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What would make the balance wheel insanely slow on a 7s36b movement?


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13 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Well done. It's easy to turn the adjusters too far and put a bend in the hairspring. 

yeah i won't know if i "fixed" it till i get it on the time grapher but one little flick of that balance wheel and it starts moving freely again which it was not before.

Is there any way to adjust that stud with the balance cock off the watch? I t would be so much easier to eyeball whether the hair spring has come to the correct shape with it off 

Edited by Birbdad
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On 8/4/2022 at 6:29 AM, mikepilk said:

You could hold the balance cock down with a finger, and turn the regulator with some tweezers.

One of those ideas that's so obvious I feel stupid having not thought of it.

Also christ, trying to set diashock settings with tweezers, at least #2 tweezers that probably aren't fine enough is a bi***!

My pegwood should be in soon and i'm giving up for now and I'm going to try the hollowed out pegwood method because man I was at it for an hour and a half and I probably almost lost a second one of them about a dozen times.

So far as far as basic assembly/disassembly goes this is the only part i've found REAL challenging so far. Just had to vent! Still having a great time however!

Edited by Birbdad
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2 minutes ago, Birbdad said:

One of those ideas that's so obvious I feel stupid having not thought of it.

Also christ, trying to set diashock settings with tweezers, at least #2 tweezers that probably aren't fine enough is a bi***!

My pegwood should be in soon and i'm giving up for now and I'm going to try the hollowed out pegwood method because man I was at it for an hour and a half and I probably almost lost a second one of them about a dozen times.

So far as far as basic assembly/disassembly goes this is the only part i've found REAL challenging so far. Just had to vent! Still having a great time however!

If it's the small diashock on the gear train - leave them in place, they're a nightmare.

The larger ones on the balance, I have not problems with 2 pairs of tweezers working under the microscope. But for a beginner, I would strongly recommend hollowed pegwood as you suggest. I find bamboo (from meat skewers) easier to shape.

Try working in a plastic bag - stops them pinging too far !

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9 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

If it's the small diashock on the gear train - leave them in place, they're a nightmare.

The larger ones on the balance, I have not problems with 2 pairs of tweezers working under the microscope. But for a beginner, I would strongly recommend hollowed pegwood as you suggest. I find bamboo (from meat skewers) easier to shape.

Try working in a plastic bag - stops them pinging too far !

ooh a bag!  Great idea!

And unfortunately i was able to diagnose a problem with one of my two non working watches was that the setting by the pawl wheel appeared to be knocked out of place. The diashock was half out and the jewel cap appeared to be popping out of one end of it, i got the jewel out, reset it (Probably lost all it's lubrication in the process -_- My lubes haven't arrived yet and won't be herrefor days.) but getting the damn diashock back in with tweezers is a nightmare.

What i dont' get is i'm reading that the diashock spring is curved so you want to be sure to put it in not upside down but i can't see any curve whatsoever to it.

But yeah, i might sharpen my number 2 tweezers (got some dumonts and some cheap brass ones) and give it another go when i get up but if i can't get it in within an hour i'm gonna wait for the pegwood to arrive.

This seems like a good candidate for a very very easy to 3d print tool to make this easier...

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Working with 2 tweezers, always keep the tip of one pair inside the spring, to stop it escaping. You could try a line of Rodico across the centre of the spring to stop it pinging off, but there's not much room for that.

Better to use some wood - a cocktail stick or meat skewer will suffice.

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6 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

People have been known (won't mention names) to launch a movement across the room because of those two little diashocks on the gear train...

The problem with those, apart from the size, is that there is no indent for the jewel to sit in. The balance cap jewels sit in the chaton, so don't slide around when you try to insert the spring. Those little buggrs in the gear train move around when you try to put the spring in. 

The best solution is to leave them in place for cleaning, then oil through to hole.

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12 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

The problem with those, apart from the size, is that there is no indent for the jewel to sit in. The balance cap jewels sit in the chaton, so don't slide around when you try to insert the spring. Those little buggrs in the gear train move around when you try to put the spring in. 

The best solution is to leave them in place for cleaning, then oil through to hole.

You quite right that that is the easiest solution and something a beginner should certainly not attempt. As with anything though, practice (read patience) does help over time. I do remove and clean them now, but wisened up and got an auto oiler to lubricate them once fitted. In fact, it's the only place I use an auto oiler. Doing it manually is like digging out your eyeball with a spoon.

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On 8/5/2022 at 3:48 PM, gbyleveldt said:

People have been known (won't mention names) to launch a movement across the room because of those two little diashocks on the gear train...

Lol did that work Gert ? Did the movement rebound off the wall back onto your bench with the springs located. I've tried this method many times without success, but I've seen your work and I know you are a fricking genius mate. 

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45 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Lol did that work Gert ? 

Ha. It worked beautifully. Can’t say the same for the movement though. I promptly bought an auto oiler after that 🤣

Not so sure about the genius part though. Let’s all agree on the wonders of editing?

Edited by gbyleveldt
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7 hours ago, gbyleveldt said:

Ha. It worked beautifully. Can’t say the same for the movement though. I promptly bought an auto oiler after that 🤣

Not so sure about the genius part though. Let’s all agree on the wonders of editing?

Hmm  you sell yourself short matey. 

Just now, Neverenoughwatches said:

Hmm  you sell yourself short matey. 

On another note my missus wants to join the forum, apparently held back as she didnt want to take my baby away from me as i had the interest first. But now bothered about her barage of questions to me and would like to make her own way . Making her case that there are very few women here and a female's perspective might add new ideas. Shes allways had a way of getting round me lol What do you think ?

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6 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

To be honest, it doesn’t matter what either of us think. Womanz do what womanz want. Whatever makes them happy I say 😜

Haha. I couldnt agree more. If mines happy then so am I. She's a strange one but lovely, lol but hey so am I so we must be right for each other.🙂. Besides its gym day today, if i say nothing she might go easy on me. ( i very much doubt that  though 🥵

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright so back to the original non runner watch with the bunched up hairspring that was clearly deformed, i pulled it out, following the instructions of the service manual tweaked the two etachron pins on it and hey! the hair spring looked more or less how it should, a TINY bit bunched up on one side but the watch was working, giving me a bit low amplitude of 210ish but the watch was a non runner and probably needs a service anyways.  Note that it was VERY weird how the pin attached to the beat error arm was so easy to turn it was basically free rotating almost. All i had to do was must nudge it with my tweezers while the other took a good bit of force to turn and required a firm grab. I assume this is not normal.
Here's a pic of the hairspring once i got done tweaking it.
1147098524_IMG_20220825_0534482.thumb.jpg.0593b774e9cc516cf7e73b69fbcd1af3.jpg

So i put it back on which i'm getting quite good at, slotting the roller jewel into the pallet fork, i got it set and noticed it was completely bunched up on the same side it was originally which was making it not run at all. The beat error etachron pin had rotated itself just from setting the thing. I rerotated it, the spring looked good again, Took it off to take another photo for my records, set it on again, it AGAIN rotated on it's own only now the spring appears to be wrecked. 
76302647_IMG_20220825_0722512.thumb.jpg.fe2d3c1677180c93be23e79b847ade88.jpg

Either i did it somehow reinstalling the thing or the beat error pin basically being so loose it can free rotate (Which is the original cause of the watch not running it appears.) may have just bent the hairspring but either way this doesn't look good.

So this begs the question are complete balance assemblies sold as a single unit because I"m concerned if i just buy a new balance wheel and hairspring (Cheap as hell on ebay) that i'll run into the same problem where the etachron pin just freely rotates  and keeps deforming the hairpsring, assuming this wasn't just some mistake i made.

What do you make of this? If anybody has made a video of the procedure of how to remove a 7s26 balance wheel/hairpsring i'd like to see it as I can't find one.  Maybe it's something I can do.

Edited by Birbdad
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Push the loose stud out of the slot its in

Detach  both the regulator and stud carrier arms from the cock.

Seperate the regulator arm and try to narrow the loose gap.

Easier said than done.

Bodge job,  glue the stud to the arm.   🙃

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29 minutes ago, Nucejoe said:

Push the loose stud out of the slot its in

Detach  both the regulator and stud carrier arms from the cock.

Seperate the regulator arm and try to narrow the loose gap.

Easier said than done.

Bodge job,  glue the stud to the arm.   🙃

It sounds like diffusing a bomb levels of stressful XD I was hoping somebody had a video on hand so I could see how somebody does it with a skilled hand. Though where do you see that you have to detach both the regulate and stud carrier arms from the cock? I don't see that in the service sheet.
1069792745_balanceremoval.thumb.jpg.06e62acb5811d1fd64b048c561d92bfc.jpg

So who's done this before? It seems like one of those things that doesn't look hard but is probably very hard and might cost you a hairspring or two doing.

At this point i'm starting to wonder whether just breathing on a hairspring wrong will destroy it because I got no idea what happened here 😬 It was fine, i set it like iv'e done a half dozen times now and then it was absolutely cranked.

Edited by Birbdad
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 Once you push the regulator stud out of its slot, you can try to squeez the two pronges of the regula.. arm in a long nose plier to narrow its  gap for a strong grip on regulator stud, its risky though since it all is close to the oscilator and a mishap can be disaster. 

If you detach the regulator arm it will leave the stud carrier arm loose on the setting anyway, but fixing the gap is less risky.

 The regulator arm material is spring so snaps easy therefore  you might end up buying a good regulator arm.

Its a risky task, as replacing the oscilator. 

 

 

 

 

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Pity we can't post presentations with videos in, as I have a set of lessons on a Seiko 5 7S26C.

I've sent @Birbdada PM with a link so it will help, especially showing how to set the EtaChron system on the balance.

If anyone else wants the set of lessons on this movement send me a message and I'll be glad to help. I find the EtaChron system is a lot better than a curb pin or boot, obviously not as good as a free sprung balance though!

Also, make sure everything is demagnetised, if you haven't thought of that already, as this may make the hairspring stick together. I hope you rinsed the hairspring after cleaning it, in something like 99.9% IPA (isopropyl alcohol) otherwise that will cause coils sticking together

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2 hours ago, Jon said:

Pity we can't post presentations with videos in, as I have a set of lessons on a Seiko 5 7S26C.

I've sent @Birbdada PM with a link so it will help, especially showing how to set the EtaChron system on the balance.

If anyone else wants the set of lessons on this movement send me a message and I'll be glad to help. I find the EtaChron system is a lot better than a curb pin or boot, obviously not as good as a free sprung balance though!

Also, make sure everything is demagnetised, if you haven't thought of that already, as this may make the hairspring stick together. I hope you rinsed the hairspring after cleaning it, in something like 99.9% IPA (isopropyl alcohol) otherwise that will cause coils sticking together

Hey thanks for everything, I cleaned the hairspring twice in Onedip (well the chemical equivalent which is far cheaper than one dipl) and demagnetized everything several times. those were the first things I eliminated when trying to fault find.

3 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

 Once you push the regulator stud out of its slot, you can try to squeez the two pronges of the regula.. arm in a long nose plier to narrow its  gap for a strong grip on regulator stud, its risky though since it all is close to the oscilator and a mishap can be disaster. 

If you detach the regulator arm it will leave the stud carrier arm loose on the setting anyway, but fixing the gap is less risky.

 The regulator arm material is spring so snaps easy therefore  you might end up buying a good regulator arm.

Its a risky task, as replacing the oscilator. 

Oh  i was unsure if the regulator arm a removable part as nobody ever seems to remove it, i actally got a spare of that entire assembly (for the c version of the movement so the balance cock itself is incompatible but the regulator arm is). I also have an older junk hair spring from a lot of junk parts i got that i suppose i could use to practice attaching.  

I did order 2 junk movements from Speedtimer Kollection for a really good price, good spares and one appears if all else fails to have a good condition balance assembly

 

4 hours ago, gbyleveldt said:

Not a video dedicated to balance wheel replacement, but I did one below. Check from around 8:00

 

 

Amazing clear video ! That looks like something i could do tbh. Pity i can't find any watch material stores that seem to stock the part at first glance

i'll kee looking....

Edited by Birbdad
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