How the "Electronics" watch was made in Minsk

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

When I see photos of this watch on the Internet, I always remember my father. He wore these in the days of the USSR and later I inherited them. Of course he himself wore Montana later, but he also used this watch a lot.

The first electronic wrist watches in the USSR were made in Minsk at the Elektronika plant. They were produced in the millions and sold throughout the Soviet Union. Alexander Krivtsov, head of the service department of the Elektronika plant, told how these watches were produced and tested for durability.

Everyone was happy to buy

The first electronic wristwatch in Minsk was made in 1974 in a special workshop of NPO Integral. A year later, mass production was established, after which they began to build a factory for the production of electronic wrist watches. In 1979, the Elektronika plant became an independent enterprise.

In the best times, the factory produced 53 watch models. They made men's, women's, children's models, stopwatches, pendants and even pens. There were ordinary watches, shockproof, waterproof, waterproof. Some models had a calendar, alarm clock, stopwatch.

The Elektronika plant employed about five thousand people, there was a special design bureau, assembly shops, tool and mechanical production.

- The productivity of the plant was six million hours per year. It was time when we produced ten million watches in a year, - Alexander Lazarevich recalls.

Electronic watches were to become a mass product. The first electronic wrist watches made in Minsk - "Twist 2B", "Pole 4" - cost 140 rubles. After that, the prices for wrist "Electronics" gradually decreased: in the late 70s, a watch could be bought for 78 rubles, in the late 80s - for 50 rubles. “Everyone was happy to buy,” recalls Alexander Lazarevich.

All the elements of the watch were "their own" - they were either produced in Minsk, or brought from other cities of the Soviet Union. A quartz resonator was manufactured in Moscow or Leningrad, batteries were supplied from Novosibirsk, and piezoelectric ceramics for sound devices were supplied from Volgograd.

“We made the cases ourselves: there was a turning area for automatic machines,” says Alexander Lazarevich. - First, the brass pipe was cut, then fed to a hot press and received the shape of the body. The next stage was processing, then, depending on the type of coating, the body was chrome plated or coated with another method.

We collected the watch like this:

- First, a crystal was "planted" on the board, it was boiled down. Protection was added, the operation was checked, the indicator board was installed in the holder. Then the clip was assembled, the battery was inserted. The block was already a clock. The next stage is installation in the case, frequency adjustment, paperwork, presentation for the PSI and packaging.

Maximum error: second in ten days

The manufacturer was obliged to set the exact time on the watch. Until the digital setting of the stroke appeared in "Electronics", the factory workers set the time manually.

- We had an exact time line. There was equipment that sounded a beep starting from the 55th second of every minute. There was such a "dogwood" - a stick that does not scratch metal. They put it on the control button and, on the sixth signal, released it. This was how the current time was set with an accuracy of tenths of a second.

The watch was very accurate: the factory achieved a daily rate of 0.1 seconds per day. This means that in ten days the clock could lag behind or go ahead by a maximum of one second.

The main feature of the "Electronics 5" series was the function of automatic digital travel adjustment. It was possible to set the value of the regular correction to the time so that the clock itself corrects the error.

The factory had its own test center, where the watch was checked for compliance with all standards. Alexander Lazarevich headed this center for a long time.

The watch passed 38 types of tests. Among them were tests for climatic influences (cold and heat), exposure to moisture, salt fog, artificial sweat, solar radiation, multiple shocks and sinusoidal vibration. The accuracy of the daily variation was also checked at different temperatures.

The shockproof watch had to withstand a fall from a meter height onto a hard surface, as well as impacts with a special test hammer.

- The clock was placed on the edge of the table or on the stand "facing" the hammer. The metal pendulum descended with the acceleration of gravity and struck the surface in a plane-parallel manner. After this blow, the watch fell into a cloth bag. If the glass remained intact, the performance was checked, the daily rate, if the parameters met the requirements, then the product passed the test.

The waterproof watch was submerged under water to a depth of 10 centimeters and subjected to pressure for 10 minutes, which corresponded to a submersion depth of 50 meters.

- After that, tests were carried out to ensure that there is no condensation inside the case. The watch was heated to a temperature of 30 degrees for 30 minutes. After that, water at a temperature of 18 degrees was dropped onto the glass. Condensation should not have formed on the glass within a minute. This spoke of complete waterproofness.

Warranty - two years, but the watch is still running

A silver-zinc battery SC-21 with an energy capacity of 38 mAh was installed in the "Electronics" watch. The current consumption of the clock in the operating mode should not exceed 3 μA. The energy content of the battery was supposed to last for a year, usually the clock lasted longer. After that, the battery was changed - and most often the clock continued to work flawlessly.

The factory warranty extended for the first two years from the date of sale, the passport indicated a service life of five years. However, according to Alexander Lazarevich, some hours passed for decades. He still regularly replies to letters from people who ask for repairs or send spare parts for watches purchased in the 90s.

- For example, a letter from a person from the Sverdlovsk region. He has a watch "Electronics 55B" for 20 years. But the glass broke. Or another person from Russia writes: his colleague swung an ax and hit him in the arm. The watch saved the hand, but was damaged. Asks where to buy new ones.

We prepare a written response to all appeals and try to provide the necessary assistance in recovery. Then we send it by mail as well. Because the consumers of the products must be respected.

Over the decades, the Elektronika plant was transformed - it was a state enterprise, a unitary production enterprise, an open joint stock company. Now it is a branch of OJSC "Integral", which is part of the holding of the same name. After joining Integral, the watch ceased to indicate the Elektronika trademark, now the Integral brand is indicated on them.

Massive electronic wrist watches at the factory were produced until 2012. Now the branch continues to work and produces other clocks: table, wall, office, outdoor, information boards with built-in clocks and other products.

Alexander Lazarevich himself calls himself a patriot of the plant and still wears an "Electronics-79" watch on his wrist. They are working properly.