You need to dig out the setting instructions for these after a battery change.

What you are seeing is the watch indicating the date that it has been set at. By pulling the crown out in that sequence you have put it into date confirmation mode.

The initial 5 second movement indicates the numbers from a leap year. If it moves 1 5 second interval, it means that the current year is 1 year after the last leap year.

After it has shown which leap year it is set at , the date counter then shows which month it is set at. Following that the date returns to give you the date and the watch returns to normal time mode.

To change the date, month and leap year, you need to remove the back and go through a set procedure - which is fairly easily found by a quick search.

Barry

 

Hello Barry,

thank you for your kind response. I am aware of the calendar checking function. However, I believe that I am describing something else. Please, compare the following two sections.

Excerpt from the Seiko cal. 8F32 instructions:
To check calendar data, pull the crown from the FULLY RETRACTED position out to the first click, and push it back IMMEDIATELLY.

"5 sec dwell on 1st click" undocumented function:
To start the show, pull the crown to the FULLY EXTENDED position ("second click") first. Second hand stops moving. Then carefully push the crown in to the middle ("fist click") position. Second hand starts moving. Wait 5 seconds (or 5 single second steps of the second hand), and pull the crown back out to the FULLY EXTENDED position. As expected, second hand again does not move, but movement of the date dial ring starts.

Perhaps someone having cal. 8F32 watch at hand could try my instructions, and confirm that this is something else than the calendar data check.

Thank you
oldmill

 

might be of interest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3hVre1yf_k

 

I have an 8F32 that has been doing 4 seconds jump, after I put in a new battery. I read the manual, tried to set and reset it, nothing worked until this video.

It works!

Just watch the video through, and roll back and pause at the points that shorting of circuit were happening!! No better 15 minutes spent than watching this video. (it's a 9 minutes video, so I watched once and rolled back, opened the watch case back, removed the battery, put it back in, reset,..... until it's done - 15 minutes)

I guess I am not that "RTFM" type of person. Haha! I should now be very careful when I ask my daughters to read the manual before they do anything on any of their new toys. A video-tutorial like this is mighty helpful, rather than reading those encrypted dry manual text.

Thanks a lot for this pointer. I also gladly left a Thumb-up on that video.

Vincent

 

Yes, these are excellent instructions about how to change the battery in cal. 8F32 watch, and how to set the calendar. Very clear and comprehensible.

But still, a different topic.

Anybody with 8F32 watch at hand?

 

I have an 8F59 -but what's the point?

 

If you have caliber 8F56 (8F59 is a typo, isn' it?),
will you be so kind, and try my instructions, please?

With a bit of luck the chip could use the same logic as my 8F32A caliber.

Thank you!
oldmill

 

mmm - you are talking about something different to the setting check aren't you. Its a bit hard to visualise from your description. What about a video?

 

Just out of curiosity, I did what oldmill described in the post.

And now the day wheel moved crazily like for a minute, until it settles itself back to 8 (today's date).

I am not an expert of this at all (see, I can't even read the manual), just to confirm the behavior oldmill observed and reported.

Vincent

 

Hello Vincent,

do you have your 8F32 watch at hand now?
If yes, will you be so kind, and try my instructions from my original (first) posting on this thread, please?

Thank you!
oldmill

 

"5 sec dwell on 1st click" undocumented function:
To start the show, pull the crown to the FULLY EXTENDED position ("second click") first. Second hand stops moving. Then carefully push the crown in to the middle ("fist click") position. Second hand starts moving. Wait 5 seconds (or 5 single second steps of the second hand), and pull the crown back out to the FULLY EXTENDED position. As expected, second hand again does not move, but movement of the date dial ring starts.

What I did was the above. I observed that the date wheel turns by itself after I did second position -> first position for 5 seconds -> second position.

To be clear before I try that "saving interrupt at 2 second , 1-16" thingy - does this process, as much as you know, interrupts the time-keeping or calendar-keeping function? Or this interruption only saves new value to whatever that value was before, assuming calendar-keeping function is not interrupted?

Vincent

 

mmmm.... strange. What have you discovered

 

The date dial ring driving mechanics does not allow a fluent movement, only a sequential steps up or down between 1 and 31. There are two kinds of this stepping movement, lets name it for now as "quick" and "slow".

The "quick" one is used for a plain shift from the original position (and a displayed number) to a target position (and number). Date dial ring moves with 1 (one) second delays between steps.

The "slow" one is used for "offering" numbers between 1 and 31 (inclusive both), giving you enough time to choose a new "VALUE" (see my original post). You choose by pressing IN the crown from the second click (fully out) position to the retracted position of the crown. I name it "slow", because of 2 (two) second period between steps.

So, if you arrange your mind, you can see that after starting the show, not storing a new "VALUE" by interrupting the show, the date dial ring moves like this:

"8" -quick mov.- "VALUE" -quick mov.- "1" -slow mov.- "16" -quick mov.- "8"
(Today is 8th, so at the start and the end there is number "8" in the window)

At least, i hope so. There are many strange exceptions and dependencies I don't understand yet.

-oldmill

 

Dear Vincent,
to my knowledge, it should not interfere with the calendar.
As far as I can say, it does not break time-keeping.

However, I don't know anything more than you about the real purpose of this function.

As I said, I have certain feeling that the stored "VALUE" is an index into a table with 16 entries. Then, when remembering all those stories about 8F32 speed-up after battery change, an idea of the crystal frequency correction table ('ala ETA) comes to my mind. My hypothesis is that when the calendar info is lost, also the stored "VALUE" is lost and thus then preset to a value sometimes not suitable to a specific crystal. I am afraid that to try to validate this theory in my conditions could take months, and I hope that someone with the right equipment could do it much more easily in few hours.

But again, Seiko does not document this function, so it could be broken, faulty, unusable. You are searching with a stick in the muddy waters.

 

I have to apologize for being consistently out of syc with my posting.
I write my responses as quickly as I am able, but obviously still rather slowly.

 

No worries.

I was actually grateful that you brought this issue up, and melt responded with the information exactly as I needed. This 8F32 watch I have has been troubling me for a while. I bought it (not dirt cheap)as a non-working watch. I thought it's worth the gambling so I bought the battery along with it. Replaced it. Boom! I was hit by the 4 seconds jump, though I tried my best to follow the manual. Then this thread came to rescue.

These undocumented features must be documented somewhere inside Seiko, yet it is not that easy to get for us. It is fun for this kind of things as long as it does not damage this "piece of equipment" while poking around. Easter Eggs, anyone?

Cheers,

Vincent

 

Huh, that's incredibly interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

I agree, it's incredibly interesting.
And no need to thank me.
I am happy I eventually got an attention.

Thank you, Vincent, very much!

 

I am afraid that anybody trying this function undergoes a risk of damaging the movement.

I feel that the biggest threat comes from the thermal load. I would wait at least couple of minutes between runs. It will also give a chance to the CR2412 battery to recover from the load. (Could be useful to measure the current during date dial ring movement using an oscilloscope.)

I would also like to hear somebody about Seiko ultrasonic motor used in this caliber.

 

So you've asked members to try something with their watches that may damage the movement - but for what ?
I don't understand what your trying to achieve/ find out !

 

Please, see my post #15