DIY Build Your Own Movement Analyzer (Timing Machine) For Under $30!

[14060 or 16610?]

Reposting from my tutorial on RWI:  http://www.replica-watch.info/vb/showthread.php/diy-build-your-132201.html

 

Here it is, a CHEAP analyzer you can build yourself. If you already have a PC running windows you are 90 percent of the way there. All you need is another $35 or so worth of parts, possibly less if you already have some of it laying around. 

 

 

 

This tutorial will cover 3 basic steps:

 

1. Building a pickup.

 

1. Amplifying and fine tuning an electrical signal.

 

1. Basic use of sound capture and analyzer software.

 

 

 

You’ll notice all 3 of these are probably covered somewhere out there on the world wide web; surely these things have been done before.  Years ago I stayed up many nights researching and struggling through trial and error.  I did this for several months before coming up with this reliable setup.  The purpose of this write-up is to distill all the knowledge I have on these subjects into one easy-to-use tutorial.  If you’d like to benefit from my effort, keep reading.

 

 

 

Household items required:

 

* Windows PC (I used XP, may work with other versions) with

 

* utility or exacto knife

 

* razor blade

 

* wire stripper (optional)

 

* scissors

 

* pliers

 

* packing tape (3M preferred)

 

 

 

Items to purchase (if you don't already have):

 

* old PC microphone

 

* stereo audio cable with 1/8" to 1/8" male ends

 

* $15 Radio Shack mini amplifier part # 277-1008:  http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062620

 

* $8 Radio Shack Piezo Pulse Buzzer part # 273-080:  http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102819

 

* $5 battery for mini amplifier (9v)

 

 

 

Free or demo software downloads required:

 

* Audacity (audio editor): http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

* Delph eTimer:  http://www.delphelectronics.co.uk/products.html

 

 

 

I recommend downloading and installing the software above BEFORE proceeding.  It takes just a few minutes.

 

 

 

NOTE: As far as I know the software linked is provided for personal use.  I am assuming it is NOT for commercial use.  If you are going to use it commercially I highly recommend you purchase the full version.

 

 

 

Step 1:  Building a pickup.

 

 

 

It's not hard to find free or inexpensive waveform or escapement analyzer software.  The problem is getting the sound from your tiny watch movement into your PC.  You can buy expensive pickups that cost hundreds of dollars (Delph, linked above, provides one for GBP295, about $600USD with full purchase of their software) or you can build your own for a lot less.  If you have all the parts handy, you can build this pickup and be analyzing watch movements in under an hour.  You don't need any advanced skills.

 

 

 

The key to this very inexpensive setup is a commonly available piezoelectric buzzer.  You can get one at Radio Shack for about $8.  You will need to disassemble the buzzer to get to the element.  Though it works like a speaker to produce a buzzing sound, the piezoelectric element is also capable of working backwards, translating pressure into voltage.  This is very similar to how a microphone works, but the element inside the buzzer is flat and durable, making it ideal for direct contact amplification.  I have also found it to be more sensitive than a microphone for this application.

 

 

 

First, start with your buzzer.  Here’s the one listed above, from Radio Shack.  If you’re not in the US, no problem.  It is easy to find piezoelectric buzzers at electronics and hobby stores.  Even eBay has them, I just checked (searched using “piezoelectric buzzer”).  They are plentiful and inexpensive.  I have used other buzzers that cost less than this one, but they were smaller.  This one’s just the right size for watchmaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is unwrapped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take a screwdriver and separate the center cap from the outer shell.  A small one will do just fine.  The cap is only glued in, and the plastic is low quality, so it's not difficult.  Work all the way around until the cap is removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what you will find inside.  A small PCB (circuit board)  with transistors and other electronic components.  Don't worry, we don't need the circuitry, so if you accidentally broke it no worries.  We do, however, need the piezoelectric element.  You can see it there, at the bottom.  It is brass colored.  Whatever you do, do NOT hit or bend that piece!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, take your pliers and start tearing the plastic.  Again, it is soft and easily gives way to the pressure.  Just roll it up like a tin can.  Make sure you do NOT damage the piezoelectric element.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can move the circuit board out of the way.  Peel off enough plastic to give yourself a clear shot at the element.  Then take your utility knife, exacto knife, or a razor blade and cut the silicone bead that attaches the element to the plastic housing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Completely remove the element and circuit board.  Throw away the housing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The piezoelectric element is very delicate.  It will break if you apply too much force, strike it too hard, or bend it.  So be very gentle.  Using your knife or blade, cut the wires as close as possible to the circuit board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to clean up the element.  Take out your razor blade and carefully scrape off as much slicone as possible.  There should be just a small trace left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now take your packing tape and cover the element on both sides.  Why must you cover the element in tape?  The metal surface of the element is porous; it attracts and retains dirt and dust.  Covering it in tape provides a scratch-free surface which is easily wiped and cleaned.  You'll understand the importance later when you put your movement holder or, in some cases, your movement itself directly onto the element.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I highly recommend 3M packing tape.  It's wide, shiny, and non-porous compared to other tapes.  It is durable and will last for years, and it can easily be wiped.  One of my elements is still going strong many years later after coating with 3M packing tape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trim the packing tape with scissors as needed for a clean edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now pull out your old PC microphone.  If you don't have one handy, I suppose you could use another device or another cable as long as it has a 1/8" MONO (not stereo) plug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cut the cable, being sure to leave yourself plenty of slack.  Then strip the outer insulation, about an inch from the end.  IMPORANT:  Make sure you do not cut through any of the metal conductor strands that lie just below the insulation.  I find it works best to just score the plastic and then pull on it so it tears clean.  Wire strippers work best but aren’t absolutely necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strip the insulation from the inner wire, about a quarter inch up from where you stripped the outer insulation.  This will ensure that the metal strands of each conductor do not touch each other.  Again, try not to cut through any of the strands.  If you cut more than a couple you will need to start all over.  You need as many strands as possible to conduct the tiny signal that will be generated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, twist the strands so they stick together and form solid wire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connect with the microphone cable by simply twisting the wires together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now cover the connection in more tape and trim neatly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I build mine, I solder the connections and seal it all up with heat shrink tubing, but that’s not absolutely necessary.  I have been known to overdo things.  You are dealing with miniscule amounts of voltage here, no risk of shock at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations, your piezoelectric pickup is finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2:  Amplifying and fine tuning a signal.

 

 

 

The piezoelectric pickup will take the tiny vibrations from a watch movement and translate them into an electrical signal.  But that signal is extremely weak, so to be useful it needs to be greatly amplified.  For this you will use the highly sensitive Radio Shack mini amplifier listed above.  For members not based in the US again you will want to visit your electronics or hobby stores, or search eBay.  Most music stores may have what you need as well.  Just make sure you buy a mini amp that has high gain, has 1/8” mono input and 1/8” stereo output.  You can use the specifications sticker in the second image below as a guideline.

 

 

 

Again here is the link to the Radio Shack item:  http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062620

 

 

 

Here is one of mine, already several years old (stamped 2009):

 

 

 

 

 

 

I marked my “off” position with a fine permanent marker, and I highly recommend doing this so you can readily tell when the unit is on.  I wasted many 9 volt batteries before I figured out I should do this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take the 1/8” mono plug from your newly made piezoelectric pickup and plug it into the input jack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now grab your stereo audio cable.  It should have a 1/8” male plug on each end.  The plug looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plug one end into the output jack of the mini amplifier.  Then take the other end and plug it into your PC’s audio input jack.  On some PCs there are both a mic level input and an auxiliary audio input.  Do not use the mic input, as our amplified signal is too strong for it.  Use the auxiliary or “line in” input.  If you are using a laptop, there is usually just one audio input – use that one.

 

 

 

I am using a desktop computer which I built myself, running Windows XP Pro and using a Realtek audio sound card with included mixer software.  It looks like this.  Notice I have the rotary [censored] for the “record” setting turned all the way up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most PC users can just double-click on their audio speaker icon in the system tray or go to the control panel to bring up the standard windows audio mixer which looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you click on options > properties you will see the box below.  Under “adjust volume for” you will need to select recording to view the slide adjuster for your input volume.  Slide it all the way up.  Notice mine is grayed out because the Realtek software overrides it, otherwise I’d show you what to look for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE:  As there are so many combinations of hardware, operating system, and device driver out there, I can’t begin to cover every possible setup.  I can only tell you what works for me so that you can use it as a general guidline.  You may have to play with your particular system to get it to work for you.

 

 

 

Now put your movement or movement holder directly onto the pickup.  Don’t be bashful, put it right on there.  See the various examples I show below to understand how you can hold the movement in its different positions (CU, CL, DD, etc.).  If you are in the middle of assembling a watch and just want a quick reading to see if it’s running well before proceeding, you can put the movement DU directly on the pickup.  Just remove your finger cot and do a quick swipe with your finger to remove any dust or lint.  Be sure to do that EVERY single time you put the movement directly onto the pickup.  Otherwise you will need to re-clean your movement and start all over again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, turn on the mini amplifier and turn the volume all the way up.  You are ready to rock and roll.  Now any vibrations picked up by the piezoelectric element will be greatly amplified and piped directly into the PC sound card.  Time to use the capture and analyzer software.

 

 

 

Step 3:  Basic use of sound capture and analyzer software.

 

 

 

The free demo version of Delph Electronics’ escapement analyzer software is great, but one big difference from the paid version is that it is only capable of analyzing recordings.  In other words, you cannot use it in real time.  While that may sound like a disadvantage, I find it is not.  I personally prefer to keep recordings on hand so I can save them for a while and go back to them at a later date if needed.  You cannot do that with real-time results.

 

 

 

Since the software can only analyze recordings, we need to be able to capture audio and save it to our hard drive as wave (.wav) files.  To do this, I use Audacity:  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/  It’s free, installs quickly, and is very easy to use.  Out on the web there is plenty of info on using Audacity (and other freeware sound capture for that matter) so I’m only going to cover the bare essentials.

 

 

 

With the mini amp volume turned up all the way, and your sound input level turned up all the way, launch Audacity.  Simply click the red “record” button to start a recording.  When you want to stop, click the yellow “stop” button.  Click on file > export as wav… and select the location where you will store your wave file.  Remember the location, because you will need to know it later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For how long should you record?  Well that’s really up to you, and it depends on what you’re doing.  When I am regulating and adjusting a movement, I typically just take 10 second recordings since it may take me 5 or 10 runs and sometimes many more before I get the rate and beat error right.  If I took 1 minute recordings for each of those runs it would easily take me a half hour just to regulate a watch.  As I get closer to my desired rate and beat error, I take longer recordings, usually about 20 seconds.  As a final step when finished regulating and adjusting, I may take a 30 to 60 second recording.

 

 

 

Take a look at the 10 second recording below.  This is a gen 2892-based Perrelet movement I just serviced.  Even without the analyzer software you can learn a lot about the movement using a simple Audacity recording.  See how fairly consistent the peaks and valleys are with one another?  See how the ticks are clean and distinct from one another?  Notice there are no extra ticks, no galloping, no overbanking (yes you can see that easily when it occurs)?  Can you count 8 beats per second (8 bps x 60 sec x 60 min = 28,800 bph)?  Such a visual representation of a movement’s performance is very valuable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In contrast, compare this recording of a poorly running genuine Rolex 3035 movement I have in for service.  Do you see the difference?  Can you tell the amplitude of this movement is almost nonexistent?  Without even opening the watch I can tell that there are no broken gear train parts and most likely the lubricants are simply dried up (eg. time for full service).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a look at a longer recording.  You can record for as long as you want, literally days at a time if you desire.  The only limit is your hard drive space (I have 1TB encrypted).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it is finally time to use the Delph electronics escapement analyzer software.  As soon as you launch it, you get an error message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t worry, you did nothing wrong.  This error message simply tells you that the microphone is not picking anything up.  That’s because this is the demo version, and it does not allow microphone use by design.  Just click OK to make the message go away.  In fact, each time you select a new wave file to use the same message will pop up; just click OK to make it go away.

 

 

 

Now, at the top, click on file > choose waveform file.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A box will pop up, and you will need to navigate to your saved wave file and select it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you select your file, the analyzer begins to play the file back and starts analyzing it.  But we need to tweak a bit first.  We need to change the rate.  If you don’t know the rate of your movement, go back to your Audacity recording and count the number of ticks per second.  In this case, our movement is 28.8k and we will select it in the drop-down list.  Note the “boost” plus and minus buttons; use these to increase the level of playback as needed.  Also feel free to grab the drop and unlock thresholds and adjust them if you need to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, each time the error message pops up just click OK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ignore the straight line in the lower part of the virtual vibrograph paper; it is from the sample waveform that automatically plays each time the software is launched.  If you want to erase the whole strip you can do so easily.  Now we are finally getting a reading that is somewhat meaningful (at the top of the paper strip).

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a few seconds the readings level off.  The waveform will be played and analyzed in a loop forever until you stop it, note the short tracks created each time.  If you choose to play a 1 or 2 minute recording, you will get a long continuous line of tick marks.  Note this Perrelet movement is running about +5 seconds per day in DU position with very good amplitude of ~300 degrees and fairly low beat error of 0.3 milliseconds.  I just completed the service and hadn’t even regulated/adjusted it yet – see how well it runs with just a good cleaning and lube?  It was received barely running.  Give me 5 minutes and I’ll get that beat error down to 0.1 or maybe even 0.0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all for now.  We could discuss actual use of the analyzer for days and days.  I’m sure the forum members can use this tutorial as a springboard to launch those interesting discussions.

 

 

 

G

[asciwhite]

I LOVE DIY magic

 

 

Thanks a million for this

[ubiquitous]

Awesome post! Great write up and tutorial! Very helpful indeed!

[gmtlover]

Great post! Thanks!!

[krpster]

Perfect timing. I was just about to order a timegrapher. Think I will give this a go first. Thanks a bunch!

[FxrAndy]

Great post well done

[1680]

Very cool DIY solution. I've found a piezo pickup but finding such an amp prooves to be difficult. Can anyone show me one, preferably on ebay Europe/Germany.

[onelow64]

Nice write up! I'm going to Rat Shack tomorrow to grab some parts! As the days tick by I can see this becoming an expensive hobby for me.

[martijnp]

Very cool tutorial! Unfortunately i'm not so technical lol

[txcollector]

I wonder if the Kello app would work well with this mic. I'm a mac user and I'm really not looking forward of having to work on a virtual machine to run that Windows code.

[14060 or 16610?]

Not sure about Kello. I've seen the video demo for iOS, it doesn't look as robust as the free software I have linked. Also the App Store reviews are mixed, with some really slamming it. I havent been curious enough to try it. Maybe the Mac version is different? In response to some who have asked, I have never owned a vibrograph or other watch timing machine. This has been my setup all along. Prior to this, I did things the old fashioned way, regulating over several days and estimating adjustment based on impulse jewel position.

[14060 or 16610?]

This wasn't intended to be a debate about timing machines, but I'll bite.  Especially since your statement that with the cheap machine someone will "get correct answers every time [sic]" seems to imply that someone using the setup in my tutorial will not.

 

Back when I started out, I could not afford $800 for a timing machine.  Without one, I could not take my hobby to the next level.  There was no cheap $200 Chinese timing machine.  Now that they exist, many are leery of the quality.  Though I've never owned one, I know folks who do, and they are not happy with theirs.  They experience freezing, inaccurate results, and one dead within a year that I know of.  Here is a thread I found just by Googling $200 timing machine:  http://forums.watchuseek.com/f6/timing-machine-opinions-request-676894.html

 

If I was going to spend money on a machine, it would be a Vibrograph for several hundred dollars, NOT a cheap $200 timing machine.  That's just my personal opinion and experience, and I'm sure there are plenty of happy owners of such cheap machines out there.

 

I think this setup is superior to the $200 timing machine.  First of all, it's only $30.  That's within the price range of 100 percent of watch owners.  A timing machine for the masses, if you will.  On the other hand, at the $200 price point many probably feel a timing machine is an unnecessary expense, and most watch owners probably don't have one.  I'm willing to bet the vast majority of members here don't own one.  I don't own one, and I can certainly afford $200 these days.

 

Secondly, this setup is proven and reliable.  I do in fact get correct answers every time, and so will anyone else who builds one.  The only obvious limitations may be technical aptitude and/or ability to comprehend and follow this tutorial.  In which case the $200 timing machine would be the next logical choice.

[SSTEEL]

Cool tutorial my friend.  I have a Mac running OSX so out of luck there, also, out of luck on this set up too http://www.delphelectronics.co.uk/products.html

 

Anyone know a Mac OSX alternative?

[DiverDoug]

What a great article. A bit old, but I'm so glad it resurfaced. I agree that a $200 cheap timing machine would solve a lot of the problems for people who aren't as technically able as the OP, but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would enjoy the challenge of building their own, as well as the satisfaction that would come from building one that is as accurate (or at least very close) as a dedicated one. Plus, for $30, c'mon! A great little weekend project.

Now here's my question. Who would be interested in gathering all these DIY articles into a separate section in the forum (think something like 'Instructables.com')? I know there's a how-to section, but there's only one article in it. I'm sure there would bea number of savvy DIYers out there who would enjoy showing people how to build stuff like the time reader above.

Anyone else interested in seeing a section like this?

DD