Timegraphing

rossjackson01 · October 27, 2022

I've been looking at ways to check my watches, and a timegraph seems to be the way to go. The cost at this time is inordinately expensive. May be later.

however, I made a startling discovery. I can have a very good system for free.

My watch holder can hold a watch and be turned in many directions.

Placed against the microphone of a spare webcam

Timegrapher 0.5.0 for PC.

Works a treat.

See the results

Saved over £130

Edited October 27, 2022 by rossjackson01
grammar

Kalanag · October 27, 2022

I like this program too and use it in parallel to my Weishi 1000.

JohnR725 · October 29, 2022

On 10/27/2022 at 11:31 AM, rossjackson01 said:

The cost at this time is inordinately

Yes casually it seems expensive but it's well worth the money and they work really well

On 10/27/2022 at 11:31 AM, rossjackson01 said:

however, I made a startling discovery. I can have a very good system for free.

My watch holder can hold a watch and be turned in many directions.

Placed against the microphone of a spare webcam

Timegrapher 0.5.0 for PC.

Works a treat.

See the results

Saved over £130

Just think if you didn't have a free PC to run this on I wonder which would be cheaper the PC or the timing machine?

Then there is other software out there that's free like this and we've had a rather lengthy discussion about this one

http://www.watchoscope.com/

rossjackson01 · October 29, 2022

18 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Then there is other software out there that's free like this and we've had a rather lengthy discussion about this one

http://www.watchoscope.com/

Thank you. Tried to install this first and it would not install on my machine. Resorted to Timegrapher 0.5.0.

I think I have proved to myself that I can service a watch, poorly> When I check with the timegrapher I can get + or - readings for seconds. Beat error can range from 1 to 5. These I can adjust by the lugs. However, my problem is that I get a proverbial snowstorm for amplitude. Any idea what I need to do, to better that part of the regulation?

If there is section of the site that someone could direct me to, I would appreciate that. Typing 'timegrapher' gives limited results.

Is it something as simple as re-clean the jewels top and bottom for the balance wheel?

Regards

Ross

Edited October 29, 2022 by rossjackson01
grammar

Neverenoughwatches · October 29, 2022

On 10/27/2022 at 7:31 PM, rossjackson01 said:

I've been looking at ways to check my watches, and a timegraph seems to be the way to go. The cost at this time is inordinately expensive. May be later.

however, I made a startling discovery. I can have a very good system for free.

My watch holder can hold a watch and be turned in many directions.

Placed against the microphone of a spare webcam

Timegrapher 0.5.0 for PC.

Works a treat.

See the results

Saved over £130

Ill definitely have to check that out ross as a compare for my tg. Good information to post matey thank you.

watchweasol · October 29, 2022

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrJO1UaOF1jnfUAwBx3Bwx.;_ylu=Y29sbwMEcG9zAzIEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1667082394/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.electroschematics.com%2fwatch-scope-piezo%2f/RK=2/RS=8UX5eR3nkV.Yz.khuPW_kufAK0Y-

The above contains all about watch o scope. I use it and its ok. If you have a problem with down loading contact *****@*****.tld may be they can help. The lite version runs for free and the paid for version $40 give a life licence and several other features. there is a simple amplifier and stand to make but once done no problem. I believe there is a compatible multi position stand now reccomended by W_O_S and an amplifier ready built.

JohnR725 · October 29, 2022

9 hours ago, rossjackson01 said:

I think I have proved to myself that I can service a watch, poorly> When I check with the timegrapher I can get + or - readings for seconds. Beat error can range from 1 to 5. These I can adjust by the lugs. However, my problem is that I get a proverbial snowstorm for amplitude. Any idea what I need to do, to better that part of the regulation?

If there is section of the site that someone could direct me to, I would appreciate that. Typing 'timegrapher' gives limited results.

Is it something as simple as re-clean the jewels top and bottom for the balance wheel

first step in timing machine interpretation troubleshooting is to troubleshoot the timing machine.

The most important aspect of whatever you using whether it's an actual timing machine like the Chinese 1000 or the 1900 or in this case a software for the PC or a phone App the absolute most important thing is that you get a good clean signal. While the ticking sound of a watch is an audio frequency range the timing machines themselves the pickup is actually picking up the vibration of the ticking not the audio. Most things that are not timing machines have microphones that pick up audio sounds that are not actually designed for timing machine use. So whatever you use has to pick up the signal correctly or we will have a problem.

then yes you really do have to understand all of this if you would like to interpret the results of your timing whatever. Because until we get a timing machine with artificial intelligence that will just tell you what the problem is you do have to understand. Otherwise as I said you will have a problem and I will explain farther down what the problem is.

then we have a really nice video wasn't specifically designed for the purpose that I like the use it for it was designed this show us how wonderful their new escapement is but in order to show you how wonderful it is they have to show you the lever escapement which works beautiful for us. then the video shows everything is being absolutely perfect which works well for learning point of view unfortunately a real life the waveform isn't always as perfect as this but it is really nice for training purposes.

So skip ahead to about one minute and two seconds we get to the lever escapement . You can see is the balance wheel is rotating the roller jewel is crashing into the fork and generates sound number one. the absolutely most quiet sound of the ticking and its key to everything if your timing whatever is going to work.

then for the middle signals number two and three no notice they overlap to certain degree. Then in most drawings of the escapement oscilloscope they will overlap these to one signal so typically LC three signals one reality we notice five because the overlap.

now we get to the next most important to locking sound which is number four finally crashing into the banking pin. These two of course overlap to certain degree.

ideally should watch the video more than once there might be a test later on.

https://youtu.be/g5c5RK4WFV8

then I've attached a whole bunch a images and a PDF while we continue our education into interpreting timing machine results.

from the witschi PDF two separate images where of course the waveforms are consolidated to three each rather than five and they show the importance of two of them. The roller jewel sound is number one key to everything. Then if you want have amplitude you need the fourth sound and you can measure amplitude looks pretty simple.

the notice in all of this so far we've been using the oscilloscope to look at things and unfortunately on most timing machines you don't get around oscilloscope. Although on most timing machines you don't typically need on oscilloscope because typically they pick up the signals correctly and typically will show you the correct results.

Fortunately on our application for the PC in this discussion it has an oscilloscope and let's see what we can learn from that first I went online and found another image somebody else's and notice on the oscilloscope I circled it looks pretty darn perfect. We see three clear signals and nothing in between absolute quietness. This is ideally what were looking for.

now we can see aware having our oscilloscope for your timing machine is really important let's snipped out an image for up above and compare with everything we've learned. We know that ideally background noise should be nonexistent and we see a lot of background noise if that is of high enough level the timing software might think it's a valid signal or? In other words it might interpret it as a problem in the watch something making noise that shouldn't be making noise and of course it could show up as random dots on the screen. Then the number one key signal doesn't appear to be super clear to me if it's not clear to software then your rate is going to be all over the place especially if it varies a little each time in other words you can't consistently trigger off something that it has to trigger off of. Of course if the rate is wrong because it doesn't get a nice signal amplitude will be wrong and basically everything will be wrong all because of a signal that's not quite correct

then mentioned there was a problem of what if we do not get a clean signal? It may be we don't get a clean signal because the watch is having issues and running really poorly or we may not get a good clean signal if you're just not picking up the ticking sound correctly. The problem becomes where is the problem is if the inability to pick up the signal correctly or is the watch itself having a problem. We've done this a couple of times with people with phone apps where the problem was really in the app and the microphone that wasn't designed to pick up ticking of watch sounds. As the image I found online shows the software can work it just has to have a proper pickup that gets the correct signals otherwise we can end up with a situation like this of is that the watch having a problem or is it the software having a problem?