine, a different 5M42 movement but basically the same, and it now runs well. I did it myself with a capacitor bought from eBay for about £12. It’d been done twice previously by Seiko, who the last time charged me about £85.

As the watch wasn’t worth enough to justify spending that sort of money again I choose to try it myself. A bit fiddly to do but it worked out OK and the watch which is 20 years old and now on its fourth capacitor has held its charge, un worn, for about 2 months and still shows the charge level at 20 secs.

[hughtrimble]

Someone on here used an electric toothbrush charger to get a capacitor going again. Thread a week or two ago on it, which I can't currently find...

Edit: here it is

https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...eiko-capacitor

[sish101]

A quick check on eBay finds lots of Braun chargers for less than a fiver delivered. May be worth a try and if it doesn't fix it, pop it back onto the bay.

[Dan83bz]

A quick check on eBay finds lots of Braun chargers for less than a fiver delivered. May be worth a try and if it doesn't fix it, pop it back onto the bay.

Thanks for that. Issue is I'm not in the UK, and from what I can see, the shipping charges on those I can find are thrice the price. Also I wouldn't really want to fiddle with it for fear of making it worse. I will keep wearing/shaking it though over the weekend and see how that goes.

Do you have any idea of any definitive "test" I could do to know for sure whether the capacitor can no longer hold a proper charge?

The fact that the watch runs briefly when shaken suggests that the quartz movement is basically OK.

Kinetic capacitors degrade over time, in my experience after 5 or so years, and will no longer hold their charge. If worn they’ll run OK but will rarely display the charge level at more than 10 secs.

I’ve just recently replaced the capacitor in mine, a different 5M42 movement but basically the same, and it now runs well. I did it myself with a capacitor bought from eBay for about £12. It’d been done twice previously by Seiko, who the last time charged me about £85.

As the watch wasn’t worth enough to justify spending that sort of money again I choose to try it myself. A bit fiddly to do but it worked out OK and the watch which is 20 years old and now on its fourth capacitor has held its charge, un worn, for about 2 months and still shows the charge level at 20 secs.

I thought about that too, but this watch is about 3 years old, so under normal circumstanced I don't see why the capacitor should already have degraded so much when they're supposed to last +10 years easily, and also , so far at least, this one, despite me managing to bring it to the 20 secs mark, it just reverts back to the minimal 5sec charge level. I will leave it though running for a few days to see if it runs down again as it did over the first night, or whether it will keep on ticking.

[timor54]

Probably bad form to refer to another forum but this might help.

https://forums.watchuseek.com/f21/5m...t-3688794.html

[Neil.C]

The accumulators are not difficult to replace if you feel you need to.

Whip off the rotor and it should come into view.

[Dan83bz]

The accumulators are not difficult to replace if you feel you need to.

Whip off the rotor and it should come into view.

Appreciate the response, but I would rather not, as there are a bunch of difficulties, starting with me not having the right tools, don't really want to ding it bad while trying to open it, as well as the 2 places I see sell these accumulators reasonably as per references here and on WUS, don't ship abroad due to it being a rechargeable battery, considered "hazardous material" which is of course nonsense for a li-ion battery of that size, but alas we live in the age of nonsense. I've checked now on Cousins and another place, both wouldn't ship to me.

Most likely I will just end up returning it to the seller as it wasn't as described basically (bought here off the forum), but as I mentioned, I want to make absolutely sure it is indeed faulty/not being able to hold a proper charge before resorting to that.

Many thanks again for all the comments, very helpful bunch

[Dan83bz]

Probably bad form to refer to another forum but this might help.

https://forums.watchuseek.com/f21/5m...t-3688794.html

Thanks, I had found that thread last night, a bit confusing, don't know why Seiko and others take such great lengths to make it a huge PITA to find suitable replacements

[timor54]

I found it difficult to figure out the correct capacitor. Yours looks like a newer and rarer movement which adds to the problem.

One complication is that you’ll find references to OEM capacitors such as Panasonic MT920 being replacements for your Seiko movement. Often this is only partly true, it might well be a Panasonic cell but that has to have the two lugs attached to it that are used to connect it to the Seiko movement. Buying just the cell isn’t enough...

This page might be of help to explain some of the issues:

https://kinetic-repairs.co.uk/Seiko-...iagnostic.html

There is also a link to where they will sell capacitors for whatever movement you require.

It’s a UK company I found a while ago when I first started going round in these circles. But I’ve not used them so this is in no way a recommendation.

[RobDad]

I’ve had one of those in the past. I would suggest you wear it daily for at least a week then check the charge. I had mine from new and it was nearly flat, wore it for a week straight and the charge gradually grew - I don’t think waving it around really works with a kinetic. I also have a set of Philips imageo rechargeable candles, the charger will max it out in about 2 days. I think they’re great watches but need to be worn regularly - be patient and you may well be fine


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dan83bz]

I’ve had one of those in the past. I would suggest you wear it daily for at least a week then check the charge. I had mine from new and it was nearly flat, wore it for a week straight and the charge gradually grew - I don’t think waving it around really works with a kinetic. I also have a set of Philips imageo rechargeable candles, the charger will max it out in about 2 days. I think they’re great watches but need to be worn regularly - be patient and you may well be fine


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the advice. I will try to wear it for a while indeed, although truth be told in the long run this was supposed to fit the niche of strictly a weekend watch in my collection, definitely not a daily wearer, hence why I sort of need its charging capabilities to work properly, as if its already faulty/not keeping charge, then it might further deteriorate with the sporadic wear I was planning to give it.

[RobDad]

Once fully charged they run for about 6 months at least. Regular weekend use should be fine once it’s charged initially. Mine was able to stay at full charge while being worn for a few days a month - you just need to wear them every now and again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dan83bz]

Once fully charged they run for about 6 months at least. Regular weekend use should be fine once it’s charged initially. Mine was able to stay at full charge while being worn for a few days a month - you just need to wear them every now and again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, but I guess yours didn't go back to minimal charge almost immediately after being fully charge, did it? Do you remember what the indicator showed? Because with this one, the charge during the day if worn and shaken a bit from time to time keeps increasing, only to go back to minimum (five "jumps" of the sec. hand) once checking it in the morning. That's why I am worried. If it gradually went up and stayed up, to at least the 10 seconds, than I would know at least the battery is being charged and stays charged, even if not at full capacity. Thanks again for your input.

[Sinnlover]

I have had a similar situation. It was low on charge.’, I shook it for an hour or so and it said it was charged but when tested the next day the power reserve was down again. It should be noted that they are very slow to charge. It usually takes a week of constant use to get my watch up to full charge
Wear it for a week and see how you go but as I said in my previous post they do not sit that well in a collection where they may not get worn for a while. I checked mine yesterday. It’s not been worn for nearly a month but I did wear it for 2 weeks over Xmas and the power reserve function is at the 20 minute mark.

[Dan83bz]

I have had a similar situation. It was low on charge.’, I shook it for an hour or so and it said it was charged but when tested the next day the power reserve was down again. It should be noted that they are very slow to charge. It usually takes a week of constant use to get my watch up to full charge
Wear it for a week and see how you go but as I said in my previous post they do not sit that well in a collection where they may not get worn for a while. I checked mine yesterday. It’s not been worn for nearly a month but I did wear it for 2 weeks over Xmas and the power reserve function is at the 20 minute mark.

I see, thanks for checking. This one unfortunately doesn’t seem to be able to keep charge above the 5-second. Had it for 4 days now, and between all the wear and lots of the shaking, I would say there should have been at least 12-15 000 movements of the rotor, and according to the manual and various sources online, 24000 rotations should take it to FULL charge, so in this case it should be at 20sec. mark, or at least 10. It does go up to 20, but always goes back to 5sec. by the next morning. I have not doubt whether I'm doing the swings right, since the rotor on this is quite loud, so I've swung it form side to side in a rhythm that moves the rotor. Or maybe the charging mechanism itself could be faulty, although every reference I've seen on the forums where a watch would not charge was due to the battery not the charging mechanism itself, which makes sense, because if it would charge at all, then logically it should not function at all either.

[timor54]

I think you previously said that the watch is only 2-3 years old? From what I’ve experienced and read it shouldn’t behave like this so soon. Even if it takes a long time to charge up it ought to hold whatever charge it’s gained overnight.

As you say, the other possibility is a fault, either in the charging circuit or the movement itself running down the charge quickly for some reason?

Difficult to know what to suggest if your unwilling to try a new capacitor. Can you return it?

[Thewatchbloke]

You need a Seiko YT02A, a snip at €478.76

http://www.watch-tools.de/watch-wind...odel-yt02a.php

They're very expensive but they are a brilliant tool if (like I do) you see a lot of kinetic Seikos with "charging" issues.

[RobDad]

The behaviour you describe - showing full charge after vigorous shaking, dropping overnight- doesn’t surprise me and can be quite normal when the charge is very low. Wear it for a week solid, no waving it around especially, no checking the charge - leave it on your bedside table overnight after the week, then check. If it has dropped to virtually nothing, send it to Seiko for a new capacitor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DaveA]

I bought a new Sportura Kinetic about 4 years ago with a nearly flat battery.

I feared the worse as it struggled to hold a full charge. But it just got stronger and stronger with time, and now does the full sweep after 2 weeks off the wrist.

My BFK kinetic (2013) has been worn to death and now struggles to hold a full charge if not worn for the weekend.