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txcollector

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Posts posted by txcollector

  1. " I can sometimes hear the movement inside of it" - Not sure what you hear but if you mean the rotor spinning that's very common and most likely service won't fix it.

    " few of you have said you've had your watch 'serviced' ... commenting that it's rare for a watch to arrive from Noob factory in appropriate internal condition" - Watch movements are very delicate mechanical machines that need to be clean of all dust and debris and properly oiled so not to damage the internal parts and function correctly. The most common issue with non serviced movement is poor power reserve (how long the watch runs after it's off your wrist). A properly maintained watch with an A7750 movement (which I guess is what you have) can run for up to 40 hours after is fully charged and off your wrist.

    One misconception that people have is that cleaning and oiling a movement is the same as regulating the watch (for proper timing accuracy). Although a watchsmith would do both during service, one can regulate a watch without fully servicing it. A watch running slow or fast for a few seconds a day is normal.

    In proper watch factories watches are assembled in clean rooms and the movement is fully serviced before being mounted on a watch. In Chinese rep factories the conditions are not even close to a Swiss counterpart so the expectation is that the movement would not be oiled and probably dirty (not always though).

    "Should i be taking this to someone to do something" - In the beginning I serviced all my 7750's and that was very expensive. Today I only do it if (1) I really want to keep it or (2) the movement is giving me problems. I'd wait until you're sure you want to keep it.

    "Is there servicing that i should be doing on my own" - Absolutely not. It takes several years and a lot of broken movements for you to learn how to properly do that. Besides the cost of the oils alone would make this effort more expensive than sending to a proper watchsmith. The issue that you will have is that outside the forums very few watchsmiths are willing to work on Asian copies and there are very few of those watchsmiths in the forum too. The wait time will be long.

    "what frequency should i do it? once? once a year?" - The norm is once every 5-7 years.

  2. It's impossible for the click wheel to get stuck, let alone damaged. It's design makes sure the ratchet wheel can always turn clock wise. That's what happens when you (over)wind. The only thing that can happen is that either the teeth of the crown or ratchet wheel break when forcing by fully wound. But in my opinion the bridle will break first as the contact point holding the main springs tension is the smallest at that spot.

     

    well it happened to one of mine. During the last turn of the ratchet wheel the click get stuck between teeth. I have to manually move the click to relieve some pressure from the main spring for things to go back to normal. It's a very weird behavior but it happens.

  3. I'd NOT manually wind the A7750. That's when you can really break it.

     

    http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/68288-why-handwinding-an-automatic-movement-is-bad

     

    Regarding service, yes it's always recommended if you want to keep the watch but don't worry too much about it if it's not giving you issues right now. The watch won't fall apart if the movement is not serviced. Power reserve won't be as good, timing may be off for several seconds a day but that's not the end of the world for a rep.

  4. There are two type of rep AP ROO movements out there: 1) the older ones where the 12 o'clock running seconds gear rests on bare metal. 2) the new one where they finally put a jewel on the plate 

     

    Obviously the older models were a problem due to friction so a few modders used to offer a service that was basically putting a graphite powder on the plate to reduce friction. That was a double edge sword since you really don't want powder floating around your engine.

     

    http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/113958-improving-the-reliability-of-ap-seconds-at-12-movement/

     

    The new version seems to be very reliable but it's still the good old A7750 under the covers so if you are experiencing issues (slowing down, hands not resetting, etc.) get it serviced.

  5. many dealers claim 1:1. Is that the $1500 version? if yes it should have an ETA 2892 movement though.
     
    I love my Santos franken. Very versatile. 
     
    One addition to the story (interesting read btw): the wrist watch already existed for almost 2 decades as a women jewelry item. They were more decorative than precision machines. Constant Girard had created a wrist watch for the German Kaiser army which were mainly pocket watches attached to pieces of leather (strap). The use of that kind of watch was so the troops could coordinate attacks without having to signal that could alert the enemy (of course holding a musket while checking your pocket watch wasn't practical). 
     
    The problem Santos Dumont posed to Cartier was how to make a wrist watch that was a reliable timing machine for scientific purposed. Pocket watches made poor wrist watches because they were precise on only one position (standing up in your vest pocket). When you move your wrist around and worse go up in a balloon temperature and wrist position changes made them unreliable. 
     
    So the big contribution Lois Cartier made was to create a watch movement that could was precise enough to be worn on the wrist. This is the original Santos
     
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