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Slippage when winding


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I have seen a few posts with similar questions but the suggestions don't match what I am seeing.

When I wind the watch with the crown it winds a little and then all of a sudden slips often releasing all the power.

I can't seem to identify why. With the case back off I see nothing move when the watch slips.  The crown wheel stays meshed with the ratchet wheel - the crown, in-between my fingers does not slip.

While winding I do not see any slippage between the winding pinion and the crown wheel - the teeth look OK...

I can wind the watch all the way up to full wind by manually pushing the ratchet wheel around with my brass tweezers.  From this I believe I can rule out that the issue is with the arbour / hook / bridle...

But if it is none of these then what could be going on?

 

Edited by ColinC
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22 minutes ago, ColinC said:

I see nothing move when the watch slips.

It would've been helpful to give us a watch model number? Usually slippage like this would be the mainspring and the mainspring is usually in a barrel which means you can't see anything.

25 minutes ago, ColinC said:

I can wind the watch all the way up to full wind by manually pushing the ratchet wheel around with my brass tweezers.  From this I believe I can rule out that the issue is with the arbour / hook / bridle...

I find this a little confusing you want to clarify? What do you mean by pushing the ratchet wheel around?

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Bad practice I am sure.... but I can stick my tweezers between the teeth of the ratchet wheel and "push it around" / give it a bit of wind.

Nothing slips when I do this - this is why I don't believe that the slippage is going on inside the barrel.

The watch has an EB 8800 movement - here is a nice close up...
image.thumb.png.7cc70d52b942f0e8e7b09b64222732a0.png 

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It could, in fact, be a broken bridle. If the bridle has snapped off there would still be sufficient friction to allow the spring to wind ... to a point. Once the point where the spring tension overcomes the friction it would tend to release completely rather than incrementally.

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5 minutes ago, ColinC said:

EB 8800 movement

I was afraid of something like this and yes the pictures helpful for those that have never seen one of these. The problem with a watch like this made at a bargain price and they do things a little bit differently.

 

7 minutes ago, ColinC said:

but I can stick my tweezers between the teeth of the ratchet wheel and "push it around" / give it a bit of wind.

Nitpicky clarification required? When winding with the crown versus pushing with the tweezers visually is it exactly the same? Then when you whining with your tweezers are you pushing down at all?

45 minutes ago, ColinC said:

I can't seem to identify why. With the case back off I see nothing move when the watch slips.  The crown wheel stays meshed with the ratchet wheel - the crown, in-between my fingers does not slip.

It's possible the mainspring is slipping on the other side farther into the watch. As I said these are made differently cheaper than a standard watch and we probably need a better image of the mainspring barrel itself. Like for instance you notice the upper pivot well if you do you're seeing things as there is no upper pivot. So another words is a strap holding the barrel in place and it's definitely made differently than the standard watch. Which means conceivably it slipping on the other side as things have worn out and you may not be a loose see that on the other side.

One of the annoying problems with technical information that you download is conveniently when it was scanned the technical was not because they just wanted the parts lists. So we can see that the mainspring barrel in this case doesn't have an arbor. In other words it goes together a little bit differently than a standard watch and it's possible that it still has defect and is slipping somewhere in here.

Then he is a website that shows a few pictures but not how the barrel goes together or the barrel itself which is unfortunate.

https://17jewels.info/movements/e/eb/eb-8800/

 

EB_EB 8800etc.pdf

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Thanks for the input - but I don't think this is the case either. I have inspected the spring and it looked fine with the bridle locked against the ridge on the barrel wall.  And as I said, I did manage to put a full wind on it using my tweezers without any slipping.

@JohnR725 You might be right about pushing down when I use the tweezers!

And yes I am aware that this is a cheap movement!

I have just taken the watch back out of the case and removed the dial to see if I can see better.

Strangely I was able to wind it  a few times without slipping when it was out of the case .  But when I try to release the power on the mainspring by holding back the click and slowly letting the crown turn, it slips. 

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Problem Solved!!!

I went through my bag of "Watches I never wish I had bought / bid on" and found another watch with an EB 8800 (a 1 jewel version with a bent hairspring) and decided to swap parts until it worked.
 

After trying the mainspring barrel I tried swapping the winding and sliding pinion - turns out it was the winding pinion.  It was very hard to see on the inspection. The breguet teeth on the winding and sliding pinions are very shallow on this movement and didn't look obviously broken.  At 22x mag under the microscope you can see they are worn - but I missed it at the 10x.

Here is my best effort of a photo (I don't have the gear to take it through the microscope)
image.thumb.png.a4a0f332ea2f20e8eaaa0769dc38b1f7.png

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13 hours ago, ColinC said:

When I wind the watch with the crown it winds a little and then all of a sudden slips often releasing all the power.

Well, what is written here can't be explained with the wear of the winding/sliding pinion. Probably it is some kind of delusion from You side. But it prevented the people from pointing the reason of what is happening. Otherwice, this kind of wear is one of the common problems of winding works in watch movements. It meets often in old or cheap movements, or particulary in negative stem system pocket movements where not proper adjustment of the sleeve that guides the stem is done.

 

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I had a similar thing on a Citizen, turned out that one of the jewels on the pallet fork was tipped up ever so slightly, so it would hold the wind most of the time, but then (apparently at random it seemed) the escape wheel would slip over/under the stone and the watch would rapidly unwind. Just a thought

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54 minutes ago, Waggy said:

I had a similar thing on a Citizen, turned out that one of the jewels on the pallet fork was tipped up ever so slightly, so it would hold the wind most of the time, but then (apparently at random it seemed) the escape wheel would slip over/under the stone and the watch would rapidly unwind. Just a thought

👍 the two points of energy release would be the click and the pallet stones, providing the barrel and train is in good order and transferring that energy between those two points. If nothing can be seen to be visually unwinding within the train then you would suspect it's something hidden within the barrel. I do find it hard to understand that colin managed to fully wind-up the mainspring using tweezers on the teeth of the ratchet wheel that is some hellish tension to hold on. If i had to guess it would be either the bridle slippling off the barrel wall ledge at a set point of tension or the arbor hook disengaging from the mainspring. The ledge/ bridle  lip has worn or the inner coil of the mainspring is not tight enough around the barrel arbor. Can't be the winding pinion teeth as the energy is provided but not locked here .

Edited by Neverenoughwatches
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22 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

👍 the two points of energy release would be the click and the pallet stones, providing the barrel and train is in good order and transferring that energy between those two points. If nothing can be seen to visually unwinding within the train then you would suspect it's something hidden within the barrel. I do find it hard to understand that colin managed to fully wind-up the mainspring using tweezers on the teeth of the ratchet wheel that is some hellish tension to hold on. If i had to guess it would be either the bridle slippling off the barrel wall ledge at a set point of tension or the arbor hook disengaging from the mainspring. The ledge/ bridle  lip has worn or the inner coil of the mainspring is not tight enough around the barrel arbor. Can't be the winding pinion teeth as the energy is provided but not locked here .

Something I've never thought about before, yes we give the watch it's power by winding up a manual watch but the real initial transfer of energy comes from us . Energy released from our fingers using muscle tension to overcome the resistance of the mainspring to coil up. So we are in effect transferring our energy to our watches. Now there's a wierd thought, if only that tranfer of energy could be measured from our phyical loss of it to the gained energy of the coiled mainspring, thermal energy to kinetic energy 🤪

15 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Yes, I don't understand either.  I can only think the winding it by the ratchet wheel force is being applied at an angle and holding whatever us slipping in place. 

Stress on the bearings though, i wouldn't want to try that.

Edited by Neverenoughwatches
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Thanks for all the input.

I too thought that a slip between the winding and sliding pinion would not cause the mainspring to release its power.  

Here is my hypothesis as to what is going on:

The watch has an EB 8800 movement (pin pallet - no pallet stones) where the barrel lid doubles as the barrel arbour.

When the winding pinion slips a shock of pressure goes through the crown wheel and is transferred to the ratchet wheel.  This shock lifts the lid of the barrel and that causes the mainspring to slip inside the barrel (possibly at the hook end)

No more slips from the winding pinion and the problem has gone 🙂
 

Edited by ColinC
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14 minutes ago, ColinC said:

The watch has an EB 8800 movement (pin pallet - no pallet stones) where the barrel lid doubles as the barrel arbour.

Lol yeah not a great movement then.  I think the arbor is pressed onto the lid on those. I seem to remember quite a big clumsy looking thing and awkward to get in position. So maybe the arbor hook is not catching the mainspring eye deeply enough, other shocks might also cause a release .

18 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

To paraphrase Sherlock Homes, "when the possible has been eliminated, the  impossible must be the cause ". 

Without a better theory, you maybe correct, Colin. 

Lol you are funny Rich, not quite a Basil Rathbone fan then. 🙂

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