Mike C.

I have 2 non-working VDO quartz clocks and have been taking them apart and trying to figure out how to fix them. I got the cans open after much careful prying around the bezel. I re-soldered all of the joints on the little circuit board. After this one of the clocks shows some signs of life but it still isn't working. By signs of life I mean when connected to 12 V, the clock motor does move the pinion gear ever so slightly back and forth (in a tick-tock fashion). But it doesn't make any progress in making a revolution - just goes back and forth a small amount. Any ideas what it should be doing in there? Should the motor be turning in a continuous or tick-tock fashion. I did do some searching and can't find anything that gets into the nitty gritty on the quartz clocks.

osu944

i've got one at home. it was working when i took it out. maybe you want it. i dunno?

Mike C.

Sure. What were you asking for it? Any chance you can hook it up to 12 V for a while and see if it still works?

Mike C.

FWIW folks, I did some more digging on the Pelican forum and found a post from a guy who replaced the electrolytic capacitors in the clock and it fixed it. I found replacement caps at Radio Shack (200 uf, 35 VDC max) for the exorbitant sum of $1.29 each (2 required). The old caps appear to be 100 uf, 16 VDC but the clock doesn't seem to care. Lo and behold it's fixed!