Omega 550 - 5ms difference between No Gain vs. Max Gain

[kaan]

Edit: Also Hello! and my expertise can be summarised as a "Watch Reassembler", admittedly I never studied theory and lack the understanding of the sounds the timegrapher reads

This is from a watch that had a very persistent grime build up on the dial and the movement. In the end I had to clean the cannon pinion manually as the hours wheel was too tight, the grime there survived my cleaning process. The dial also had a missing furniture indicating a large impact in the past.

The current balance position is closer to the existing balance beat error position, but if I reference the high gain graph and 0 the beat error on that position, it ends up closer to the original/neutral balance position

I've tried another balance and the graph was also dual

I was going to ignore the issue since it's a personal collection watch and I was happy with the No Gain graph, however ignorance isn't always bliss, now I'm curious what the issue could be and thinking of replacing the pallet fork to start with

And also just as a learning experience, what is the actual beat error here?

Edited August 2, 2024 by kaan

[RichardHarris123]

Good question and I think the answer isn't simple.  The  gain amplifies the signal (noise) but it also makes it more susceptible to external noise.  Which is the true reading?  

[mikepilk]

Was it the complete watch or just the movement you were testing?

If the movement is in the case, you can get odd readings depending on how firmly the movement is held in the case.

It can help to get a better signal if you put the crown against the (outer) metal post. The reason being, that the stem is firmly mounted to the movement and transmits sound more easily than through the case.

[kaan]

The movement is fastened in the case and the crown pushes on the metal, demagnetised all together, good time keeping so far after 36 hours other than the weird graph. The room is very silent as well

Definitely going to inspect/change the pallet fork once I have the space, my current theory is maybe a residue etc. is dampening on the pallet fork, even though visually it seemed flawless at the time of assembly

I don't normally listen to watches but listened to this one, it's like every now and then it's doing a double beat, it doesn't sound entirely rhythmic 

[JohnR725]

One of the things important when you're looking at numbers on a timing machine is you have to see lines that look reasonably nice unlike yours. If your lines are all over the place and look random or as somebody what's called the snow globe effect although you do have a partial Line then the numbers will be incorrect.

I would be curious about the exact nature of your cleaning process and how you lubricated the escapement?

 

 

[kaan]

I have 3 jars with steel mesh in them, all jars filled with clear lighter fluid sold for machine cleaning, I separate parts by size and dirt level and ultrasonic clean the 3 jars inside water for 8-60 minutes depending on the watch. I also do a manual cleaning with wooden pegs if the watch is really dirty, and retry as needed

For the pallet fork I use 9415 on the tips, for the rest of the train I just oil the jewels with 9010

After replacing the pallet fork with a problematic one from another watch: (In that watch this pallet fork was stiff, but visually seemed flawless with pivots not bent)

After this I concluded that the high beat error high gain reading was the correct one and readjusted the balance

^ After the readjustment both high and low gains read the watch as above

So low amplitude but consistent time keeping, I will settle

It's also important to note that the previous guy likely had the same dilemma but ended up picking the high beat error reading, assumably, or just coincidence 

[JohnR725]

3 hours ago, kaan said:

So low amplitude but consistent time keeping, I will settle

You should wait 24 hours and test again just to make sure the watch can run 24 hours and is still keeping time

[kaan]

So far so good, same time keeping, these Omega movements are better than the man, probably why they mostly all survived in such good condition

I'm very curious about pickup performance from a complete wind down, when I initially asked the question and let it stop, when I picked it up it didn't start, at that point I believed that the bad beat error graph was the actual graph - hoping now it will tick right after being picked up