Low amplitude for my Seiko Lord Marvel 5740C even after servicing

[Justin]

Hi!!

I recently got myself a Seiko Lord Marvel with the Caliber 5740C. Right after getting it, I took a timegrapher reading through Tg and manual calculation through Audacity. I measured the amplitude of it to be about 140 degree (assuming lift angle to be 53 degree.) I thought the low amplitude may have indicated the watch needs some servicing, so I took it to a watchmaker and had him looked into it and did an overhaul of it. (There were also some other problem with the watch like the minute hand being quite loose when adjusted the time.) Anyway, I got the watch back yesterday and did a measurement again. To my surprise the watch's amplitude is still 140 degrees. The watch itself seems to be in a good working condition. Should I be concerned with the low amplitude or is the lowish amplitude normal on an old high-beat watch such as the Lord Marvel? Could the lowish amplitude be indicating that the main spring is having some issues? Please help!

[mikepilk]

There's something wrong. You should be seeing much higher amplitude.

Seiko are often known for lowish amplitude (220-240°), but Mitka shows one he's serviced with 283° amplitude. I don't know the lift angle, but he's got it set to 52°)

https://workshop.mitka.co.uk/cgi-bin/library?action=show_photos&wat_id=46

Sometimes you can get a false reading when testing in the case. Does it look like 140°? Can you take a slow motion video with your phone? 

[JohnR725]

14 hours ago, Justin said:

I took a timegrapher reading through Tg

a unfortunate problem of some software is incorrect readings and it be nice if you gave us an image of what you're seeing. in other words an image of whatever you're seeing on the screen.

 

14 hours ago, Justin said:

I got the watch back yesterday and did a measurement again. To my surprise the watch's amplitude is still 140 degrees. The watch itself seems to be in a good working condition. Should I be concerned with the low amplitude or is the lowish amplitude normal on an old high-beat watch such as the Lord Marvel? Could the lowish amplitude be indicating that the main spring is having some issues? Please help!

it would be unlikely that you would get the exact same results after a proper servicing. Then if the mainspring was bad the watchmakers should of change that. More than likely the problem we're seeing is with your software and how you're using it. This is where getting a Chinese 1000 to 1900 be a better option as they tend to just work better at being a timing machine versus software. A lot of times the software just has issues. often times were helping people with issues of software and thinking it's hard where people go down the wrong path of what's wrong with their watch when there's nothing wrong with the watch

by the way does your watch keeps time and is still running 24 hours later?

 

9 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Sometimes you can get a false reading when testing in the case. Does it look like 140°? Can you take a slow motion video with your phone? 

probably not an issue with this watch but it can definitely be an issue for some Seiko watches it went on a timing machine where you will get just poor ratings until you remove the movement from the case. Then a be interesting to see how a video works as this watch is running at 36,000 BPH. This might even be a problem with the software as it's much faster than a normal watch

[Nucejoe]

 Dispite the high frequency, a slow mo vid of the balance wheel might help to visually guesstimate the amplitude . 

I'd take it back and have the mainspring replaced with new. 

Tell him Joe said so.

Rgds

 

[Justin]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:17 PM, mikepilk said:

There's something wrong. You should be seeing much higher amplitude.

Seiko are often known for lowish amplitude (220-240°), but Mitka shows one he's serviced with 283° amplitude. I don't know the lift angle, but he's got it set to 52°)

https://workshop.mitka.co.uk/cgi-bin/library?action=show_photos&wat_id=46

Sometimes you can get a false reading when testing in the case. Does it look like 140°? Can you take a slow motion video with your phone? 

Thanks for the link. It's great having it as a reference on how well the Lord Marvel should perform. Though one thing I have noticed is that the Lord Marvel from the link also has its mainspring swapped out, so the lowish amplitude could still be a result of the worn down mainspring in mine.

 

On 10/21/2023 at 12:54 AM, JohnR725 said:

a unfortunate problem of some software is incorrect readings and it be nice if you gave us an image of what you're seeing. in other words an image of whatever you're seeing on the screen.

Here are the screenshots. One taken with the dial facing up and the other with the dial facing down.

 

On 10/21/2023 at 12:54 AM, JohnR725 said:

by the way does your watch keeps time and is still running 24 hours later?

The watch is running after 2 days getting back from the watch service guy. It was running a bit too fast, +60 ish sec  per day. I ended up just reregulate it myself.

[JohnR725]

13 hours ago, Justin said:

One taken with the dial facing up and the other with the dial facing down.

one of the problems as I stated with a lot of the software is what should it look like? For instance this image to me looks positively horrible but maybe it's how it's supposed to look with the software

not only when you look at the little dots on your LCD screen or whatever you expect them to look a little cleaner than this but sometimes you'll see this if it's greatly magnified so maybe this is a valid nice-looking but to me I be very concerned with also brings up the concern of escapement lubrication on a high frequency watch

than dial-up and dial down should be almost if not identical. So +17-5 are not identical that would suggest a pivotal issue with the balance wheel.

As you're running free software did you know there's other free software out there try?

https://c.web.de/@337134913998293880/YuEh_TobSjaCfyBDix_1gg

http://www.watchoscope.com/

it might be worthwhile and interesting to try both versions to see how the watch looks see if anything changes.

then I went looking for timing machine images for watch like yours the movement. I think all the ones I saw had a higher amplitude the particular site has looking at was using the 1000 Chinese timing machine. I did notice on the lower amplitudes when you look at the graphical display is not as nice which is usually a sign of a watch that needs servicing. Except your watch has been serviced I'm still suspicious of the software so be nice to look at other software and as I said both of those have free versions the second leg initially will run in the full version and then eventually will drop down to a few less features for the free version but initially get everything

 

 

 

 

[Nucejoe]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

I'm still suspicious of the software so be nice to look at other software a

In such a case to test your machine, I try another or several watches on it.

 If we we were to assume 140 degrees is actually your amplitude then all other numbers you see on the screen are invalid.

 

[Justin]

8 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

than dial-up and dial down should be almost if not identical. So +17-5 are not identical that would suggest a pivotal issue with the balance wheel.

I did remember the watch service guy told me that he replaced the balance wheel stem, and I am not sure if the change in the reading could be a result of that.

 

I am not sure if it will help or not but here is a screenshot I took from Tg before I got my watch serviced:

8 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

one of the problems as I stated with a lot of the software is what should it look like? For instance this image to me looks positively horrible but maybe it's how it's supposed to look with the software

not only when you look at the little dots on your LCD screen or whatever you expect them to look a little cleaner than this but sometimes you'll see this if it's greatly magnified so maybe this is a valid nice-looking but to me I be very concerned with also brings up the concern of escapement lubrication on a high frequency watch

Also, the way I took the reading was pretty terrible. I placed my earbud's microphone next to the watch to do the measurement, so some of the fluctuation you see in timegraph may be a result of it.

 

Another thing to note is that I did do a manual measurement and calculation of the amplitude using Audacity to measure the time difference between the first and third beat noise. 

The time difference I measured was about 0.012 sec. Using this formula:

I got the equation: (3600 * 53) / (0.012 * 3.14 * 36000) = 140 degree

8 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

As you're running free software did you know there's other free software out there try?

https://c.web.de/@337134913998293880/YuEh_TobSjaCfyBDix_1gg

http://www.watchoscope.com/

it might be worthwhile and interesting to try both versions to see how the watch looks see if anything changes.

Thanks for linking them. I will check them out to compare my readings from Tg. As I don't have a proper test stand, I probably will still use my earbud's microphone. I have checked the recording I get from the earbud's microphone and it does reject the external noise quite well and you get a pretty strong signal for the ticking noise.

6 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

In such a case to test your machine, I try another or several watches on it.

 If we we were to assume 140 degrees is actually your amplitude then all other numbers you see on the screen are invalid.

 

Unfortunately, the Seiko Lord Marvel is my only mechanical watch. I got it as my first mechanical watch after diving into the vintage Seiko rabbit hole and later found a great deal for it. 

I do have a friend who also owns a Seiko Lord Marvel so I might go take a measurement of his Lord Marvel and compare his result to mine. 

[JohnR725]

13 hours ago, Justin said:

I placed my earbud's microphone next to the watch to do the measurement, so some of the fluctuation you see in timegraph may be a result of it.

I had thought about asking the question of the microphone but conveniently let it slide. The timing machines don't actually use sort of a microphone. The microphone as it sometimes called is designed to pick up the vibrations of the watch not the audio traveling through the air. It is extremely critical for timing functions that whatever you call this device it picks up the watch correctly otherwise you're going to have problems.

13 hours ago, Justin said:

I have checked the recording I get from the earbud's microphone and it does reject the external noise quite well and you get a pretty strong signal for the ticking noise.

then the problem of audio processing is timing machines for instance they don't care about low frequencies anything over 1000 HZ is acceptable and I don't run with the maximum is. So there is a possibility of audio processing that is not helping the situation perhaps

then I went looking online to see if I can find timing machine results and the particular site I was looking at these are watches all in need of service but they were running I think the worst-case example was 150 some degrees all the way up to over 200°. The fact that years hasn't changed between servicing and not servicing and is still pathetically low is suspicious? It be really nice if you had another watch time so we could see if it really is the software although it be really nice to have a watch that you know what the specifications are. This is where I wish the Chinese would clone something that witschi has its dreadfully expensive they basically have a synthetic watch used for timing machine verifications. I'm not actually sure what the cost is but I'm sure it is expensive. But it does allow you to program it for various watch conditions to verify your timing machine indeed is showing those results.

 

 

 

[Nucejoe]

16 hours ago, Justin said:

Unfortunately, the Seiko Lord Marvel is my only mechanical watch. I got it as my first mechanical watch after diving into the vintage Seiko rabbit hole and later found a great deal for it. 

I do have a friend who also owns a Seiko Lord Marvel so I might go take a measurement of his Lord Marvel and compare his result to mine. 

 The escapement in your watch is adjusted  so you should see nice steady lines on your TG machine, its a high grade hairspring thats suppose  to keep the amplitude from sharp fluctuations ( and steady ) with the watch on wrist,. This however doesn't mean the health of your TG machine must be check with non other than lord marvel , you can test the machine with a Seiko 5 , I prefer to conduct the test with a 21600 beater.

Good luck pal.

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Nucejoe

[Justin]

I used Watch O Scope to measure my watch again today and the result is still funky....

 

 

[JohnR725]

I suppose it still could be the microphone setup isn't picking up the watch correctly. As I said ideally you need a pickup designed for watches. But seeing as how it's giving similar results there is the very likelihood that something isn't right still with your watch this is where it be nice if you had any other mechanical watch doesn't matter what kind of a mechanical watch to try and see what happens.

out of curiosity I went and found the bottom is the image from the link up above where somebody at service dent it looks quite decent. Then I found some other timing machine results two different watches and the first image up above you can see a little bit a roughness and of course the watches out of beat that's easy enough to fix. But the other one looks quite decent so we know that the watch can look decent on the timing machine even running as fast as it is and yours definitely does not look good?

 

 

 

 

 

[Justin]

I managed to reach out to the Vintage Time Australia guy and asked him about the reading I got with my Lord Marvel. He said that the amplitude should not be that low. Even with a worn out mainspring, the amplitude for it should still be in the 200 degree range. 

 

I also did some calculation on what Lift Time would be for Seiko Lord Marvel to reach an amplitude of 200 degree or above and it's about 0.007 sec or less. Anyway the Lift Time I measured for my Lord Marvel was about 0.012 sec when I measured the time difference between the waveform of the recording which calculates to about 140 degree. The thing is the time difference between 0.012 and 0.007 is great enough that I highly doubt that it's a result of my setup being not precise enough for watches.

 

The VTA guy also mentions that a low amplitude that I am getting may indicate a fault with balance wheel. Considering that the watch service guy I took my Lord Marvel to also told me that he had to swap out the balance stem, it seems to be indicating that my watch may have some funky balance wheel issue.

 

Anyway, at this point, I think I have spent enough money and time on this watch. It seems to still be running well-ish, although not great, and it's keeping a good enough time of maybe +10 sec/day that I feel like I can live with result for now. Huge thanks for everyone who has given me advice/opinions on this matter!!

 

 

[JohnR725]

hopefully next week will get some answers to the questions at least my questions. Specific questions are how does this watch look with the various timing machines software. Sometime next week my 5740C should be showing up complements of DHL. I rather like the manual wind early Seiko watches as they tend to be very nice and I've like the look of this one for some time. Just hadn't found it at a nice price until now.

So as I have all of the software I will be trying that out the only difference will be earbuds are not the best for picking up watches. 'll start with one of the Chinese microphones designed for timing machine software will see how that looks.

[Justin]

That's awesome!!! I hope you enjoy the watch!! The Lord Marvel just has a lot of charms and the movement is relatively straight forward but just extremely well executed! Hopefully yours will have better performance than mine!

 

I am also waiting on a Lord Matic 5606 that I just recently bought

[JohnR725]

4 minutes ago, Justin said:

Hopefully yours will have better performance than mine!

annoyingly I forgot the snip out the full image of the description but the description was  really good and I think one of the timing machine results above came from the watch is purchasing. I is always forget that once the watches purchased is removed from the listing then it is a little different

probably was cheaper as the dials faded but I don't care about things like that I think faded dials and other little things add to the character of the watch

then it looks like the only other image I got was the movement. I really do have to remember to get all the images and snip out descriptions before placing orders

[JohnR725]

As my watch arrived and thought I would do it timing machine review with it. It might give us an answer to the question of is the original posting persons watch having an issue or is it the microphone giving it an issue or do we have no idea?

I took the watch to work to run a timing cycle on it to give us say baseline basically. It also shows you what an extremely expensive witschi timing machine can do with its automatic microphone.

Now thinking about the automatic microphone the timing positions don't end up being right because the dial was up normally have dial down and then we end up with the left and right usually gets swapped around so up and down for the dial are not necessarily right but they are up and down the dial it still gives us an idea of what's going on

Amplitude for a fully wound up watch the little lower than would like to see obviously the watch needs to be serviced. Another thing to do someday in the future.

Then normal timing should be about 20 to 30 seconds this particular setting for the machine is really fast which as long as the watches running fine is okay but normally should have longer sampling times

Then on the oscilloscope we get something interesting that is the amplitude is way too high? But on the oscilloscope it tells us where it's triggering and I put some marks its triggering in the wrong place should be triggering on the second Mark and because it's triggering on the wrong place in the oscilloscope mode it's giving us a happy amplitude that doesn't exist. We'll see more of this problem later on

Here we see a little more the oscilloscope the audio sound of this watch is rather interesting is that of course is running really fast and they hairspring is stiffer than you normally find solid as a little different ringing sound which conceivably may bother some timing machines as we'll see later on

So for the software I started off with the Chinese microphone to see what all the various software have will do with it.

The oscilloscope in watch-o-scope is pretty good little

One of things the software as is raw mode. It's kinda like turning the oscilloscope on its edge and looking down at it and then stacking them together is a really looking at a whole bunch on oscilloscope traces across the page of that makes any sense at all probably not but it is a interesting mode.. This is where if you had background noise like they hairspring was bumping into something it would be a lot easier to see than in the normal oscilloscope what tends to go by so fast and slow harder to find patterns.

Then to the other software same microphone and I hate their graphical display it makes it look like the watch is having a serious issue. There is supposed to be some newer versions but they don't run in the PC. But this is what we want to see is how this compared with yours and at least the numbers look more or less correct.

On the different software oh and I never calibrated the software in any of these because when you change the microphones depending upon things that changes the calibration which is why some of the numbers may be off but this software does seem to work really well much better than some of the other stuff which gets unhappy with things at times

Then this software didn't like the USB microphone with the high-frequency watch. I've used it with lower frequency watches and at least from memory it seems to work so I switched to its microphone which initially it plugged into the PC or in this case a netbook

Now notice on the oscilloscope have the amplitude it looks really spectacular and if you look at the oscilloscope were not triggering where were supposed to be. The software it typically works fine but when you're playing with four different pieces of software different microphones I probably don't have all the settings quite correct. Otherwise to run all these tests would take way more time than is willing to spend

Oh and yes the software can do a lot of things I'm just using it to quickly evaluate the watch for the purposes discussion

Then minor problem with the microphone plugged into the netbook none of the rest of the software recognized its existence at all. Even though the software above had no problems with its. Fortunately it originally came with a USB adapter and I plugged that in and continued running the tests. Oh and when you plug the USB adapters in of course you need to recalibrate which as I said I didn't do so there will be minor Timing differences

Minor differences from this is the last one probably differences of how things are processed. But you will notice rate looks ride amplitude looks right etc. etc.

This is an interesting the oscilloscope is considerably less than in the previous version seems to work though but this is where normally normal people would be trying to run the four pieces of software so you and adapted whatever you have and each time it should work consistently.

Once again the graphical display sucks as far as I'm concerned but the numbers and stuff look fine

 

That is much as free software is free to get it to work of course you do have to have the proper pickup like I've shown in images reverses your bug microphone or whatever's being used way up above in this originally done. I was using microphones not designed for picking up watches will be problematic. More than once in this discussion group we've gone off in the wrong direction based on software that wasn't functioning properly.

Then Chinese 1000 timing machine. Initially it seemed to take a little along her to figure out what it was trying to do but once it figured it out it's working perfect. One of the reasons I like the Chinese timing machines or any physical timing machine is they just tend to work. Although for those nitpicky people the witschi timing machine is both hardware and software particular machine we have is running Windows CE. I occasionally have to turn it off and Back on because it gets confused over something.

 

Oh and as far as I know the watch that I received hasn't been serviced in any time I have no idea when. There's no marks on the inside case back I doubt it's ever been serviced and based on the case back itself I doubt the watch was used very much at all does seem to be a really nice condition. Although the regulator isn't quite right like to see it and it is a little out of beat but still very interesting watch to have.