# Seiko Kinetic Year Coding And Coil Replacement Instructions



## sanfairyanne (Sep 22, 2010)

Help anyone, I'm new to this site, I bought a Seiko Kinetic model 5M43 a month ago, Before I bought it it had been fitted with a new Lithium ion cell, when I got it it had got 20secs charge (which I believe is about a 4 months charge) I've been wearing it now for a month and the charge has stayed the same I left it off for a couple of weeks the charge is now at 10secs (2months charge if I'm lucky, things are not looking good) Upon opening the watch I have discovered an indentation in one of the coils it looks like some ones slipped with a screwdriver, The problem that I'm having is that I cannot find any instructions anywhere on changing coils on these watches, I found the instructions for changing capacitors etc but not coils can anyone help, Also I can't find the year coding for this same watch, any help would be very much appreciated< Joe.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2010)

There is a guy who uses this forum called 'Tintox' who has changed a coil successfully in his. Maybe see if he can point you in the right direction. 

...I know that, because he posted in this thread.


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## John_R (Jan 20, 2010)

The reason why you're having a hard time finding instructions for changing the coil is it's not considered a user changeable part. The capacitor was made to be changed relatively easily but everything else is considered that you really should have experience with servicing quartz watches.

I have a link to where you can find the service manual. You'll notice that there are two coils one for the stepping motor the other for charging the battery/capacitor. It's been quite a while since I've had one of these apart it looks like you may be able to get the charging coil out without disturbing the oscillating weight bridge. The reason you don't want to take the bridge off its holding all the gears in place and putting the bridge back on without experience will probably destroy your watch.

http://www.cousinsuk.com/PDF/categories/233_Seiko5M42A,5M43A.pdf


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## sanfairyanne (Sep 22, 2010)

John_R said:


> The reason why you're having a hard time finding instructions for changing the coil is it's not considered a user changeable part. The capacitor was made to be changed relatively easily but everything else is considered that you really should have experience with servicing quartz watches.
> 
> I have a link to where you can find the service manual. You'll notice that there are two coils one for the stepping motor the other for charging the battery/capacitor. It's been quite a while since I've had one of these apart it looks like you may be able to get the charging coil out without disturbing the oscillating weight bridge. The reason you don't want to take the bridge off its holding all the gears in place and putting the bridge back on without experience will probably destroy your watch.
> 
> http://www.cousinsuk.../233_Seiko5M42A,5M43A.pdf


Hi John, thank's for that link I've downloaded the manual and yes I thoroughly agree that this is not the usual job either for the faint hearted or novice, However thing's are getting desperate the battery is running out and no amount of me swinging the watch or wearing it is recharging the battery, I have with the aid of a loupe checked on the coils and found one with some form of indentation in it some thing that resembles a stab from a screw driver I can also see some very fine strands of what looks like copper wire on various parts of the coil, This watch is supposed to have had a Lithium ion battery fitted a couple of months before I had it, The guy was supposed to know what he was doing, It looks like the cell was charged at the time of fitting and it's been running on that charge alone ever since, Thing's are now getting critical because there is only a few days charge left in the battery, Everything seems to be going wrong lately I've just had to sort one of my Eco's out, Do you know John I've got a Bulova Accutron they can be temperamental but the problem's with it are nothing to the prob's that I'm having with Kinetic's & Eco's, Anyway as I said I'm only thinking of doing the job myself, I'm actually waiting for a call from Seiko Kinetics Inc who I buy my Capacitors from Paul from SKI is pretty good, You pointed something out to me that I never knew, I thought that both coils did the charging I did not realise without the diagrams that one coil only charged the cell and the other powered the rest of the watch / movement, Well it's late in the early hours of the morning and I'm off to bed, Goodnight and Good morning everybody and thank's again John reading the manual was a real eye opener, Joe.


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2010)

I wonder what the outcome was...


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## sanfairyanne (Sep 22, 2010)

Om_nom_nom_Watches! said:


> I wonder what the outcome was...


Hi guys, good news, I bought a couple of kinetics for spares or repairs from the Philippines a week or so ago as they were never going to work had a little practise on one of them as every one knows it's easier taking things apart it's putting them back together that's the problem, Well with the confidence building up decided to have a knock at the one that was giving me trouble, The coil when taken out and examined was found to have two strands broken and the reading was dead luckily the spare gave a good reading so have fitted it, The tricky bit I found was re-aligning the magneto and slave drive to the weight the bottoms of these two cogs / drivers have to fit into two jewellers and if not located right you can snap off the ends plus do untold damage to the jewells, Well it's all back together the weight is moving freely, How long it will take to charge the capacitor I still have no idea, I never thought that I would see the day when the movement plates in a watch would be made out of plastic well the Seiko Kinetic has just that I couldn't believe my eyes, They are definitely a watch not to mess with if your heavy handed as the screw posts can be pushed out of place, there's no way of getting them back in place unless you do a major strip down, No I haven't done it but I know a man who has, Put it this way this will be the last coil that I change on a Kinetic, I went into a jewellers who contacted Seiko while I was in the shop asking if there were any parts available for these Kinetics I was told that Seiko no longer made parts for them not even the links all their spares etc have been sold off, so unless we find some one with new / old stock spares we will be very lucky to keep this type of watch working of course there's always the broken down ones that we can scavenge parts from but then it becomes a lottery as to whether or not the same parts have gone defective as the ones we want,

My sincere thank's to every one for their help and advice, in the mean time keep on Kineting, Joe.


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## DelH (Aug 10, 2016)

I have a similar problem with my, circa 1996, 5M43 Titanium Kinetic and have been keeping it going for the past year, having changed a 'capacitor' and, probably damaging the coil (clumsy). My recovery method is quite simple: take a 3v power source (2xAA's or I use a variable voltage transformer output source set to 4.5v, which doesn't seem to do any harm) and charge the lithium battery in situ, . The case is +ve. It takes about 30 minutes.and lasts 4 to 5 weeks before the 5 second tick and I charge it within 7 days of this.. When I get fed up with this routine I revert to using my 1966, Tokyo Olympics, 8 Singapore dollars, Seiko Sportsmatic, calendar watch which is still going strong after all these years. It's a shame Seiko gave up supporting the early Kinetics with spares.


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## ct9location (Feb 10, 2021)

I've just managed a successful coil change on a 5m43 using donor parts from a cheap Pulsar (caliber YT57 is to all intents and purposes a clone) bought on an auction site. 
This tutorial gets you most of the way there, the rest is instinctive, no surprises to be had, just 2 or 3 more screw holding the coils in . 



 If anyone has the part numbers for these coils or any info on how I can order a new set, I'd like to hear.


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## johnbaz (Jan 30, 2005)

I have a few Kinetics and have to say, I'd never buy another!!

I don't wear them often enough to keep them charged, I must have four or five of which only one still charges!, Years ago I bought two replacemnent rechargeable cells from AG Thomas, Neither would charge so may have been a bad batch, I've also bout a couple from fleabay (For other peoples watches), They worked fine!!

I should have sent them back to Thomas's but never got round to it, It stopped me buying again from them though 

I love Solar watches though as I have a small lamp on above the pc for around 16 hours a day (An 8.2w led bulb) and it keeps six solar watches fully topped up all the time!! :notworthy:

John :thumbsup:


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