Quartz Omega Watch Repair

This watch was not working, and had a part of the circuit broken, although the rest of the movement was in great condition. The dial is in amazing conditions! After finding a donor movement that was in much worse condition but with a good circuit, I was able to disassembly it, clean it and then with the new parts reassembled! It is now working, with a well aligned second hand!

The movement is an ETA 255.411. Relatively common in many watches of the era. The ETA 255.411 is a Swiss quartz movement from ETA’s 255 family, built as a compact 10½ ligne / 23.30 mm caliber with 6 jewels, 1.95 mm height, 32,768 Hz frequency, central hours/minutes/seconds, and a date display.

Historically, it belongs to the era when ETA was supplying large numbers of thin, reliable Swiss quartz bases to many watch brands rather than only selling complete branded movements to end users. The 255.411 was used as a base caliber that brands could rename or finish differently.

In practical terms, the 255.411 was part of the post–quartz-crisis mature Swiss quartz generation not an early 1970s experimental quartz movement, but a later, refined production movement focused on compactness, low maintenance, and OEM flexibility. A few characteristics made it especially useful to brands and watchmakers. It has an EOL (end-of-life) battery indicator, where the seconds hand jumps in larger intervals when the battery is low, and it uses an adaptive controlled drive system. Those are the sort of late-generation quartz conveniences that made it a solid, serviceable everyday caliber.

The movement also had a fairly broad footprint in Swiss watchmaking. References tie it to watches or house-caliber equivalents from brands such as Omega, Longines, TAG Heuer, and others, which is typical of ETA’s role as a supplier. As for its later history, the 255.411 is generally described today as discontinued, with the ETA E63.111 as its replacement.

the movement shows up mainly in 1980s slim quartz dress and everyday models, especially De Ville (the one I have here) and Seamaster Quartz pieces. Collector references and market records repeatedly associate cal. 1430 with those lines, and specific examples include Seamaster references such as 196.0269 / 396.0960 and De Ville references such as 196.0312 / 396.1017.

The technical sheet can be downloaded here.