De-Magnitiser and Timegrapher results

[Aidy189]

Morning, 

I have purchased a blue demagnetiser from ebay in the hope of sorting out the snowy effects seen on my timegrapher on some of the old watches i have that are running fast, but i'm a little confused with the results and wondered if anyone has encountered similar. 

 

I have followed the online videos of using this device but not sure if it is functioning correctly as the watches seem to be in worse condition after going through the process. (hold button down, slowly move away etc).

 

Here is the results on an old Seiko 5.

 

Is this unit faulty or am i doing something wrong. Any help would be useful in understanding why the results seem to look crazy!

 

Many thanks, 

 

Aidy

 

[VWatchie]

I'm certainly no expert in the field of interpreting timing machine graphs, but I would check the pivots of escape wheel. That is, that they aren't bent and that there isn't too much side shake. You may need to replace the jewels (one or both) or, if the pivots are worn, the escape  wheel.

Your watch doesn't run fast, which is the typical indication of a magnetized hairspring, so I don't think that's your problem. Anyway, I tried those Chinese demagnetizers and it didn't work very well for me at all. Someone mentioned the reason could be that the current I was feeding it was too strong, 220 V, but that it worked really well with 110 V. Anyway, I eventually got myself an ELMA demagnetizer and it works perfectly. My video review of it below.

 

[rodabod]

That Seiko 5 is barely running. 

[VWatchie]

3 minutes ago, rodabod said:

That Seiko 5 is barely running. 

I would definitely service it before making any kind of assessment.

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

I would definitely service it before making any kind of assessment.

there is nothing that prevents you from making assessments before cleaning or servicing. Like for instance this watch looks really bad so the assessment is cleaning might fix the problem.

if you do a search we've discussed using the demagnetizer.

background history of the watch is always helpful. In other words what was it doing before you played with the demagnetiser ? Then when you see a display like this where you can sort of see lines basically the numbers are a waste of time. If you can't discern a pattern in the graphical display timing machine is not more intelligent than you usually and that means the numbers will be garbage.but if we are going to go by the numbers amplitude is way too low to really get anything meaningful you should be up closer to 200 minimum. So the assessment above cleaning would be a good place to start.

[JohnD]

3 hours ago, VWatchie said:

I would definitely service it before making any kind of assessment.

Looks like it is barely wound to me for a start...................A full wind would probably give you a totally different starting point...

[watchweasol]

Hi These are from a paper tape machine but the traces are the same as the electronic as the timegraphers intermeret the sound pattern of the escapement. The witschi document goes int detailed analasys of the escapement and how the sound is picked up and separated. hope you find them interesting.

Timing-Machine-Charts.PDF Witschi Training Course.pdf

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, JohnD said:

Looks like it is barely wound to me for a start...................A full wind would probably give you a totally different starting point..

is why I usually always asks the background history and make the wild assumption that somebody timing of watch would grasp that they actually supposed to wind it up even if it is a Seiko and doesn't have a crown for doing that it still can be wound up.

[watchweasol]

Hi  I must admit that i also some times assume too much and give way too much credit to the the knowledge of the poster, a human failure i suppose.

[rodabod]

I think it would be fair to assume that if you don't know to wind up a watch before using a timegrapher, then you probably shouldn't bother trying to use a timegrapher.

[Aidy189]

Many thanks for the constructive feedback. 

Yes the watch was wound!

 

I have had a read through of the posts and the links provided and i will strip it down and clean it all again. I will then see what the results show and if there has been any changes. 

As far as background history, i have serviced this one about 6 months ago then lent it to a friend to wear to get him into mechanical (automatic) watches, looking at the gasket i can see that has failed and there is what looks like condensation on the glass, which to me suggests a number of issues that could have arisen. 

The condensation only was noticed later on today when i have had the watch in my hand etc and its obviously got warmer and there has been a temperature difference. 

What originally confused me was the 'snow' effect on the timegrapher, i hadn't come across that before. I will get back to work and see what a re-clean does. 

 

Many thanks for the advice

 

Aidy

 

 

 

[Aidy189]

3 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Hi These are from a paper tape machine but the traces are the same as the electronic as the timegraphers intermeret the sound pattern of the escapement. The witschi document goes int detailed analasys of the escapement and how the sound is picked up and separated. hope you find them interesting.

Timing-Machine-Charts.PDF 5.32 MB · 3 downloads Witschi Training Course.pdf 4.65 MB · 0 downloads

these have been very helpful, thank you. I have saved copies to my pc for future reference. 

 

Thanks

[JohnR725]

11 minutes ago, Aidy189 said:

What originally confused me was the 'snow' effect on the timegrapher, i hadn't come across that before. I will get back to work and see what a re-clean does.

 

12 minutes ago, Aidy189 said:

As far as background history, i have serviced this one about 6 months ago then lent it to a friend to wear to get him into mechanical

six months ago when it was serviced and on the timing machine how did it look?

when timing a watch she should develop a procedure. Dial up or dial down and wristwatch crown down works. Also when you wind the watch up all the way it went to run about 1530 minutes then time the watch allowing settling time like 30 seconds between changing positions. Then ideally just service the watch you wait 24 hours and you do it again just to make sure there is no problems. The watch can look really wonderful and timing machine freshly serviced fully wound up but that doesn't tell you what the watches going to be doing 24 hours from now.

Also with something looking this bad on the timing machine visually looking at the balance wheel how does it look out as they hairspring look etc.

 

 

[VWatchie]

2 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Seiko and doesn't have a crown for doing that it still can be wound up.

Can/should these Seiko watches be wound (using a screwdriver) before removing the automatic winding works? I just can't determine if it is safe, so I always remove the pawl levers, etc. first.

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, VWatchie said:

Can/should these Seiko watches be wound (using a screwdriver) before removing the automatic winding works? I just can't determine if it is safe, so I always remove the pawl levers, etc. first.

I'm attaching a PDF and skipped an image out of the PDF. This is from time module basically the OEM division a Seiko. This is where it does show that you can manually wind at least their watches and I/O everyone does it with their Seiko watches but I do in the local watchmaker who is concerned about it and would prefer to shake the watch like 1 million times because does take a lot of shaking not just a few seconds to wind the watch up.

Time Modual NH35_TG Cal.NH3 Series.pdf

[VWatchie]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

I'm attaching a PDF and skipped an image out of the PDF.

Great! That will save me quite a bit of time when testing a non-windable Seiko like the 7s-series.