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9 hours ago, jguitron said:



0131d53e2d8f008d948e039592f4bb6b.jpg

This is the problem if one is tinkering with drivers after WOS is installed. It can be refreshing as You did, or installing EQ APO or installing Virtual Cable. The solution is to remove WOS and EQ APO and WOS. Then reboot and reinstall everything but leave WOS for last. 

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The message is coming from the driver, via Windows. Watch-O-Scope is just displaying it. It basically means that the driver (or something in between the driver and WOS) doesn't support 44.1kHz mono sampling (which all sound cards do support).

Uninstalling and reinstalling WOS should have no effect. WOS does not interact with the audio system during installation, only when you actually run the program.

As far as Realtek drivers go, I don't use them. Realtek isn't known for writing great drivers for their hardware. I've always found the Windows generic drivers to be far more reliable.

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Here is what I did to get EQ APO to work with WOS.

1. In Device Manager, uninstall and remove the Realtek driver and reboot.  Now the Windows driver is running.

2. Run EQ APO's Configurator.exe and under Capture devices, install APO to Line In (which is where I send the output of the WOS preamp).

3. APO's Configuration Editor (Editor.exe) can now be run. But its built-in graphical equalizer did not work for me (moving sliders created a lot of noise and sometimes it quits working). So instead ofthis Configuration Editor, install Peace. Put the downloaded Peace.exe file in EQ APO's config folder. Double click on Peace.exe to run the the Peace graphical equalizer.

4. WOS can now be run. A really nice feature is that the Peace equalizer sliders can be adjusted while the WOS scope feature is running. This makes it easy to find the best setting for low noise and a stable tick pattern.

If you want to listen to the watch with headphones plugged into the computer (speakers won't work because of feedback), go to the Windows sound setup Recording tab and double click on Line in. Then go to the Listen tab, and check "Listen to this device". If EQ APO is not working, check that "Enable audio enhancements" is turned on in the Advanced tab (mine was set that way by default).

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1 hour ago, wlysenko said:

Here is what I did to get EQ APO to work with WOS.

1. In Device Manager, uninstall and remove the Realtek driver and reboot.  Now the Windows driver is running.

2. Run EQ APO's Configurator.exe and under Capture devices, install APO to Line In (which is where I send the output of the WOS preamp).

3. APO's Configuration Editor (Editor.exe) can now be run. But its built-in graphical equalizer did not work for me (moving sliders created a lot of noise and sometimes it quits working). So instead ofthis Configuration Editor, install Peace. Put the downloaded Peace.exe file in EQ APO's config folder. Double click on Peace.exe to run the the Peace graphical equalizer.

4. WOS can now be run. A really nice feature is that the Peace equalizer sliders can be adjusted while the WOS scope feature is running. This makes it easy to find the best setting for low noise and a stable tick pattern.

If you want to listen to the watch with headphones plugged into the computer (speakers won't work because of feedback), go to the Windows sound setup Recording tab and double click on Line in. Then go to the Listen tab, and check "Listen to this device". If EQ APO is not working, check that "Enable audio enhancements" is turned on in the Advanced tab (mine was set that way by default).

OK, followed your steps... deleted realtek, installed APO on the line in only and when switching source on WOS an error message comes up. It's just not compatible.

I've decided to invest in a small laptop that I would exclusively use for WOS.

My question now is... any recommendations? The system requirements are pretty low. I'd love to find one with separate plugs for mic and headphones instead of the combo one. Also, chromebook sounds decent, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

 

Cheers!

 

 

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Hello everyone and my best wishes for 2017!

In an effort to return to the actual topic of the thread from the detour I caused into software/computing I'd like to summarize what has happened over the past couple of days and some good news.

At the end, my main problem was the microphone drivers that both my PC as well laptop had. I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your drivers are compatible with the software. Realtek was not, while Conexant is.

For all those ignorant of computing and electronics like me this is what you need:

1. Contact microphone: the recommended Korg works best, particularly if you shave off the foam cover, as this protects the surface of the instrument or, in this case, the watch from potential scratches, but it muffles the signal significantly.

2. Amplifier: I don't have the means to build my own, but ultimately the $20 amp I got works wonderful and now with everything working I have it running at 75% power, so I have room to go up for those extra quiet watches. I posted the links to the LINEP AMP in a previous post.

3. Adapter for those of you with laptops that use the combo plug for both mic and headphones, also posted in previous post and at the WOS site.

4. Equalizer APO is important to be able to reduce noise and also boost the signal a bit. This is the piece of software that seems to clash with some mic drivers like Realtek. --> you have to change the Device Update Setting into NOT letting windows automatically update with vendor drivers and then in Device Manager uninstall your mic driver. When you reboot you should check and find that you now have the generic Windows audio driver which works fine with Eq APO. --> Run the Configurator (Eq APO) and install it on the mic and reboot.

5. PEACE: this is the graphic interphase for Eq APO where you equalize and boost the signal. The Eq APO Editor didn't work in my system (froze) and so PEACE was super easy to use. If all is working well, you should run WOS on sono mode (looking at the wave form) and boost and equalize the signal with PEACE and you will see the wave signal change live as you change the parameters. Set it up with the least noise as possible but with sufficient volume at the same time.

6. Watch-O-Scope: for me it's become routine to check the sono mode waves every time I check on a watch to make sure it's appropriate and then start the testing. This is a phenomenal software that produces excellent reports on 6 positions as well as long-term testing.

 

With this I hope to close the chapter for those like me struggling to set everything up. I want to thank everyone for your patience and time to walk me through the set up. Feel free to PM me if you get stuck in the above steps.

 

Thanks again and happy timegraphing!

 

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Just thought I'd drop in with some updates. I've been working on some new features, and also doing some investigative work.

Looking carefully at the noise profile that one typically gets with an amplifier, it seems that most of the noise occurs at integer multiples of the AC mains frequency. So even after filtering aggressively using Watch-O-Scope's builtin 800Hz-8kHz 24dB/octave filter, I get significant noise at 840Hz, 900Hz, 960Hz, 1020Hz, etc. (60Hz mains here), with the even multiples being stronger than the odd ones. None of this is terribly surprising since rectified AC has a fundamental frequency twice that of the original sine wave, and lots of harmonics (since it's no longer a sine wave, but rather a repeating series of McDonalds logos).

The ideal filter would be some sort of comb filter, filtering out exactly the troubling frequencies. I'll need to investigate how feasible that would be to do in software.

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On 12/25/2016 at 6:40 PM, jguitron said:

I've decided to invest in a small laptop that I would exclusively use for WOS.

My question now is... any recommendations? The system requirements are pretty low. I'd love to find one with separate plugs for mic and headphones instead of the combo one. Also, chromebook sounds decent, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

I don't think a Chromebook is going to work for you, since it runs ChromeOS and not Windows. Furthermore, you can't install ordinary software on a Chromebook, just Google Chrome apps.

I'd suggest getting your hands on a used Acer or eMachines netbook (e.g. Acer Aspire One D255) from a few years back, and buying a new high-capacity battery for it on eBay. The screen resolution on these is 1024x600, which (not coincidentally), is exactly the size of the Watch-O-Scope window.

The above is pretty much exactly what I use when I travel. I upgraded mine to 2GB RAM, a solid state disk, an internal Bluetooth module, and Lubuntu Linux. The extended battery I purchased lasted for about 9 hours of constant use when new a few years ago, and is down to 6 or 7 hours now.

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On 12/29/2016 at 4:01 PM, svorkoetter said:

I'd suggest getting your hands on a used Acer or eMachines netbook (e.g. Acer Aspire One D255) from a few years back,

The ASUS Eee netbooks are doing also well (running WinXP on 2GB, change HD to SSD); no large battery needed

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How to Improve the Watch-O-Scope Microphone Sound

 

The ability of the WOS software is unbeatable in itself. It is a powerful tool for the analysis of mechanical watches.

However, getting an appropriate signal from the clock or mechanism to be analyzed is a problem.

 

These are the reasons.

1. A clock with a very weak sound
2. A microphone with inefficient design.
3. improper shielding of the cable that leads the signal to the pre-amplifier.
4. An environment where sound sources abound. Which are not few: transformer, cell phone chargers, laptop chargers. Fluorescent tubes, saving lamps, monitors, etc. About this, they can change from person to person and from what I've seen they change from moment to moment in an environment or space.
5. As expected, each watch has a particular pattern of frequencies that produce its characteristic tick-tock.

My proposal and that has worked very efficiently is as follows.

A. Make an analysis of the "noise" produced by the microphone with the aid of a spectrum analyzer. I am using Spectra Plus 5.0
B. Make an attenuation of all annoying frequencies. (Those in the 60 or 50 Hz network). This we do with the help of APO EQ, and the PEACE EQ extension.
C. Make a gain in the frequencies that most clocks represent. Same as APO EQ + PEACE. (This is based on the document that indicates which are the most outstanding frequencies in the majority of watches.

http://www.iaeng.org/publication/WCE2007/WCE2007_pp624-629.pdf


D. Check the microphone with a suitable watch.

STEP ONE. ANALYSIS OF THE MICROPHONE SPECTRUM WITHOUT A CLOCK TO LISTEN

Microfono sin reloj.JPG

Here you can see a lot of noise. Most annoying is the noise of the network near 60 Hz. In my country the network is 60 Hz. You can also see the harmonics. But everything below 4 Khz.

THIS IS THE RESULT:

Microfono filtrado W_Peace+ APO_EQ.JPG

The microphone. There is no watch for analysis. The result is a clean signal.

STEP 3 CHECK THE MICROPHONE.

MICROFONO SIN FILTRAR.JPG

This is the microphone without applying the PEACE EQ AND APO EQ.

Microfono filtrado..JPG

Here we see the result of the filter.

Sin filtro WOS.JPG

We can see it on the WOS screen. Scope.

Aplicando el filtro PEACE+APO EQ.JPG

With the application of the PEACE + APO EQ filter.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW TO IMPROVE SIGNALING BY APO EQ + PEACE

Reloj silencioso sin filtro.JPG

The noise almost fades the watch signal which is very quiet.

 

Reloj silencioso CON FILTRO.JPG

Although the watch is inside a steel case and very quiet, an appropriate signal can be obtained for analysis.

I hope you continue to enjoy just like me "wasting time with the clocks."

Guido

Analis Reloj Mecanico.JPG

Configuración PEACE ATEN GAIN.JPG

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On 12/24/2016 at 9:21 AM, szbalogh said:

The other mysterious noise i have sometimes  is a regular echo in every 10 seconds. Sometimes it is there and sometimes luckily not. A month ago i have reinstalled my laptop from win 7 to win 10. These noises were not present in win 7 so there is an other possible source of these noises. Win 7 hovewer was frozen for me as well if i wanted to increase the gain in to much steps. 

Found the source of this mysterious noise....

Did a small sample recoding and by listening it i heard a sexy girls voice saying "trial"..... "trial".... lol

It is coming from the trial edition Virtual Cable. But without it i could not make EQ EPO running on my win 10 system :(  

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  • 2 months later...
On ‎2016‎-‎11‎-‎24 at 1:48 PM, praezis said:

Hi,

with interest I followed your discussion.
And I am astonished how complicated circuits you designed.
As I understand, the program contains a band filter already. So no sophisticated filtering, in fact not any, in the preamp should be needed.

Also many stages are overkill imho. My experience showed that 10...30x amplification after the piezo disc is sufficient.
This can be done with a 1-transistor stage, and using the voltage and internal resistor that are supplied by the MIC input, no power supply is needed, too.

@wlysenko:
you inserted one more OP stage to compensate for wide differing piezo capacitance. You can avoid it and reduce the differences (about 4...30nF/disc) to few % by using a low input capacitor, e.g. 2.2nF. You can include it then in your filter calculations.

Added a photo of my setup, microphone has the mentioned 1-transistor PA:

PCTM1.jpg

Regards, Frank
 

Hi praezis,

This sounds amazing! I really would like a small amplifier that draws the power from the Mic Bias! No need for a battery and the unit can be made very small.  Any chance you could publish the schematic diagram for your 1 transistor amplifier, including component values, please? Maybe even photo(s)?

 

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svorkotter, your work is amazing!

I have been using the Biburo until I found your software a couple of months ago. Your software really perfects the idea of a DIY software timegrapher! It is very easy to use, looks very nice and works very well.

Please note that you made a small misprint in the link to this forum under the Help button in the Settings of the Watch O Scope. There is a "/" missing after the http://www.watchrepairtalk.com in the link. Maybe you could correct in your next update of the Watch O Scope?

It would be a pity if other would be users missed this interesting discussion. Thanks.

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7 hours ago, tourbillon said:

Hi praezis,

This sounds amazing! I really would like a small amplifier that draws the power from the Mic Bias! No need for a battery and the unit can be made very small.  Any chance you could publish the schematic diagram for your 1 transistor amplifier, including component values, please? Maybe even photo(s)?

 

Hi tourbillon,

no problem:

piezo_amp2_e2.gif

Frank

Edited by praezis
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praezis, I'm going to have to try the 1 transistor amplifier. This won't work with a Line-In connection of course (because it expects a stronger signal, and has no bias voltage), but my current PC only has a Mic input anyway. (On a related note, I've always found Line-In, when available, to be much less noisy than Mic-In.)

tourbillon, thanks for the kind words, and pointing out the typo in the link. I've fixed it on the web site, and it will be fixed in the manual when I release the next version (something I meant to do early January, but never got around to because of other urgent tasks that came up).

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Hello Svorkoetter, Praezis:

I built one of the "complicated" TL074 amplifiers a couple of years ago, when I started using the Japanese Biburo software.

Now, with svorkoetter's amazing software, I had to dampen the mic boost -12db. I am running the Watch O Scope on a 10" Win10 tablet connecting to the combined mic/headphone jack, and yet do not get hum because of careful shielding and testing of ground points.

Also, I actually use a smaller Piezo, approx 20mm. Yet I still have a Supersensitive system, the slightest noise/sound in my apartment shows up as dots on your software.

For these reasons I was so happy to hear about paerzis 1 stage solution. That concept should make it possible to build a Watch holder/Mic unit similar to the Lepsi:

http://www.lepsi.ch/watch-analyzer/

Unfortunately I cannot build it until I come back from a vacation, I almost wish I did not have to go - this is so much fun! :)

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I just bought my first tourbillon last friday. It runs very well, within a few seconds from Sunday till now, but the graphs do not look so even. My regular watches run much smoother but I have yet to find a single Timegrapher print of Any Tourbillon anywhere on the internet.

I talked to a professional in Stockholm who had tested a Chopard Tourbillon a few years ago, and the graphs from that expensive tourbillon did not look as good as a regular movement, either, he said.

Can anyone say if this is acceptable performance as far as Flying Chinese Carousel Tourbillons go?

Has anyone got a Swiss Tourbillon Timegrapher printout for comparison?

 

SeaGull SF8 CD.JPG

SeaGull SF8 CU.JPG

SeaGull SF8 CR.JPG

SeaGull SF8 DD.JPG

SeaGull SF8 CL.JPG

SeaGull SF8 DU.JPG

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3 hours ago, tourbillon said:

The positions are, from top to bottom: CD, CU, CR, DD, CL, DU

Probably just a slight poise issue, but that timekeeping is pretty good. The dial up / dial down positions show consistent rate which is why I suggested it may be the balance poise by the way. 

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And of course, the whole purpose of tourbillon is to average out some of these issues. Notice that the graphs for CU, CD, CR, and CL are pretty much identical, which is what I'd expect from a 2D tourbillon, since the balance and escapement rotate through all those positions anyway.

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