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Mechanical Watch (2022)

ciechanow.ski

111–120 of 168 posts

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#111
post #80
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate - i took repairing espresso machines as a hobby since the pandemic. The parts are not complex at all and even 60+ years old E61-machines can be serviced easily (apart from not so cool stuff like asbestos as boiler insulation, leaded solder for boiler + fittings and mercury pressure switches). But even todays machines (depending on manufacturer and origin) are very serviceable. Especially italian made one…

For sure I have a La Pavoni and I can get parts lists, diagrams, and everything else I need to rebuild the whole thing if I needed to. https://www.lapavoni.com/en/technical-documentation

Great espresso machine! Very pretty and takes almost no space + heats up promptly. I had a pre millenium "professional" model until last year (not my daily driver though).

I had a Dalla Corte mini as main machine but couldnt resist a great offer and upgraded to Ascaso Baby T recently :)

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#112
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal and subjective opinion ahead. Any smartwatch will become unusable, polluting garbage a few years (months?) from now: a canonical example of planned obsolescence. Their self-tracking functions are a double-edged sword, a source of stress as much as relief. Any well-built and well-maintained mechanical watch will last you decades. No dependencies on electricity and network connectivity, it's a self-contained a…

>No dependencies on electricity and network connectivity, it's a self-contained and entirely autonomous piece of human engineering. This already veers straight back into the marketing territory that everyone in this thread remarks was an eye opener when they actually got a mechanical watch. I have a mild prepper tendency and I had to eventually kill my romantic views of mechanicals when I realized it just time drift…

I never heard about PineTime until now! Looks like a cool gadget. What has your experience been with it, apart from it being more accurate than a mechanical?

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#114
post #94
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though my mechanical watch wasn't as inaccurate as yours (mine was only a minute or two off a week), the act of regularly adjusting it to match the true time slowly changed my impression of it from a "serious timekeeping device", the image cultivated by marketing, into "this is a silly hobby for people who have too much time and money". Doubly so when you look how much it costs to repair a mechanical watch. This…

It's also the only timekeeping device that will still work after three days away from an electric plug, and the only one you would wear all you life . 1 second/day is 10 PPM. Reaching that accuracy with only mechanical means in a device small and robust enough to be worn on the body is something to admire, not to fault for its limits.

"It's also the only timekeeping device that will still work after three days away from an electric plug"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_clock

Lasting years on a battery is easy.

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#115
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a clock, could a worm drive provide the necessary reduction without the microscopic teeth? Tamiya sells small drives with a 150:1 reduction ratio.

Possibly, its less the reduction, more the "stroke" of the vibration (ie how far the tuning fork moves backwards and forwards.) I think for a large tuning fork, you _could_ use normal watch gears. However I don't have the skill to try that, yet.

That makes sense; the backlash needs to be much less than the tuning fork travel, right?

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, its less the reduction, more the "stroke" of the vibration (ie how far the tuning fork moves backwards and forwards.) I think for a large tuning fork, you _could_ use normal watch gears. However I don't have the skill to try that, yet.

That makes sense; the backlash needs to be much less than the tuning fork travel, right?

Backlash isn't probably that much of a problem, the orignal movement has a locking "pall" that stops backlash: https://youtu.be/CPS7aNCAwAA?t=161

scaling it up you'd get something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48n-jvo5N0

to make it practical on a tuning fork, that movement of the forks would need to correspond to the tooth size of the wheel. For a large tuning fork, its probably in the order of mm, so not beyond home shop manufacture

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense; the backlash needs to be much less than the tuning fork travel, right?

Backlash isn't probably that much of a problem, the orignal movement has a locking "pall" that stops backlash: https://youtu.be/CPS7aNCAwAA?t=161 scaling it up you'd get something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48n-jvo5N0 to make it practical on a tuning fork, that movement of the forks would need to correspond to the tooth size of the wheel. For a large tuning fork, its probably in the order of mm, so n…

A ratchet and pawl limits the backlash to the distance between the teeth on the ratchet gear; think of it this way; if it were to turn less than the radial distance between the teeth on the ratchet gear, backlash could still happen; similarly in regular operation, it turns the ratchet gear slightly more than that distance, and there is backlash until the pawl engages.

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#118
post #57
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Espresso machines, as well, and vintage stereo equipment. I have really come to appreciate the zen of user-serviceable physical stuff.

I can relate - i took repairing espresso machines as a hobby since the pandemic. The parts are not complex at all and even 60+ years old E61-machines can be serviced easily (apart from not so cool stuff like asbestos as boiler insulation, leaded solder for boiler + fittings and mercury pressure switches). But even todays machines (depending on manufacturer and origin) are very serviceable. Especially italian made one…

What surprises me about the Italian coffee machines is you can buy many of the parts at a local hardware store. They look home made. The Chinese ones seem to be 100% custom parts, maybe to account for price at scale.

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a great channel. It's definitely made me consider getting into that hobby. Seems very relaxing.

Very relaxing. Until impossibly small $15 Incabloc springs start flying around the room. I'm convinced these sublimate into a vapor the moment they fly out of view of your loupe.

Not relaxing to me, like the YouTube videos. It is difficult and frustrating. It is very easy to wreck things like brass threads. Often lots of things are seized up on anything more than a few years old. Fun all the same.

Re: Mechanical Watch (2022)

#120

This blog is what got me into the fabulous hobby of watch repairing. Well, this blog and Marshall's awesome repair videos over at Wristwatch Revival: https://www.youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival Watch repairing is a very rewarding hobby. It requires copious amounts of patience, but there's something fundamentally satisfying about disassembling something to its individual components, cleaning them and reassembling them…

> These things are designed to be taken apart, and it shows. I'm hard-pressed to think of other modern day objects that are meant to do this. A mechanical film camera (say, a Leica) is similar. They are also meant to be opened, cleaned up, lubed, etc...

Lenovo vs. Apple notebooks. My ThinkPad T430u comes apart simply and you can remove subassemblies quite easily. I replaced the touchpad and battery on my daughters MacBook Pro and it was a nightmare.
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