Saturday, October 27, 2012

Demo and Disassembly of the Casio F-91w

Back in 1992 +/- i felt like a modern little man because i got my first Casio F-91W. It didn't last 3 months. Not because the watch was poorly designed or had major weaknesses but mainly because no watch used to last more than 3 to 5 months with me as i was always disassembling them and testing them underwater, sometimes boiling water, overvolting, etc, etc...Yeah i was a little maniac.




Today these clocks and other variants are a retro-fashion. Also they were\are used a lot in bomb attacks and actually giving them an unfair bad reputation for being a terrorist watch. This couldn't be more unfair because any alarm clock can be used for a bomb, you just need how to connect it to the circuit. I'm not going to tell you :) Although you might already know. Don't bomb anyone please, and enjoy these little but awesome early 90's clocks.





Here you can se various variants of this clock. The one on the right is a Casio A158W and it's the one i use, the gold one on the is a A168 and belongs to my wife. The white one near to the F-91W is a fake Casio clock.






This clone stinks of fake as the LCD segments look different from the original Casio LCD, the beep alarm sounds different and even the display light mimics cheesy discoparty collored blinking lights.





I disassembled both and putted them side by side for comparison.





Here you can see the brains of the original Casio clock. Simple and elegant (apart the unevenly spreaded blobby epoxy over the IC).





Here is the fake one. Urgh!





I did a small video demoing both and disassembling them, showing some of the features!

Enjoy!







7 comments:

  1. Hi there, I'm desperately trying to find a white fake Casio with disco lights. I've looked everywhere and they seem to have fallen off the face of the planet. I don't suppose you know of a supplier?

    Best Wishes,

    Lowri

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there. Not even on ebay from time to time?
    To be honest, they seem to get yellow over time. My wife doesn't use it anymore even though hers is more or less ok.
    I'll keep my eyes on them around here in my town and if i find one i'll ship it to you.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dude, it's a watch, not a clock ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dude, it's a watch, not a clock ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello, the disco light did not crash. It isn't a bug, but a feature. When you replaced the battery the light was reset to default. If you keep pressing the light button for some seconds, you can choose one of the seven static background colors, or leave it in disco-fashion setting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for share your info i love this watch greetings from spain

    ReplyDelete