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Single Line And 5.7Ms Beat Error?


jdm

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This is the first time I see something like that. Stud center appears to be in the normal position. If I try to reduce the error arm goes against the balance cock and the error is not even eliminated. Any idea?

 

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Visually what does the balance wheel amplitude look like? If you move the stud all the way to the maximum touching the balance bridge visually what does the amplitude look like. Don't rely on the timing machine use your eyes. To get a better affect put it in a pendant position how bad does it look?

 

The problem with timing machines are they really need to get a clean signal if things get really hopelessly out of adjustment then they start incorrectly displaying stuff. I've seen on the Chinese machines if the amplitude is really low it will grab the middle part of the waveform as opposed to the end of the waveform and give you this wonderful amplitude that's totally wrong.

 

So for instance yesterday I was looking at my Seiko 7s26 and wondering why it was running so poorly? Forgot that I had moved the stud almost to the extreme for an answer to some other discussion on this board. That I was thinking maybe my watch was in desperate need of servicing until I grasped what was going on. But I had the same question you had as I moved the stud away from the maximum was extremely sensitive the numbers went down a little bit immediately jumped up and the stud was still way too far off.  Then timing machine decided it wouldn't display anything because it perceived it was out of range hopelessly. The strange differences of timing machines how far can you push things before They give you totally wrong results or tell you they can not time at all. So for the Swiss machine I can change to another mode that only gives numeric rate and graphical display which really didn't look that bad other than the rate was extreme the regulator had moved with the stud. Only when I got the stud visually where it was supposed to be good I put the machine back in the full mode. So visually balance wheel tells you there's a problem timing machine gives you weird numbers sounds familiar doesn't it? The only catch to this is your stud looks like it's about in the right place. What happens if you move it the other direction?

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Thanks John. Visually the amplitude is good. The hs breathing isn't perfectly symmetric, but that is kind of normal on these movements. If I move the arm clockwise the lines begin to separate, and the error increase until the max of 9.9 this machine can show. This is a 5/15 pruduced watch.

 

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6 up post-1542-0-12669300-1452453918_thumb.jp

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I beleive u will get many answers from that video 

 

Now ! from your timegrapher i see that watch amplitude its low but decent . From the 2nd picture i see that the escapment system has problem and especially the pallet fork , anyway the watch has some serius problems and it will not work properly. You have done service on watch ? demagnetisers the watch  before you check it on timegrapher ? u check all the watch systems carefully before the assembling ?

and 1 lust question plz . You are a professional watchmaker or a hobbyist ?

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Now ! from your timegrapher i see that watch amplitude its low but decent . From the 2nd picture i see that the escapment system has problem and especially the pallet fork , anyway the watch has some serius problems and it will not work properly. You have done service on watch ? demagnetisers the watch  before you check it on timegrapher ? u check all the watch systems carefully before the assembling ?

and 1 lust question plz . You are a professional watchmaker or a hobbyist ?

 

I wonder how you can see the pallet fork in my picture above with dial installed and movement running that the time the pic was taken...  :D By the way the watch actually works good...

Anyway, thank you for your "insight". Regarding my profile I've introduced myself at the time I joined this forum, did you?

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I didnt want to offend you i made this question just to understand and figure out where is the problem. My  apologies !!! 

No offense at all. Again the question is: how the instrument can draw a single line, but detect a beat error?

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Forgive me for my ignorance and Please allow me to introduce myself . My name is George and iam from Greece . Iam 40 years old and iam professional watchmaker 22 years 

 

My knowledge in watchmaking : Diploma in Watch making at the University of Athens

                                                   Diploma from ETA  1993
                                                   WOSTEP Refresher Course 
Thanks very much for your time and forgive me  if i offend you ( that wasn't my purpose ) 
 
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Thanks John. Visually the amplitude is good. The hs breathing isn't perfectly symmetric, but that is kind of normal on these movements. If I move the arm clockwise the lines begin to separate, and the error increase until the max of 9.9 this machine can show. This is a 5/15 pruduced watch.

 

I was thinking if you remove the automatic weight it will give you greater visibility to look at the hairspring. What's bothering me is the numeric results don't exactly match what were seeing on the display.

Then the movement being in the case is a problem because I was wondering how flat the hairspring looks? For that you have to look inside ways which is hard when it's in the case.

 

Then if you put the watch on the timing machine dial-up, dial down and crown down Then what if any difference to you notice?

 

Typically when you see really strange results it's because the amplitude is really low the timing machine is struggled a pickup the waveform and use get strange results. I do agree though if you really were five point someone milliseconds out of beat there should definitely be two lines on the timing machine. When you adjusted to go to the maximum of 9.9 pushing back in the other direction does it just stop at 5.5 or does it go and this is the minor issue is it actually go lower then increase. The problem with beat his we don't get a plus or minus and zero is sometimes hard to get. If you nudge it a little too much you'll go past and you won't know whether you're going which direction where as of yet a plus or minus you'd know that you went too far you could come back.

 

Then somewhere else had one of the Seiko is it has the etachron System supposedly untouched watch and it was out of adjustment. This is where getting the automatic weight off looking more carefully if they hairspring. Then when I get a chance later tonight since I have the same Seiko but a slightly earlier version all going deliberately miss adjust its so we can compare.

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Then if you put the watch on the timing machine dial-up, dial down and crown down Then what if any difference to you notice?

 

Typically when you see really strange results it's because the amplitude is really low the timing machine is struggled a pickup the waveform and use get strange results. I do agree though if you really were five point someone milliseconds out of beat there should definitely be two lines on the timing machine. When you adjusted to go to the maximum of 9.9 pushing back in the other direction does it just stop at 5.5 or does it go and this is the minor issue is it actually go lower then increase. The problem with beat his we don't get a plus or minus and zero is sometimes hard to get. If you nudge it a little too much you'll go past and you won't know whether you're going which direction where as of yet a plus or minus you'd know that you went too far you could come back.

 

Thank you John. First let me say that I appreciate a lot your postings because they are analytical, fully backed up up with references, and have a lot of practicality. You are a true asset to this small community! Please be aware that if my postings are sometime quite short is not because I'm condescending or uninterested, but because I try to convey only the summary of the issue.

 

What you say about the erratic timegrapher readings in presence of limited amplitude is, of course, absolutely true, and I've seen it myself many times when putting back a movement that was in bad shape especially under the MS and HS aspects. It was surprising to read crazy high value for a moment, sometime they even lock and stay. But in these cases a simple visual observation, and the pattern (which can be anything from some sort of wave, or just scattered dots) immediately gives the problem away. 

 

This one which we're discussing now is different. Amplitude is good. HS shape is good (I have no problem seeing it even with the rotor weight installed). Positional balance is pretty good too. I may regulate it a tad faster, but I'm not messing with it any further. I can certainly live with a little mistery, I've seen many and much bigger ones in my profession.

 

Pictures takes some 12H after full winding.

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Edited by jdm
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Could it be that the timegrapher traces are being misread.  The distance between the traces is normally the beat error (ie between top and bottom traces) but could the actual beat error be from the bottom trace down through the bottom of the screen then continuing down from the top of the screen to the top trace ?  This could be due to the limitations of the timegrapher screen size and/or functionality.  Just a thought!

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Could it be that the timegrapher traces are being misread.  The distance between the traces is normally the beat error (ie between top and bottom traces) but could the actual beat error be from the bottom trace down through the bottom of the screen then continuing down from the top of the screen to the top trace ?  This could be due to the limitations of the timegrapher screen size and/or functionality.  Just a thought!

 

I have also considered this possibility, but I don't think it's so, for the following reasons:

  • At least for the smaller values, lines are drawn with a resolution of 1 pixel per tenth of millisecond. It seems that the screen portion used for drawing is about 60 pixels on the Y-axis. Assuming the screen resolution is linear, then a beat error of perhaps 4 ms would cause the lines to overlap, but the error shown is more like 6ms.
  • The indicated error cannot be eliminated, no matter where the arm is positioned.
  • The positional variance is very good, suggesting that in fact the watch is in beat. 
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I still haven't had a chance of playing with my watch to see if I can simulate this.

 

If you have another watch which I suspect you do we want something that's out of beat slightly put it on the timing machine and see what results you get. I've seen something like this before looking in the manual of the 1000 is a feature it does NOT have. This is basically the magnification on the Swiss timing machines you can change that. This means I can make lines that would normally be far apart close together or close together lines separate them.

 

Related to this is canthus's Suggestion you see this on paper tape machines the line is at the very edge the other line is on the other edge. If this watch was extremely grossly out of beat what if it was 10 ms out? The machine can only go to 9.9 what happens of it goes beyond that? The various timing machines when they're getting something totally wrong do strange things. As we discussed if the amplitude is insanely low numerically it might show something outstanding. So on the graphical display what happens if it's over 10 ms? The reason I'm asking is your 6 ms the spacing looks almost like 1 milliseconds.

 

Then the comment that Georgef2 Made becomes more visible at 6 ms when the lines are a part. Also having the lines go straight down the screen helps to show this. Notice one line looks reasonably good the other line does not. As a reminder one line comes from one pallet stone the other comes from the other one. The most common thing that causes this is lack of lubrication on one side. Or older watches it could be a chipped stone bad lubrication in other words one side has a problem. So there's a definite indication that 50% a your escapement isn't working correctly.

 

Then the random dots that only appear sometimes are indication of other sounds like the hairspring bumping into something. The other thing regarding the hairspring There is another discussion that I'm conveniently not finding where a reasonably new Seiko the etachron and/or hairspring wasn't in its correct position.

 

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If you have another watch which I suspect you do we want something that's out of beat slightly put it on the timing machine and see what results you get.

On average I regulate 3 / 4 watches (all low end Seikos) per week. This is the first and only that shows such a thing on the instrument.

 

Then the random dots that only appear sometimes are indication of other sounds like the hairspring bumping into something.

A good 50% of brand new low end Seiko show some beats offside. They work good nevertheless.
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So we don't have the same timing machines are results are going to be different and I can't exactly simulate which you have but I have a suspicion. So moving the stud of my 7s26 all the way until it touched the balance bridge. The timing machine refused to time because it's out a range. The various timing machines do various things when they're out of range. The Chinese machine really does try hard which means it will show incorrect results. The Swiss machine refuses to show anything but you can change it to rate mode it will show a graphical display it will not display any other numbers. Then nice timing machine but it's really hard to get pictures of backlighting really helps when you're trying to photograph display.

 

So I have a picture in the rate mode where the watches grossly out of beat we can see the lines or separate. But unless you're actually watching it on the display it's hard to tell which line goes with the other one?

 

Next two pictures correspond to the balance wheel pictures which I conveniently have not labeled and they're not in the proper order. So one is in beat one is not notice where the studs are? One of the things I was noticing is it's not a nice linear sliding you don't gradually go from 10 down to zero then back up again. It stays right around five and six range almost to the zero and it's a very narrow range. Which makes me suspect the reason why you're not getting at the zero is your skipping over zero. Because there is no plus and minus beat it's easy to go past and just not notice.

 

Then I was looking at display again that you had and looking at the dots carefully. Digital machines are interesting versus paper tape machines for instance. Paper tape machines the speed of the paper feeding out is controlled by the timing of the machine not by the sound of the watch ticking. Digital machines each dot corresponds to a sound. If you look at your single line is really both sides of the escapement. I keep coming back to the same conclusion  Which is you gone over the range of the timing machine and 6 ms is really 11 for instance. It's why asked if you had another watch For instance one that was one milliseconds out of beat what is the separation the lines versus your six for this one?

 

The other thing would be nice in weird cases like this is access to another timing machine see if you get the same results. Because occasionally one timing machine will show one thing and something else will so something different in some strange incidences.

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Sorted! canthus was correct indeed, and John was speaking the truth - the lines separation had rolled over to form a false good pattern. I moved the stud arm CW until to the real center was found, something which evidently I had missed it in my previous attempt. All offside beats are now gone :)
Note the stud arm position is noticeably closer to the balance cock of what is normal, consequently also the regulator arm stays well off from where it should be. So I believe the HS end is not perfectly positioned in centering pin.

 

Lessons learned:
Seiko's QC is.. what it is.
Can have huge beat error yet good positional variance.


Thanks all for your great help!
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BTW I find it nice
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I have been getting some of the same sort of crazy readings, and you end up like a dog chasing its tail, get the beat error in range and the timing is miles off, get the timing within reason and the beat error has gone out. 

 

Only when you fluke getting one right and then you seem to be able to adjust.

 

What I am experimenting with at present, when I have the watch stripped to the mainplate before I start reassembly I do the diashocks and then fit the balance to the bare mainplate and do the lower balance diashock, whilst doing that today i decided to see if I could get the beat error close to normal at the start, so I adjusted the regulator to the neutral (centre) position and the moved the stud to set the beat error, with only the balance installed you can see when the impulse jewel is aligned in the central position.

 

I haven't rebuilt the movement yet to test the theory but I figure that when assembled at the factory they would set the balance to that position and achieve fairly good accuracy as I am sure they don't test them all on timing machines.

 

Doing it this way at least gives you a good clear view of the impulse pin position.

 

Max

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The floating stud is an interesting idea especially for the factory. Makes things really easy but if you're not visually close to where you're supposed to be it can be a nightmare to adjust. I've run into this before even with a timing machine you spend a lot of time hunting until you're lucky enough to get it right.

 

Then there is the other little problem the timing machine isn't always right. Or perhaps the timing machine is right is our failure to grasp the situation and are wrong interpretation of what were seeing.

 

Then this discussion has come up before putting a watch in beat here's another discussion that recently occurred.

 

http://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/3280-setting-a-watch-in-beat-7s26-seiko/

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