no no, it's thermocompensated

 

Only just found this. Thanks Al, very interesting. I just need to find one of those timing machines at the hobby price level now.

 

The china made timing machine for automatic is affordable (~USD 200 not bad quality but not professional grade either), but I doubt the one with quartz checking like Al's come with Amateur tag price

 

I use the Chinese one for mechanical watches and it is very good for what it does but Al's one sells for an eyewatering £3850 + VAT, so £4,620 or £2,610 + VAT for the quartz only version (£3,132)

 

Indeed it makes my eyes full of water .... You got yourself a nice Speedy 321 with that

 

Particularly necessary in a canberra winter.....

But seriously, very interesting info Archer, thanks.

 

Excellent post, thanks! I'm a bit of a quartz geek (MQ 2.4 trimmer action anyone ?) but learnt some stuff. I take it the machine is a Witschi ? I hope an affordable clone becomes available one day like for the mechanical timers.

Since you mention the 1538, I was able to replace its circuit by the TC circuit of a Longines sister movement and it's now ticking at 2 spy at room temp! Much less temperature impact with TC but also the ability on the ETA movements to set them in increments of 4spy. No more trimmers anymore on "ordinary" quartz for user adjustements unfortunately...

 

Thanks Al for a very detailed post. I had also naively thought quartz movements to be cheap and cheerful, but there's far more to them than meets the eye! Thanks for enlightening us.

 

And it's not the most expensive piece of equipment I have either....it's not cheap to have a well equipped shop that meets the standards of the big brands like Omega. They require that you have a mechanical timing machine (I don't believe they accept the Chinese machines though) and also a quartz analyzer. I decided to get both in one unit as it saves space on the bench.

Anyway, glad some enjoyed the information in my post.

Cheers, Al

 

AL,
Very comprehensive and interesting informaion, only an expert can produce work like this. Well done.
Regards.
KARNAK.

 

Hi, new here
I have an Omega Seamaster quartz 1981 vintage with the 1337 movement.
According to the manual these were originally specced to 5 seconds a month.
Mine is running at 2.5 seconds a day!!!

How much adjustment does the trimmer allow this to be corrected?

Thanks
Paul

 

The trimmer is pretty sensitive if memory serves, I'd give it a quarter of a turn and see what happens.

 

Hi Al,
What a fantastic post, well written and extremely informative. Just by reading through it I learned more about quartz watches than I ever knew, boy you sure know your stuff. Thank you for a great post.
Regards,
KARNAK.

 

Thankyou
I thought it only turned as far as the - mark.
I had turned it to there but was still losing 1.75, shall turn a bit further

 

Although I don't have the figures in my head for the 1337, usually the trimmers are quite limited to how much they will adjust the timing. If I recall similar movements are limited to something like +/- 1.2 seconds per day. The trimmer is only meant for fine tuning, not for correcting larger errors.

Not sure what the service history is on your watch, but if it has not been serviced in a while, you might want to consider it.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks a bunch Al. Although my heart beats for mechanic, I have several Seiko kinetic divers from the 90s - excellent SKJs. I appreciate them slightly more now. Ta
R

 

Thankyou

I have never read such a detailed report on how quartz works, you Definately know your craft.
If it turns out the trimmer won't give correct time keeping would you be able to service it for me?

 

Thank you for a very informative and interesting article. My interest and respect for quartz is directly related to the longitude "problem" and chronometers. Anyone interested in boats and navigation has to appriciate a really reliable watch.

My ace is the seventies Seiko Superior (at within 10 sec a year).
Wrote about it here:
http://omegaforums.net/threads/superior-accuracy-and-the-pusher.5727/



Another favourite is the Nivada Quartzonic with module made by Hughes Aircraft Company (yes - Howard H).


And of course the Rolex Oysterquartz

All of them really nice watches with movements deserving respect.
Thanks for putting the light on quartz.
Best regards
JE

 

Thought I'd put an update here for reference on the 1337 trimmer
was running 2.5 seconds fast moved trimmer 1/4 turn to - now running 0.4 sd slow.
Looks like the trimmer can vary maybe + or - 4.0 sd?

I'd imagine with Archers machine it could almost be made spot on as long as I kept to the same wearing routine.

 

Good to hear and res a timing machine would help fine tune but it's good fun moving the trimmer in small increments and then measure the impact a few days later, with the video method (see watchuseek HAQ forums), it's actually pretty accurate. There are cheap "clones" for mechanical watch timing machines but nothing affordable for quartz timing machines, yet...