How difficult are Accutrons to repair?

[LittleWatchShop]

Relative to, e.g., mens manual wind, automatic wind, date, day/date, etc. Ignore parts availability in your answer.

@JohnR725

 

[Paul80]

I assume you are talking about their tuning fork models.

I would say not more difficult, once you understand their unique process but much more tricky.

There are a few strip down videos on YouTube, watch those so you know what you are getting into

Here is a good one, watch it and then the following 2 assembly ones, he goes into quite a bit of detail.

Don't think I would touch one yet though 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

I have the accutron test set and one of the movement holders, so I am a little beyond the starting point.

[HectorLooi]

It's not that difficult. But you'll need a microscope, Accutron test meter, ultrasonic cleaner and Accutron adjustment tools. 

Since your father was repairing Accutrons, he would probably have had all the tools.

The most difficult part in repairing any tuning fork is getting replacement coils and index wheels.

IMO most non-working Accutrons would need replacing a coil or index wheel or both. The design of tuning fork watches is such that if the index wheel stops moving and the fork continues to hum, the pawl/index jewels would probaly damage the index wheel.

I have tried to repair some by increasing the tension on the pawl/index fingers to compensate for tooth wear of the index wheel, but that results in higher current consumption and shorter battery life.

So until someone finds a way to manufacture new index wheels or finds a stash of NOS index wheels, I'll probably turn down Accutron repair jobs.

But just for the experience, I would encourage you to try it yourself. It's like trying durian for the first time. That's what we say in South East Asia. 

[LittleWatchShop]

7 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

s like trying durian for the first time.

Lol...heard many stories about durian, never tried it

I have, meter, microscope, movement holder (unsure for which movements). Not sure about adjustment wrench, but I probably have it.

[JohnR725]

20 hours ago, Paul80 said:

I assume you are talking about their tuning fork models

 

I found this definition quite interesting   ACCUTRON stands for“ACCUracy through ElecTRONic. This would then mean that any basically electric watch would qualify including a quartz watch but I'm going to assume tuning fork watches what you're asking about .

How easy are they? I suppose it depends on a variety of factors. For instance Bulova had an issue with the watch first came out as watchmakers didn't know what the make of this newfangled watch that didn't have a balance wheel. But that was also a generation of the watchmaker who didn't understand what to do with any of electric watches. So Bulova wasn't the only company with training for their electric watches. Although Bulova's certificate if you past was much nicer than everyone else's.

Problem is their vintage and all vintage watches have a problem with parts availability and of course parts wearing out. Fortunately there is eBay where new old stock materializes from time to time. But I doubt that that's going to last forever so at some point in time there will be no more index wheels and circuits even if people are at least one person is rewinding the coils.

Then there is the battery voltage issue work reverses silver cell. But there is a phasing procedure that seems to work well and then the watch will run at the right rate and still maintain current consumption within specifications.

Frank basically if you have really good hand eye coordination because the fingers have to be absolutely perfect. It understand the test equipment the electronics part than servicing these is no different than any mechanical watch except. The exception is you do it be very careful on procedures of how things are disassembled and reassembled. Our Jeff to pay attention to where the fingers are when you're disassembling things 70 careful with the index wheel you can't just toss that in the place.

 

 

 

 

[Alaskamick]

I would say you need to be a full time repairer with some amazing tools and meters and experience before you lay a screwdriver on one.

At one time I had five of them but when I started looking at repairs I gave up and sold the lot and ended my worries.

You can always sell them because the parts or impossible to buy so the few repairers are always after parts.

Sad but true.

[LittleWatchShop]

Looking through my Dad's tools, I have multiple Accutron back wrenches.  I also found three index wheels.  Cannot tell which model they are for, however. 

I put an accutron on my Vibrograf B200A and I get squirrelly results.  Frankly, I never understood how the vibrograf was supposed to be able to read an accutron--knowing the principle of the vibrograf operation.  I never gave it much thought until today.

But, the accutron is keeping good time...maybe 3-4 seconds a day.

--------------------------***

AHAAA!!  Push two buttons...the Accutron button plus one other.

And just like that, my Vibrograf is useful again!!

Edited August 8, 2022 by LittleWatchShop

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I put an accutron on my Vibrograf B200A and I get squirrelly results.

Squarely results is not what you're supposed to see. I'm pretty sure for the tuning fork watches there is a extra divider board in there that drops the frequency down. Then I'm having a weird feeling we've had this discussion before somewhere in the verse in a case I snipped out an image unfortunately it's not in English but it does give you a clue from different frequencies it's divided down to correspond to the normal frequencies of the timing machine in which case you should have I believe a straight line

Fortunately for me I have a vintage witschi machine that does tuning fork watches. Because unfortunately the current witschi machines like quartz watches and don't tuning fork watches. Even the fancy power supply at work from which she won't even recognize or even power a tuning fork watch which is weird.

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

I also found three index wheels.  Cannot tell which model they are for, however. 

One of the problem with the index wheel's is that some of us have a habit of putting the old index wheel back in the container that held the new index wheel's of the packages are open assumes that the index wheel is used.

 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

24 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

One of the problem with the index wheel's is that some of us have a habit of putting the old index wheel back in the container that held the new index wheel's of the packages are open assumes that the index wheel is used.

Lol...reasonable likelihood