Warning about Seiko Kinetic batteries and capacitors
I frequently am sent Seiko Kinetics and the User says "this watch stopped and I tried to put a capacitor in it but it still didn't work. I know the capacitor was good because it was new and I checked it with a battery checker."
A Seiko Capacitor (battery) must NEVER be checked with a battery charge measuring device of any kind. The inexpensive battery checkers that are sold on eBay or Amazon will deplete a capacitor immediately and fully. And when the "new" capacitor is placed into the watch the watch will not run. It cannot run because it has not power to run because it has a depleted capacitor. And that capacitor will NOT recharge. The battery/capacitor is DOA. Dead. DNR.
##### (Another frequent mistake is to use metal tweezers when installing the capacitor instead of plastic tweezers. Or making contact with either the + pole or the negative pole. Or not correctly installing the mylar insulator in EXACTLY the same position it was when the battery was removed. It is tricky, and it trips up a lot of battery replacement attempts.
And occasionally I receive a watch that the User installed the battery upside down. A Seiko capacitor does not go into the battery well like most watches; it goes in "upside down", with the Positive side DOWN, and the negative side facing you when it is in the well.
But the most common reason a new capacitor placement does not make the Seiko Kinetic run is that when the rotor assembly was removed the User pressed down, even the slightest bit, when removing the screw that holds the rotor. That downward pressure pushes the second hand into the watch crystal, and it is now simply a dead watch.
The slot in the Rotor screw is the thinnest slot I have ever encountered, and I have several expensive screwdrivers that are truly precision.
But I have to use a whetstone to carefully grind down a precision screwdriver to an razor thin tip, before I can safely remove that Rotor screw.
I often break a single edge razor in half, and just use the razor blade, because
it is thin enough enter into the slot of the screw.
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