Francisco

I am using 2 gaskets... same size....

Bienvenido... un valenciano por aqu

I think gen tube and crown are too expensive and do not improve the rep... I am going to try a different approach for Omega UPO... if I succed I will publish the results and probably we can use for this Omega. Let me a couple of weeks.. regards, Francisco

uhhmmm... that movement is wrongly assembled... is that what I found recently. More info here: it will probably fail soon!! regards, Francisco

when a watch suddenly stops, 95% of times is just a loose screw

maybe reversing wheels...

Hi: I am offering the mod. Regards, Francisco

Thanks The Zigmeister for your comments. I knew that issues and I was checking personally the movement... I did not find any problem at all. regards, Francisco

This is what you normally have. Day and date changes at midnight, but at different hours: Follows a IWC topgun, with ETA disks and with the modding for synchronizing day and date at mid Do you like it? Regards, Francisco

installing a jewels is possible. However requires a lot of precision. if not, movement will not work correctly. regards, francisco

BTW, it is the first time I tried the black date windoiw mod. Very easy. I recommend it as a DIY mod.

thanks friends for your comments. I want to edit the tuto because one picture is missed..imageshack sometime sucks... But... I cannot do it!...the edit button is nowhere... meanwhile the imnage is here. regards, Francisco

Hi friend: The tuto is at RWG as well: Regards, Francisco

yes, almost 3 weeks.... regards, Francisco

no problems...

A member of the forum sent me two APs with seconds at 12 that stopped working. After reading so many problems about this movement I was really interested in finding out why they are having so many troubles. The review of the movement showed that was not perfect, but not as bad as failure reports prove. BTW, the review is here: A couple of pictures of the APs, they only run for a couple of minutes: To fully understand why they are stopping working, we show here briefly the modification OF THE SECONDS. Minutes modification is not problematic. Following picture shows the natural output of seconds in the 7750 movement. In position 9, red circle. The modification moves the output to position 12 o’clock. To do that, the Chinese worker fits on this output the gear A: Gear A engages to gear B: And gear B engages to gear C, which “moves up” the rotation to the top plate. Where connects to gear C. Finally, gear E is the output of the AP movement: The obvious problem of the modification is that gear C is sliding over the plate, and E has no a jewels in the bottom position. The rest of the modification is well done (jewels up and down). SHORT TERM RELIABILITY PROBLEMS. I have found out why AP@12 stops running in short or medium term. For example, the two APs showed before had the problems that will be illustrated now. It is an assembling problem, wrong assembling. The gear A is wrongly assembled. As a consequence, gear A is not engaging correctly to gear B. Following picture shows how the teeth of the gears are interweaved, stopping the watch. Gear A is under gear B, they are not gearing correctly, and the watch stops. After shaking, watch may run again. To be honest, assembling gear A is not easy. Solution is removing gear A and assembling it correctly, at the same height as gear B. This is very delicate. You can break the natural output of seconds when removing gear A, and it is not easy to assembly it correctly. In addition, gear A has to be perfectly flat. Here is well assembled: Following video shows how bad is running the connexion gears A-B , just as it was assembled in the factory: Just check how gear B rotates, but pushed from THE BOTTOM by gear A. They are not well engaged. In some moment, the teeth may be interweaved, and the watch will stop. Now it is possible to understand the members complaining about their AP@12, that only last for a couple of days. Following video shows gears A and B, when the position of gear A has been corrected. Running is now correct. Although gear B is not running very smoothly (tolerance problem). However, the final movement at gear E is quite smoother. This video was taken when only gears A and B were working. Therefore, the first task when inspecting AP@12 movement is checking the position of gear A LONG TERM RELIABILITY PROBLEMS. The movement has two points that may reduce its long term reliability. Gear C, sliding over the plate, and gear E, that lacks a jewel. Let us improve the situation. Improving gear E. Let us remember where gear E is: Red arrow in following picture shows the surface we are going to polish: Polishing the surface will reduce friction, as plate surface is quite rough. We are helping the movement to rotate all the gears of the modification: Improving gear C Follows some pictures of gear C, and its two faces: Upper face: Lower face: It is sown that lower face, face that is sliding over the plate, is flat and rough. Upper face has a slot, to reduce contact surface with upper plate. However, the plate where gear C is rotating has a protuberance to reduce contact surface. Now we are making a slot on lower face of gear C. The main objective is reducing moment of inertia of this gear, helping the movement to need less power to rotate this gear. As seen in following picture, gear C is quite tall, and made of steel…it is very heavy. Making this slot is important, therefore, to reduce mass. In addition, second video showed that movement in gear B is not smooth. Therefore, reducing moment of inertia is important. Hence, gear C s going to be turned. Diameter of gear C is a bit more than 5.3 mm. Two option for fastening this gear in the lathe. Left, common collet. Right, step collet. I chose right option, better for turning a slot. It requires less pressure, better for not damaging the teeth of the gear. Gear C is turned: The slot is finished: A better picture of the new slot: Now it is time of polishing gear C, to reduce friction as well. For polishing I made a base of epoxy resin; Polishing the gear (both faces): It needs a good cleaning, last step of cleaning, using gasoline: Gear polished and ready to be assembled: Now, after these steps shown in this tuto, we have increased a lot the reliability of AP@12 movement. Both watches have been tested extensively…running very well. SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS *Have you applied graphite? No, graphite is not a long term solution. *Have you consider swapping an ETA 7750 movement? Asian 7750 can do correctly the job. And an ETA movement, with gear A assembled wrongly, will have reliability problems. *Is it necessary to service the movement? It is always a good option. However, the most important here is to tae care of the modification *What about Portuguese and Daytona? They are very bad designed, a lot worse than AP@12. Just avoid that watches. However, I think we have wrongly diagnosed the problems of these movements. Friction may not be the only reason of malfunctioning. Regards, Francisco

This is what I do. I place a film of very thin plastic over the hands: Regards, Francisco

I live not so far form a hospital...

try glueing the gear to the bottom of the dial...

it is possible, but you have to solve some small problems,,,for example...how attaching the small hands...

maybe a short stem or a problem in the keyless work. Remove crown guard and try again. If it works, it is a short stem. Regards, FRancisco

Bergeon stakes are available as well. After turning them, are useful for your set. Regards, Francisco

epoxy works better... or this approach:

about FA jones... no idea. there is a bit free play... but no lag....