I’ve got a G-Shock tough solar watch (bought it off here actually, a few years back) and it’s not charging properly. It’ll charge up in the sun, but then die again really quickly (it used to get enough charge from a few hours of sun for aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages).

Anyone experienced this? Any ideas? Local jewellers don’t want to do anything ‘cos of all the sealing on a G-Shock.

Got one too, and although i’ve not had problems with it now (going on 2 years or so) – I’ve taken g-shocks in before to independents and although they have done work, they dont guarantee the seals following any work, so depending on how much you abuse it, it might not be worth it anyway.

Can you not find an approved dealer/repairer via Casio?

Maybe, I’ll have a look. It was only cheap when I bought it though so I don’t want to spend loads – could buy a new watch instead 😉

There’s still a battery in side the solar watches, possibly the battery has gone bad?

Aye I wondered that, but they’re apparently rated for 40 years!

Had mine for 10 years,faultless.

Had one problem with a strap on an old G-shock years ago and used Casio UK .
They gave be new one,free of charge

Aye I wondered that, but they’re apparently rated for 40 years!

Really?

No idea, though I’m pretty sure I read it somewhere.

I have one that had the same issue after I’d let it run completely flat by leaving in a drawer for ages. I emailed casio – said I wanted a replacement battery under the sale of goods act and they gave me a reference to send it in for repairs (not 100% they agreed to do for nothing though).

It then started holding charge again – getting up to medium charge and not discharging – then on coast to coast I did couple of weekends ago – so 8ish hours a day of charging in mid-summer sun – it is now fully charged.

So I think the moral is that perhaps they take a long time to recharge from totally flat. The instructions say it takes 23 hours in bright outdoor sunlight to get from low to high charge and 102 hours of bright sunlight through a window

In terms of battery life – the instruction booklet says something like the battery may fade over time – but it says stuff like charging and recharging over years in this context.

Hmm that’s interesting. Might have to try sticking it outside for a couple of days and see what happens!

Had mine for about 6 or 7 years, no problem other than the battery meter drops from full to empty after about 10 minutes away from the window. Battery then stays on empty for the day but it works fine.

Well, after two full days of sunshine (left it on the car outside work) it appears to be back to full strength. Hurrah!

I’ve had one for 12 years, change the battery every four years. The solar charging doesn’t seem to do jack.

There is a ton of info out there about solar g-shocks.

Basically the H,M,L charge indicator means very little just what functions are available due to the level of charge.

So H doesn’t mean fully charged.

I have had 2 Solar G-shocks and both have needed a couple of sunny days on a bedroom windowsill to get a decent charge before being used.

Once this is done, they have never dipped below the H level.

Feel free to geek out here:
http://forums.watchuseek.com/f17/

I’ve been wearing mine every day for 6 years now. It’s never dipped below the ‘H’ indicator, and i’ve never had a battery replaced.

It’s looking a little tatty, but still going strong!