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Boy do I have a surprise for you all... those of you who know me on here, know my tendency to do odd things to odd things, like modding a trash can and such. But today, I pulled out all the stops. I modded... a Chinese eBay LED Watch 
Our story begins about a year ago, when I fell over a site called LED Watch Stop which sells LED Watches to people who have $100-$200 to waste on such things. I watch that place pretty carefully and there's just nothing for the rest of us.
So the lightbulb goes off over my head one day, about two weeks ago. "You DUMB***! Go to eBay!" A slap to the forehead and two ibuprofen later, I find THE MOST PERFECT LED WATCH DESIGN EVAR for $8.77. I didn't have that much in my Paypal, but I had a $10 in my wallet and I happened to be visiting my father that day, so I handed over the tenner for the privilege of him ordering for me.
It got here about a week later, arriving in a bubble mailer with a poorly designed flyer and a Ziploc-style baggie as extra padding. No instructions After another week of emails in bad English, I got my "indtructions" (their repeated spelling) and instructions for the instructions -- they refer to S1 and S2 as buttons in their instructions, yet they do not specify which of the four buttons are S1 and S2 !!
So 48 hours or so later, I take the watch off to go to bed, and the spring bar holding one side of the strap on... fails. So now I can't wear it. Great. Three days of emails later, they say that they'll let me keep the broken one (whoopeedo) and they'll send me a new one, all costs on them (including postage).
Got it this evening, coming back from another visit with my father. It broke within seconds of me putting it on -- this model seems to have real trouble with spring bars. Now I get mad especially after I break the other two pair of spring bars trying to make it work right again
Lightbulb time again... "I know how I can fix this so that it'll NEVER fall apart again!" Next thing you know, I'm out on the front porch with the watch wrapped in masking tape, picking up a nice friend of mine by the name of Rockwell the Grey.
Rockwell is the closest thing I'll ever get to a raygun. He's great at poking holes in things. I've never had him stall out on me, and he's quite precise (except for my first time feeding him a spade bit). Yep, Rockwell is my drill.
Here's the victim in pre-op masking tape garb --
Meanwhile, in an effort to make the band a little bit more amicable to working with me, I had introduced it (really them, as it's two pieces that buckle together like a belt) to my friend the "exacto" knife. It's fairly exact, but how much so depends on who's holding it. All of my dexterity rolls came out in my favor, so I didn't get a knife in my hand today
Pix of the aftermath of knifing the band (wow, that sounds a lot more deadly than it was) --
Then I found some silvered copper wire, and used it appropriately Won't last forever, but then again, neither will the watch! Especially since it's made of the same material, silvered copper... some of the finish came off through the masking tape. Next time I'll use vinyl electrical tape. Pix of the finished product --
By the way... to set the time on this thing...
(1) Hold the watch, face up, so that the words "LED WATCH" at the bottom are right side up.
(2) Press the upper-right button.
(3) Press and hold the lower-right button until the hour blinks.
(4) Press the upper-right button repeatedly until the hour display is where you want it.
(5) Press the lower-right button to set minutes.
(6) Repeat (4).
(7) Repeat (5) and (4) (in that order) to set the month, day, and year.
(8) Press the lower-right button one last time to lock.
What the buttons do:
BOTH left buttons are the same. They display "88:88" until you release them, at which point the time is displayed.
The upper-right button displays (1st) HH:MM, (2nd) MOY, (3rd) :SS
The lower-right button is disabled unless the time is being displayed via the upper-right button, at which point it can be used to set the time if you hold it down long enough (~1-2sec).
So there you have it. That's all I'm gonna write, folks.
Our story begins about a year ago, when I fell over a site called LED Watch Stop which sells LED Watches to people who have $100-$200 to waste on such things. I watch that place pretty carefully and there's just nothing for the rest of us.
So the lightbulb goes off over my head one day, about two weeks ago. "You DUMB***! Go to eBay!" A slap to the forehead and two ibuprofen later, I find THE MOST PERFECT LED WATCH DESIGN EVAR for $8.77. I didn't have that much in my Paypal, but I had a $10 in my wallet and I happened to be visiting my father that day, so I handed over the tenner for the privilege of him ordering for me.
It got here about a week later, arriving in a bubble mailer with a poorly designed flyer and a Ziploc-style baggie as extra padding. No instructions
After another week of emails in bad English, I got my "indtructions" (their repeated spelling) and instructions for the instructions -- they refer to S1 and S2 as buttons in their instructions, yet they do not specify which of the four buttons are S1 and S2 !! So 48 hours or so later, I take the watch off to go to bed, and the spring bar holding one side of the strap on... fails. So now I can't wear it. Great. Three days of emails later, they say that they'll let me keep the broken one (whoopeedo) and they'll send me a new one, all costs on them (including postage).
Got it this evening, coming back from another visit with my father. It broke within seconds of me putting it on -- this model seems to have real trouble with spring bars. Now I get mad
especially after I break the other two pair of spring bars trying to make it work right again Lightbulb time again... "I know how I can fix this so that it'll NEVER fall apart again!" Next thing you know, I'm out on the front porch with the watch wrapped in masking tape, picking up a nice friend of mine by the name of Rockwell the Grey.
Rockwell is the closest thing I'll ever get to a raygun. He's great at poking holes in things. I've never had him stall out on me, and he's quite precise (except for my first time feeding him a spade bit). Yep, Rockwell is my drill.
Here's the victim in pre-op masking tape garb --
Meanwhile, in an effort to make the band a little bit more amicable to working with me, I had introduced it (really them, as it's two pieces that buckle together like a belt) to my friend the "exacto" knife. It's fairly exact, but how much so depends on who's holding it. All of my dexterity rolls came out in my favor, so I didn't get a knife in my hand today
Pix of the aftermath of knifing the band (wow, that sounds a lot more deadly than it was) --
Then I found some silvered copper wire, and used it appropriately
Won't last forever, but then again, neither will the watch! Especially since it's made of the same material, silvered copper... some of the finish came off through the masking tape. Next time I'll use vinyl electrical tape. Pix of the finished product --
By the way... to set the time on this thing...
(1) Hold the watch, face up, so that the words "LED WATCH" at the bottom are right side up.
(2) Press the upper-right button.
(3) Press and hold the lower-right button until the hour blinks.
(4) Press the upper-right button repeatedly until the hour display is where you want it.
(5) Press the lower-right button to set minutes.
(6) Repeat (4).
(7) Repeat (5) and (4) (in that order) to set the month, day, and year.
(8) Press the lower-right button one last time to lock.
What the buttons do:
BOTH left buttons are the same. They display "88:88" until you release them, at which point the time is displayed.
The upper-right button displays (1st) HH:MM, (2nd) MO
Y, (3rd) :SSThe lower-right button is disabled unless the time is being displayed via the upper-right button, at which point it can be used to set the time if you hold it down long enough (~1-2sec).
So there you have it. That's all I'm gonna write, folks.
