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How Watches Work

fratellowatches.com

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Re: How Watches Work

#81

Post by desine »

carabiner wrote: post #37
desine wrote: post #25

I recently fell into this rabbit hole. I bought a cheap automatic watch - a Seiko 5, for both practical reasons and otherwise (will work after an EMP attack/solar event, but it's also just cool as hell mechanical engineering using 200 year old technology). Then I started putting watch repair youtube videos on in the background as I did chores or wrote code. Then I started actually watching the watch repair videos. La…

Is there any mechanical watch like the Seiko 5, but thinner and hopefully not much more expensive? I have a 5 and like it, it does feel a bit chunky at times.

Vintage soviet watches tend to be pretty thin, from what I've gathered. They also tend to be less well made/reliable than modern equivalents, and many of the ones you see on ebay are maxed out on their typical adjustments to stay reasonably in time.

Re: How Watches Work

#82

Post by martinkraft »

joshocar wrote: post #20
martinkraft wrote: post #9

For those who are interested in superior technology, start reading about quartz movements and the piezoelectric effect. Citizen Watch Company recently release the most accurate quartz watch ever, accurate to 1 second per year . Contrast that to the mechanical watches that Rolex—one of the best mechanical manufacturers—produces and the best they can do is an accuracy of about 1 second per day . Hundreds of times less…

> Mechanical watches are an emotional rather than rational technology, and hey if that's what you're into: mechanical watches and horse-drawn-buggies and gas lanterns then that's totally cool. You could say the same thing about people who are into classic muscle cars. "Hey, if like driving around in a model T and braking down every 5 miles then that's totally cool." Everything is emotional. Does anyone really need a…

> You must be fun at parties.

My favorite thing to do at parties is to poke fun of hobbies in Hacker News comments.

Re: How Watches Work

#83

Post by martinkraft »

joshocar wrote: post #27
throwaway210222 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything is emotional. No it really isn't. HN is not the correct forum for this sweeping psychobabble. > Does anyone really need a GPS synced watch that is accurate to the nanosecond? No, people want it because they think it's cool. No, we buy these accurate watches because a) there are only a few such watch makers, and b) they all use an even smaller pool of GPS chips. And its these chips that have the precision…

> And its these chips that have the precision that bugs you so. I never said it bugs me. I own a Citizen solar powered watch. I also own a mechanical watch and a smart watch. I would probably by a GPS synced watch. I stand by my comment that everything is emotional.

> everything is emotional

I guess I “emotionally” choose the most precise tool for the task of telling time.

Re: How Watches Work

#84

Post by lexicality »

desine wrote: post #64
jioawpfj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the event an EMP knocks out all your electronics, is having a functioning watch something that really matters? also, where are you that an EMP is a realistic concern?

Even as the world ends, I will enjoy a few last perfectly soft boiled eggs over my camp stove, and contemplate the meaning of existence. And a major US metropolitan area, near several military bases, airports, and missile launch sites. So more than most of the population. On a more serious note, as a bit of a "prepper" - it's not hard to cover the essentials. Once past that, working timepieces greatly simplify coordi…

I live near the centre of a very large city (London) so I feel like the best I have to look forward to in that kind of scenario is to set up some environmental storytelling in the form of wall graffiti and then die in some comical way like having a black cab fall on me

Re: How Watches Work

#85

Post by desine »

domesmack wrote: post #80
desine wrote: post #25

I recently fell into this rabbit hole. I bought a cheap automatic watch - a Seiko 5, for both practical reasons and otherwise (will work after an EMP attack/solar event, but it's also just cool as hell mechanical engineering using 200 year old technology). Then I started putting watch repair youtube videos on in the background as I did chores or wrote code. Then I started actually watching the watch repair videos. La…

I was in the hole about 3 years ago, I bought a book, some tools, and a couple of broken movements off of eBay with the thought that I’d just “ dive in and learn how they work “, but I stalled out. Without a set direction I found the space of things that could be wrong with my sample broken movement to be too large. Hell, I didn’t even know if all the components were there. It’s something I’d like to get into, hopefu…

A bunch of youtube, a strong mechanical sense, and the book "watch Repair for Beginners", which was not noted in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28116525

So I'm likely down the same path as you, eventual "failure", if looking at it as a career choice. But I'm also ~a year behind you, starting a similar path with no handholidng and likely no profit. I watch this guy on youtube, occasionally, and his paid series has been mentioned here and elsewhere, as being worthwhile, but I have not paid for those videos (yet). https://www.watchfix.com/ (formerly known as http://watchrepairlessons.com/ )

Re: How Watches Work

#86

Post by drivers99 »

martinkraft wrote: post #9

For those who are interested in superior technology, start reading about quartz movements and the piezoelectric effect. Citizen Watch Company recently release the most accurate quartz watch ever, accurate to 1 second per year . Contrast that to the mechanical watches that Rolex—one of the best mechanical manufacturers—produces and the best they can do is an accuracy of about 1 second per day . Hundreds of times less…

> And then you can get into radio-controlled and GPS-controlled solar watches that you literally never have to set or change the battery

I got into watches last summer. I was watching a watch-repairman on Twitch ( twitch.tv/mr_horologist ; looks like he has been just working on cars and stuff lately. Darn...) which is relaxing and educational. I dug up my great-grandfather's pocketwatch and got it repaired.

After looking around, I did get a Casio watch exactly like you described (actually, no, it's not GPS, it's so-called "atomic" over-the-air signal from NIST, or other sources in other continents), because in the end I wanted it to do two things: always keep perfect time, yet never require software updates. Not needing a battery is a great additional feature.

One of these, the one with the analog hands instead of (ugly to me) purely digital, although those are cheaper: https://www.casio.com/products/watches/wave-ceptor

To me, that's the perfect type of technology. Sorry you're getting downvoted for bringing up a related, by not exactly the same, topic/opinion.

Re: How Watches Work

#87

Post by desine »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #13

Gerald Sussman[0] (of SICP fame) gave an interesting talk[1] on mechanical watches awhile back. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Jay_Sussman [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWQN8Yf1g70

Whoa he has hair. This must be early career.

Re: How Watches Work

#88

Post by emodendroket »

xcambar wrote: post #62
emodendroket wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair automatic watches drift substantially over time.

Yes, they do, and that is a very poetic thing to consider. On one hand, you can marvel at how little they drift during a single power reserve. Could be seconds, which is barely noticeable in everyday life. On the other hand, some others (Seiko 5...) can drift minutes in a single reserve... And so what? In a day and age when we measure everything with maniac precision even during a random person's day, it's beautiful…

I don't really find it beautiful being 15 minutes late because I haven't adjusted my watch in a while. This is really a big thing that put me off.

Re: How Watches Work

#90

Post by cjlars »

bartschuijt wrote: post #49

Also I can recommend taking a look at Seiko's spring drive technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoEorK6elZM

Spring drive's are cool. I'll try my best fast explanation: it has an ordinary rotor and spring barrel, but replaces the escapement with a flywheel, an electromagnetic break (like you have on an ebike) and a quartz controller. The rotor winds the spring barrel, the spring barrel powers the flywheel, and the break generates electricity for the controller, which keeps track of the time and then in turn tells the break how fast to allow the flywheel to spin.

The fact that they sidestep the need for a battery (the spring barrel pretty much is the battery) is the clever part here. It's more efficient than using a rotor to charge a battery and run a stepper motor, and more accurate than a purely mechanical escapement. But it's still fundamentally a quartz watch, which turns some purists off.

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