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Running less than 24 hours


PeterS

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I have a new NH36 movement for me to train on. I disassembled the movement, cleaned it and assembled it.
Initially, when fully wound, it runs well, the amplitude is around 270, it gains a second or two per day. However, it runs only about 20 hours. I would assume that the issue is with the mainspring. I lubricated the mainspring with 8200 and the barrel wall with 8213, I used mainspring winder.
Any thoughts what the issue could be?

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32 minutes ago, PeterS said:

I  I lubricated the mainspring with 8200 and the barrel wall with 8213, I used mainspring winder.
Any thoughts what the issue could be?

it could be that the barrel is not to be opened at all. That is the way Seiko makes them - sealed and pre-lubricated for life. Anyway, the mainspring should receive no lubrication at all, and same could be true for the barell wall. Was there something when you took it apart.

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Hi! 
 

Two possibilities:

1. 8213 is a particularly strong and firm braking grease. Perhaps it is not letting the mainspring unwind completely after loosing X amount of tension (i.e. after 20hrs). Try Moebius 8217 which is a “softer” braking grease. 
 

2. Faulty mainspring (less likely considering movement is new). 
 

Note: I know Seiko recommends changing the complete barrel assembly during services and many say that Seiko mainsprings are not meant to be rewound back. I personally don’t believe this to be true and if the mainspring is in good condition, there should be no trouble in winding it back and applying braking grease to the barrel wall. ? 

 

hope this helps! 

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21 hours ago, DrG said:

 8213 is a particularly strong and firm braking grease. Perhaps it is not letting the mainspring unwind completely after loosing X amount of tension (i.e. after 20hrs). Try Moebius 8217 which is a “softer” braking grease. 

I don't believe any particular grease, that is applied to the barrel wall only, can prevent a mainspring from unwind completely. The outer section of the mainspring stays in the same position to the barrel wall when the mov.t is running. During this process, the mainspring will transmit marginally and gradually less torque at the arbor, but more radial force and friction to the barrel, not less.

What the OP can do is count turns when winding at the barrel, going from fully unwind to the point the mainspring starts slipping. This gives a feeble tactile feedback on a Seiko barrel. I don't recall the exact figure now, but should be between 7 and 8 turns.

An incorrectly (ie, excessive) agent between spring and barrel may hinder the bridle to do its function - grip against the wall at its end, having an opposing curvature. It could also be that the critical shape of the bridle has been disturbed during removal and rewind.

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21 hours ago, jdm said:

I don't believe that any grease, that is applied to the barrel wall only, can prevent a mainspring from unwind completely? The outer section of the mainspring stays in the same position to the barrel wall when the mov.t is running. During this process, the mainspring will transmit marginally and gradually less torque at the arbor, but more radial force and friction to the barrel, not less.

What the OP can do is count turns when winding at the barrel, going from fully unwind to the point the mainspring starts slipping. This gives a feeble tactile feedback on a Seiko barrel. I don't recall the exact figure now, but should be between 7 and 8 turns.

An incorrectly (ie, excessive) agent between spring and barrel may hinder the bridle to do its function - grip against the wall at its end, having an opposing curvature. It could also be that the critical shape of the bridle has been disturbed during removal and rewind.

Yes. Thank you for pointing this out because I got it mixed up. 

In regards to the original question by Peter, try the new grease, or definitely the mainspring, lid, or barrel itself may have gotten bent. 

best regards and best of luck in watchmaking. 

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4 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Unlevel barrel lid can cause this, one side sits low, the opposit high, spring doesn't rub in the middle but do at the lower end, it takes 20 hours to the circles that rub on the lower side.

I am surprised you understood my poorly composed post in my broken English.

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17 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Unlevel barrel lid can cause this, one side sits low, the opposit high, spring doesn't rub in the middle but do at the lower end, it takes 20 hours to the circles that rub on the lower side.

The barrel lid is not flat like most other barrels, you are correct. I’m aware that Seiko lists the barrel as complete part and it probably should not be taken apart but I wanted to have a go and followed Mark’s 7s26 video.
It’s no big deal, it’s a cheap movement but if Mark can put it together there must be a way of doing it.
As far as I know I’m using the same greases he does. I can take it apart and put it back together but if the barrel lid that’s not flat is causing it how do I get it in the right way so it runs the 40 something hours?

Guys, I’m responding to Nucejoe but I want to thank you all for your input.

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10 hours ago, PeterS said:

The barrel lid is not flat like most other barrels, you are correct. I’m aware that Seiko lists the barrel as complete part and it probably should not be taken apart but I wanted to have a go and followed Mark’s 7s26 video.
It’s no big deal, it’s a cheap movement but if Mark can put it together there must be a way of doing it.
As far as I know I’m using the same greases he does. I can take it apart and put it back together but if the barrel lid that’s not flat is causing it how do I get it in the right way so it runs the 40 something hours?

Guys, I’m responding to Nucejoe but I want to thank you all for your input.

I see,  two halves join to make the barrel, then it should have same hight all around its premeter, I guess you can visually notice if its not or measure with a vernier, furthermore, any dent on either half might keep the MS from fully unwimding or sand/ dirt.

Obviously  the high torque gears are prime suspects inclusive of barrel gears.

 Not to dismiss the possibility of rubbing anywhere in the train to the effect you are facing, a jewel having moved can rub on arbour shoulder just enough that torque there can overcome only in the first 24 hrs.

Do you have end shake on all arbours?  A "must check"  and you can make a habbit of checking shakes as you disassemble and reassembly.

Good luck.

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48 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

I see,  two halves join to make the barrel, then it should have same hight all around its premeter

... 

All right and correct, is always good practice to examine all aspects, but here we are talking of a automatic mov.t with a 42 hours power reserve, that has a perfectly fine amplitude, but just one half of the power reserve, after manual winding I suppose. Which is too little to suggest that the mainspring is unable to deliver its force, which after 20 hours should still be a good 90% of the full potential. 

That immediate indication instead is that the mainspring wasn't fully wound in first place, as it is of the automatic type which during winding slips in barrel at some point.

That is what John has hinted above, and I assume to be indeed the root cause of the problem. To support this theory we also have the many discussions on the very same subject: poor performance from a Seiko barrel assembly after having been opened. 

 

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6 minutes ago, jdm said:

That is what John has hinted above, and I assume to be indeed the root cause of the problem.

I've had this several times at work somebody asks me to time a Seiko. I asked if they wound it up they assured me they wound it up and it looks pathetic on the timing machine?  so I ask how they wound it up or specifically how many times they turn the crown and that's the problem. I've snipped out something from the service manual.  When winding with the crown a minimum of of 55 turns. Then winding the ratchet wheel screw eight turns.

Then there's another problem with the barrel wall breaking grease. If somehow it is wrong for a variety of reasons when the spring slips it will slip too much.

 

NH36 power.JPG

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Inked1267427649_NH36power.JPG.1f6f9bdcd3380629674bc4fd3972f76d_LI.jpg.98b43e0bd32f6870a91f14e60e9c13be.jpg

And here's something that the manual does't say, but left many owners of a winding machine baffled or disappointed:
The dial must be vertical, or near to that. A machine that keeps it at 45 deg will fail to wind a Seiko.

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58 minutes ago, jdm said:

after manual winding I suppose. 

I gathered the same and interpreted fully wound as OP having not heard the sound of spindle slipage from the barrel nor felt such occurance, so its mostly back to John's question, " what is the OP's defenition of fully wound" so he must have manually wound.

Though john's question would have been more clear and to the point had he put it like " How did you ascertain its fully wound". 

John had already made the question, so considering the barrel has been opened and greased, I started looking into possibilities not covered here.

Happy new year jdm and thanks for all the work you do to keep this forum in order.

keep safe.

 

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It's been wound manually, 60+ turns. The Seiko barrels are different, there is zero damage to the barrel, the barrel lid is not flat like most other barrels.

I have two of these movements. This one has been disassembled only once, the other, 20+ times, including the mainspring. I used no. 6 winder which has the correct diameter of the crank but the drum is two small and is resting on the base of the barrel when you inserting the mainspring, I used no. 7 which has the correct size drum but the crank is little too large, I used no. 6 crank and no. 7 drum combo which is a bit messy... it's been used and abused and there is no issue with the power.

I think I know what the issue could be. When you are taking the mainspring out, you have to use gentle force whether you like it or not to get the initial coil out with your tweezers, then it goes out easily. The 'gentle force' caused a slight kink. There is nothing bent or anything like that but it's not perfectly flat when I put it on my bench. It's lifting of the bench towards the end that hooks on the arbour, where you use your tweezers. The other mainspring from the movement I took apart many times is not perfectly flat either but it is better. I didn't think much of it but wrecking my brain I'm now thinking that this could be the issue.

Admittedly I have not tested end shakes and side side shakes, it could be that but it's a brand new movement and it was running smoothly when I was testing it during the train assembly.

I'll try the other barrel from the other movement and see how that performs. Something for the weekend, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
 

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Out of curiosity starting with your brand-new movement did you evaluate the movement before you disassembled it? In other words you wound it up you verified it ran 41 hours. You timed it in more than one position because one positioning timekeeping is not adequate for evaluation purposes? It's always good to know what your starting with versus discovering after you service that you have a problem.

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I haven’t tested it properly. I only tested one position when fully wound. Normally I would test it in six positions and I’d leave it in each position for quite some time but the purpose of this exercise was to get to know the modern Seiko movements and get used to the small diashock on the barrel bridge.
I never thought of testing the duration before disassembly, that’s a good one, I will start doing it. Thank you!

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7 hours ago, PeterS said:

I never thought of testing the duration before disassembly, that’s a good one, I will start doing it.

A lot of thing is we don't think of because in normal watch repair you normally don't do this.

It wasn't until I got my witschi timing machine that I started timing watches incoming. In other words testing the watches and six positions writing the numbers down. Then afterwords doing it again to see if things improved or not. This is where we are working on a new movement you may not actually see an improvement which is actually a good thing for training purpose in other words you didn't make it worse.

So normally seeing how long an automatic watch will run isn't normal test. On the other hand this is a group of people learning things and it would make for an interesting learning exercise to see if it really runs the 41 hours it says it's supposed to.

The other interesting problem that comes up is is the new watch actually knew? I seen this before for new old stock perception is that it's a brand-new watch that for whatever reason didn't sell but it's 100% functional. There is an 11 page or so discussion on a watch that really wasn't very functional but it was new old stock. Indicating the reason it was new old stock was that it wasn't really a functional watch in the first place.

Then the other problem for new watches is how new is it really. How long has that movement been sitting someplace. Purchasing a new watch from a jewelry store how long has it been sitting in the display? You're assuming that wherever you purchase a watch from that it has a relatively fast turnover rate but what if they don't maybe it's been sitting there for years?

So initially for training purposes we can do all kinds of interesting things that we normally wouldn't do just because it would be a good thing to do.

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I do like the idea of testing the duration before the disassembly, I will start doing it from now on.
I have the Weishi timegrapher and I always test all positions before disassembly but it will do no harm to fully wind every watch and let it run. I don't know whether the pros do it but I have the time to do so.
Winding fully the NH36 and testing it you’d think there’s nothing wrong with it, good timing, 0.1 beat error and good amplitude. I'm positive it's my doing but at least from now on I will know what I'm dealing with.
A forum like this is an invaluable source for learning.

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Usually in modern shops they don't care about the condition of the watch coming in because they're going to replace whatever they feel like and they're going to make the watch like new they only care about the finished product. But I find it interesting to see what it was like before and then look at it afterwards. We don't have the luxury of having it infinite quantity of parts to restore things to like new.

But what they do have is Rolex Omega for instance time their watches in a multiple of positions Rolex does it at both fully wound up and what they call half wind which is equivalent to 24 hours or 24 hours later and then they look at all the numbers and make sure things are right typically one thing that almost all watch companies get excited about is at the end of 24 hours the amplitude should be around 200°. They're usually not concerned about maximum amplitude unless it's going over 300°.

Then it does look like they do have a power reserved test where they allow their watch to run until it stops. It's one of the misleading things of people work on automatic watches and put them on automatic winders and then they go out to the customer and it doesn't quite perform right the watchmaker typically blames the customer but unless you do a running test to see how long it running you can't tell much when it's on the automatic winder where it's wound up continuously.

One thing you might think about making for yourself is a form to fill out. I tend to be lazy and unless I have a box to put something and I might not put it there. But evaluate your incoming watches have a place to put notes and then when it's all done also put all the numbers back down again then if their personal watches which they should be not currently in business yet. It's amazing when people find out your repair watches all the son they want you to repair there's. But with your own personal watches of evaluate them six months from now a year from now several years from now. Because right now the watch might look good after it's all been serviced but maybe that bargain lubrication off of eBay isn't such a bargain if it disintegrates in six months. Then yes there really is some bad oil on eBay that does disintegrate not always in six months of disintegrate faster than that sometimes would get sticky.

 

 

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