Battery Life

There are lots of watches these days that use lithium batteries. They last about 7-10 years while running the watch. My current understanding is these have a relatively long shelf life. I think one could still use them for up to about 30 years with a diminished watch run life time. One can adapt one or more Nicad to run any electrical watch. Just won't be able to close the back, so the watch becomes less portable. If a Nicad is left on the shelf uncharged it can be kept indefinitely. This is my current understanding. After one runs out of watch batteries one could shift to Nicad. The Nickel-Metal-Hydride is a newer battery that is credited with less of a discharge memory problem. However, my current understanding is it's internal discharge rate is possibly 10 times higher than Nicad. I would stay away from Nickel-Metal-Hydride unless I am missing something on this.

Mechanical watches are not very common now. They were in constant use but they would need cleaning and adjustment at regular intervals. Otherwise, they become useless and stop running. I consider regular cleaning and adjustment to be beyond the capabilities of the majority of people. Adapting batteries to get the same voltage to keep watches running I believe to be within the capabilities of many. Thus, I have tended toward LCD type watches, with no mechanical moving parts.

Offered by Mike.