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Hi All I just purchased one of these pearl cleaning machines from a dealer in India. Be careful of the wiring and I would urge you to inspect the wiring to all components. The wire used in mine was too small a cross sectional area for machine wiring. I have changed the wire for tri-rated panel wiring that has a break down voltage in excess of 600 volt. I noticed the mains lead had cable colours of RED BLACK and GREEN for live neutral and earth. There was no rating data on the outside sheath so I have replaced the mains lead with 1.00mmsq. 3 core flex with Brown Blue and Green/yellow for live neutral and earth. On closer inspection the cables are not routed or fixed just a rats nest. I have slid heat resistant sleeving over the cables and saddled them to the base. The connectors used are also substandard so I fitted a 240 volt rated connector rail similar to that found in boiler junction boxes and terminated all cables properly using boot lace ferules. I also noticed the earth wire was not secured properly with a ring crimp. It was wrapped around a fixing screw and most of the cores had been severed by the screw head. I have fitted a ring crimp to all earth wires and now consider the machine to be safe to use. If anyone wants details on how to get their machine safe please ask.

Hairspring is slightly out of center but that's not the cause. It could still be a lot of things, center wheel bearing worn (often in the plate), wear in bridge bearing for barrel arbor, general pivot condition, wear on the actual pinion leaves, etc. But if I was working on it, at this point I would have a good look at the escapement. Just a movement of 0.005mm on both pallet stones could easily give a 30 degree boost- but you have to know if they can be moved in. It could stand to have the bankings closed a bit, if the run to the banking is too large. But these checks can't really be explained correctly in a post or two unfortunately.

My mentor taught me to reassemble the balance onto the main plate, with the jewels in place and run the cleaning machine for 5 minutes per pot and a 2 minute spin dry cycle between each pot. Final drying is 5 minutes with medium speed spin to circulate the hot air. The shellac came out fine.

According the photo, the 1st (over-)coil lies outside the regulator pins!

Dadistic got it- and pas is the spacing coil to coil.

New I think, unless VWatchie has several unitas movements. Either this or I am going crazier. Regs

If memory still serves me, VWatchie got this watch brand new and its been giving him a hard time, lock on the pallet weren't excessive, he did check all side shakes, all jewels, holes including center hole bearing were OK any part examined was as expected in a new watch, but gained time on active wrist. No issue was found , the fault remained undiscovered.

13 Amps could be the rating for wire or plug. As correctly noted above with 230V the correct fuse should be 3 or 4 Amps.

Much appreciated for the answer. Even though the EE said rewire the machine, I will simply watch it with a extinguisher:)

I meant to add I am an electrical engineer.

OK will do, thanks. Hopefully he'll just tell me and won't insist on the massage!

Just picked up a Pearl Watch Cleaning Machine from India. Looks good and needed to flip the plug to Type B North America. Question I have is will the heater in the last stage of cleaning loosen the shellac on the pallet fork jewels or the impulse jewel. And, do I put the balance cock with balance and lower plate all installed, or do I strip down the balance. Don’t want to damage the hairspring.

I have just had a look at the photo after magnifying the photo and the hairspring is't right it is all gathered at one side. It should have even gaps between coils all the way around. That's the cause of your problem.

The hairspring isn't centered, that could be the reason it looks so out of beat. If it isn't centered then there is a good chance it isn't flat too, try to get the hairspring sorted out as a start. It would be nice to see a pic of the balance itself from the side, top and bottom.

I don't know. Drop him a massage and just ask.

For large items like a watch case or bracelet, I prefer to use a bench top polishing lathe. A Dremel tool with a small diameter wheel is more likely to create an uneven surface finish. To remove deep scratches, I use an abrasive rubber wheel. For a high shine finish, I use a homemade wheel made of medium density fibre board and charged with blue polishing compound. It is important to true, dress and clean all wheels to prevent vibrations and chatter. Finishing and polishing is an art. Practice on different objects around the house first. Practice on different materials from plastics, silver, gold, stainless steel... Each material will have a different feel and require slight changes in techniques and materials used. Experiment and have fun. Cheers.

@Nucejoethat is one theory but my uninformed guess is that it is low amp and barely on the threshold of being readable OR some amplitude but hairspring is bouncing off centre wheel and getting effectively shortened and increasing the rate. Could be neither though, I am just spitballing.

Sharp eyes John, judging by short length of regu arm I'd say its an overcoil, also agree if the roller is poisitioned right then mpulse jewel seems is co siderably out of beat. Would you vote for possible rebanking? Regs

Just looking at the movement shot, I am wondering if you placed the roller in the same position you found it. Usually the impulse jewel is at 90 degrees to the balance arms. If that was the case here the watch would be very out of beat, perhaps to the point that it wouldn't run at all. Just something to check, although not really germane to this problem. It would also throw off the poise, to Nuce's point. I can't really read the second timegrapher shot - it looks to me like it's barely running at all, more than a case of it running fast. My guess is that the amplitude is dropping a lot on that side, which is not really a question of the rate but more of the watch stalling out on that side. My guess is the hairspring or something else is rubbing.

Variation as large as your saying , points to hairspring issue or something rubbing , hairspring rubbing, pivot shoulder seat runbbing due to unadjusted end shake or defective end stones, perhaps even defective pivot end of the new staff. I noticed you made no mention of having poised the balance or balance complete, though poise issue would not cause large variation between FU & FD positions. Regs

For gold plated, I used a soft mop and Dialux red. Clean in the ultrasonic with something with ammonia in it. It'll make it shiny, but there's nothing to do for scratches. The plating will just get buffed off. For steel, you can get quite good results. I like Dialux gray then blue. I haven't found the soft cotton mops to do much to steel and use the harder pressed wool disks. You can get narrow disks that allow one to be more selective about what to polish. I haven't found the finer Dialux green to be better than blue or for an additional pass of green after blue to make a visible difference. Even Dialux orange, which is supposed to be the more aggressive, doesn't seem to remove much material. Maybe in a full sized buffer it would. But on the dremel it really doesn't seem to. So for removing scratches, I use silicone abrasive wheels. These work great. The medium (black) is good for removing scratches. Coarse (white) also works well too, but it's more work to get out the sanding marks it leaves. The blue and red ones aren't as useful at scratch removal, but you need them to get out the scratches from the black. I have a glass plate and lapping film too, for sanding flat surfaces, like 1970s Seiko cases and bracelets. Some hints: Keep the wheel moving. If you hold it in one spot you get a non-fair spot. Plan the motion you'll make to keep the wheel flat against the surface while following the contours. Don't run the wheel perpendicular to a case edge, always parallel. You'll soften the case's lines far more if you when buff across an edge. And don't run the wheel ON the edge either. Don't push harder to get a more aggressive buffing action. Use a different compound or wheel. Or maybe just recharge the wheel. The tiny ones seem to run out quite quickly. Like one side a single bracelet link. If you want to remove a scratch from a flat surface, you'll need to sand it with something flat to get it looking flat again. You'll get a wavy non-fair surface with any kind of buffing wheel that removes material. Polish is ok if it's not too aggressive and you keep the wheel moving. A brushed finished is way more forgiving than a polished one! Clean when switching grits. Clean the watch, clean off the work surface you might set the watch on, use different wheels and mops, don't set the fine grit mops down on top of something coarse grit dust on it, etc.

the problem is too many variables if the posting person doesn't tell us to give us a picture of what exactly they're talking about. which is why we usually ask for a picture it can answer a lot of questions sometimes. yes guessing is fun. We actually do a lot of guessing on this discussion group if somebody doesn't give us a proper description. I don't think most people are aware of just how many watches have been made and how many brands how many types how many well basically they're just a heck of a lot of watches out there and it's a problem if we don't get a good description. Like for instance guessing that it's a satellite watch what if it's not? Or is it analog or digital or perhaps both quartz? Or some quartz watches have separate stepping motors for all the different features. Or it could be a perpetual calendar setting those can be interesting. Or somebody forgot to do a reset if it's a complicated quartz watch. Or a really common problem on solar watches are there not charged up. Contrary to popular belief and the people who sell you the watch the battery in there doesn't last forever and sometimes it needs to be changed. In addition analog quartz watches don't last forever and they either need to be serviced or typically replaced because they usually cheap enough just to replace the entire movement if you're having a problem. another problem with a quartz or in a watch for that matter is how old is it? In other words you just purchased it from wherever but how long has it been sitting in their and how long was it sitting in the warehouse before it went to wherever you purchased it from. Sometimes brand-new watches may not actually be brand-new watches.

Hello very recently I decided to purchase direct from the manufacturers a Janta / Pearl watch cleaning machine having read a few comments online with users saying they were ok. I checked the site out and it says the machines are all tested before dispatch. I received mine and it arrived dead on arrival. No damage - just not working. So I just checked over for loose wires and quickly decided I needed an expert to look at it. The conclusion from a qualified electrical engineer is that it is actually dangerous for several different reasons and ought not to be sold in this country. Mine sadly has a heap of problems, just very poorly made from top to bottom. The seller (director of the company ) hilariously just kept telling me to hit it with a hammer! I bought it for approx £400 and never have I felt so ripped off. The seller will not help and has stopped communicating and so now I am trying to claim through PayPal (wish me luck!) I will keep you updated with another more in depth post with photos in the coming weeks showing this embarrassing mess - but to those guys still reading that have one of these machines please be SUPER CAREFUL when using it there are parts very easily accessible to fingers that are wired to mains voltage without any wraps or shielding !! James L.

If you are using it with watch cleaning and rinsing solutions then a heater would not normally be required. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk