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3861 movement broken? *Update: Read First Post*

Archer
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Pazzo Pazzo
Did ever cal.321 and cal.1861 encounter any issues from the beginning or after some time of use?

Yes, just like all watches do. As I've tried to say through this whole thing, a new or newly modified movement having problems like this is not unusual at all.

Here's an example - the original 321 and 861 movements used a specific design on the chronograph hour recording wheel. Here is the wheel in question:



This is what the hour recording hand for the chronograph, located at 6 o'clock on the dial, mounts to. You can see the heart shaped cam that is attached to the wheel, and the initial design is as shown - the cam is held to the wheel using a screw. What's the problem with that? Well I have had a number of these arrive to my shop with the complaint that "The hour recorder doesn't reset." The reason is this:



The screw falls out on occasion, and since that screw is the only thing connecting the cam to the wheel, when the cam is reset, the wheel doesn't reset with it. In addition, you now have a screw floating around inside the watch, which can lodge somewhere in the movement and cause the whole watch to stop. Eventually Omega made a change, and now this is what this assembly looks like:



The wheel and cam are riveted together, so this failure mode is completely eliminated.

I know some people consider the Speedmaster a "halo" product, but it is and never has been immune to manufacturing and design problems.

Cheers, Al
 
Pazzo
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Archer Archer
Yes, just like all watches do. As I've tried to say through this whole thing, a new or newly modified movement having problems like this is not unusual at all. ......

I know some people consider the Speedmaster a "halo" product, but it is and never has been immune to manufacturing and design problems.

Cheers, Al

Excellent!
Thank you very much.
 
B
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Archer Archer
No, and considering they are under warranty with Omega for several years to come, that's not surprising. I occasionally have people who would rather send a watch under warranty to me and pay for the service than send it to the brand, but it's not common.
As far as your servicing others that may be since you are a watchmaker and from what I gather not at the OMEGA service center (meaning where the in warranty 3861s are being worked)?

If you are at the Service Center then please answer me this, once the new bushings made from a different material are installed they are going to recertified to be within COSC/METAS ?

Your lack of hands on experience specifically with current 3861 means you are speculating on what is going on with the problems people are actually having....or did I miss something here?
 
Archer
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B Bry
As far as your servicing others that may be since you are a watchmaker and from what I gather not at the OMEGA service center (meaning where the in warranty 3861s are being worked)?

I am a fully independent watchmaker, and am certified by Omega. I do not work at an Omega service center (nor would I want to).

B Bry
If you are at the Service Center then please answer me this, once the new bushings made from a different material are installed they are going to recertified to be within COSC/METAS ?

Watches are not recertified after service. But there are timing checks done that will comply with Omega Work Instruction 28, that will ensure the watches run within specs.

B Bry
Your lack of hands on experience specifically with current 3861 means you are speculating on what is going on with the problems people are actually having....or did I miss something here?

Yes, you missed something. As an Omega certified watchmaker, I have access to all Omega documentation that the service center watchmakers have, so when Omega publishes information regarding these problems, I get the same information as those in the service center.

Cheers, Al
 
B
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Archer Archer
I am a fully independent watchmaker, and am certified by Omega. I do not work at an Omega service center (nor would I want to).



Watches are not recertified after service. But there are timing checks done that will comply with Omega Work Instruction 28, that will ensure the watches run within specs.



Yes, you missed something. As an Omega certified watchmaker, I have access to all Omega documentation that the service center watchmakers have, so when Omega publishes information regarding these problems, I get the same information as those in the service center.

Cheers, Al

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when servicing comes once the warranty runs out on my others. 😀
 
YY77
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B Bry
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when servicing comes once the warranty runs out on my others. 😀

Rumor is the waitlist to get on his waitlist is miles long.😗
 
MTROIS
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Archer Archer
Yes, just like all watches do. As I've tried to say through this whole thing, a new or newly modified movement having problems like this is not unusual at all.

Here's an example - the original 321 and 861 movements used a specific design on the chronograph hour recording wheel. Here is the wheel in question:



This is what the hour recording hand for the chronograph, located at 6 o'clock on the dial, mounts to. You can see the heart shaped cam that is attached to the wheel, and the initial design is as shown - the cam is held to the wheel using a screw. What's the problem with that? Well I have had a number of these arrive to my shop with the complaint that "The hour recorder doesn't reset." The reason is this:



The screw falls out on occasion, and since that screw is the only thing connecting the cam to the wheel, when the cam is reset, the wheel doesn't reset with it. In addition, you now have a screw floating around inside the watch, which can lodge somewhere in the movement and cause the whole watch to stop. Eventually Omega made a change, and now this is what this assembly looks like:



The wheel and cam are riveted together, so this failure mode is completely eliminated.

I know some people consider the Speedmaster a "halo" product, but it is and never has been immune to manufacturing and design problems.

Cheers, Al

@Archer did you call me!? 😉

Joking aside, can we possibly agree on the fact that even if the (legendary) cal. 321 as well as the cal. 861 were "not immune to manufacturing and design problems" when they were released and at the beginning of their life cycle, at some point, after all the kinks like the hour recording wheel example you described above were worked out, these calibers had effectively become robust and (mostly) immune to premature failing (baring any defects in a part or error during watch assembly)?

If yes, then I will go back to the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"... but I fully understand that this approach does not sell new watches.

Anyhow, as others have said, thank you for your patience and for your well documented responses which allow all of us to be a bit more educated each day. 👍
 
pdxleaf
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Archer Archer
So now there is much more oil being placed in this location. These technical guides are for after sales service, but also reflect what is happening in the manufacturing process, so if you get a watch that has had the updated oiling procedure, it may take much longer for the issues on the center wheel to materialize. In fact, it may never fail prematurely. This additional oiling, like the mitigation used on the 2500 series calibers, may be enough to extend the service interval of the watch to what is considered normal.

Cheers, Al

Little different question. Wasn't one of the benefits of the co-axial that it would extend service intervals as it required less oil?

If so, then it seems to my layman mind that the need for more oil goes against the stated aim. Yes? If not, what am I missing?

(This is purely academic to me. I find it all very interesting.)

Thanks in advance.

Dave
 
Archer
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MTROIS MTROIS
If yes, then I will go back to the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"... but I fully understand that this approach does not sell new watches.

Calibers go through near constant upgrading, even after they are discontinued. At some point I'll make a post outlining some of this stuff that whenever this comes up so I can simply link to instead of having to say it over and over again. For example the 550, 560, and 750 series of calibers are being updated still, nearly 5 decades after they went out of production. These are movements that the Omega crowd considers to be some of the best ever, yet they are still being upgraded to solve problems that comes up, and these are problems that I see on many of these calibers that cross my bench.

Now bear with me for a minute...

I'll just add that in case someone believes differently, I say this again - I'm not excusing these problems, or justifying any Omega decisions to make new calibers, or whatever. I'm just trying to provide pragmatic advice and actual documented information for people to be more aware of what is actually going on, in the context of what happens with all watch movements.

The fact is most people don't really understand watch movements, how they are developed, how problems arise and are solved on an ongoing basis. Maybe people don't want the image they have in their heads of how the Swiss do things tarnished somehow, but for me personally, this shows dedication to supporting a product long term, even when there is little in it for these companies to do so, because they don't go around advertising this stuff, and watch owners would have no idea that these things even happen.

As I said before, I'm mostly indifferent to all these issues, because I don't own a 3861 based watch, and have no desire to, and again, Omega isn't my company and I don't work for them.

Omega has their own reasons for doing what they do, and yes it would be ideal if they tested things to death before releasing them, but that isn't how you get products to market quickly to satisfy the market and increase shareholder value.

I'm not defending Omega here, because quite honestly every time I log onto the Omega Extranet to buy a part and find that it has quadrupled (or more) overnight, I get more and more frustrated with how they are doing things as a company recently, but that's a whole other discussion.

Cheers, Al
 
Archer
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pdxleaf pdxleaf
Little different question. Wasn't one of the benefits of the co-axial that it would extend service intervals as it required less oil?

If so, then it seems to my layman mind that the need for more oil goes against the stated aim. Yes? If not, what am I missing?

(This is purely academic to me. I find it all very interesting.)

Thanks in advance.

Dave

R.jpg
 
Pazzo
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Archer Archer
....

............

.............

As I said before, I'm mostly indifferent to all these issues, because I don't own a 3861 based watch, and have no desire to, ..........

.........................................

Cheers, Al


Neither do I.

Not for the time being at least but, imagine this Speedmaster with it's present case, a step dial and a cal.1861 / 1863.
 
D
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After following this thread, and posting about my watch that stopped 3 times when activating the chronograph, but working perfectly afterwards I did try the little experiment others have.

So I usually fully wind my watch every day between 0900 and 1000 in the morning. When I say fully wind, I take of the watch, turn the crown clockwise until I feel that it stops. But I wanted to try the experiment others have, so I fully wound the watch on Tuesday, and let it run until it stopped.

Tuesday morning I wound the watch fully and started the chronograph. When I woke up Thursday, the watch had stopped, I took a picture and the time showed 05:28:58. The chronograph showed that 7 hours, 23 minutes and 58 seconds had elapsed. So by my calculation, the watch had run for a total of 43h, 23min, 58 sec.

I then stopped the chronograph, and the watch started, I let it run for about 1 minute, and started the chronograph again, it started, but stopped not long after. I took a new picture, now the chronograph showed 7h, 35min, 58 sec. Again I stopped the chronograph, and the watch started running again.

I then let the watch run for the rest of the day, with the chronograph stopped. Before bed I pushed the top button to start it again, but then the watch stopped again. I stopped the chronograph and the watch starter running. So I let it run through the night and when I woke up Friday, the watch had depleted it power reserve and was completely stopped.

To calculate approximately how long the watch had run combining the time with and without the chronograph being activated, I looked at the time the watch showed.

At the picture where the watch had stopped for the first time, and we already knew that the watch had run 43h 23min and 58sec, the time was 05:28:58, the actual time was 08:25. I took another picture before I went to bed, at 23:22, then the watch showed 08:26:03, that means the watch had run for additional ~15h. When I woke up at Friday 08:52 the watch showed that the time was 01:45:05, that means another ~5h and 20 min.

So in total, the watch had run for about 43h 20 min with the chronograph activated, and adding 15h plus 5h and 20min, the grand total was approximately 63h 40min.

So I take away three main points based on the discussions in this thread.
  1. Note that after the 43h, the chronograph seconds hand stoped at 58 sec both times. This tells me that I also have an issue that is similar to the original issue described by @stevec14
  2. The power reserve with the chronograph running is below the advertised 50h, but way above with the chronograph disabled.
  3. As @Archer mentions in the quote below, the issue I experience does indeed seem to be this:

Archer Archer
Since it seems I need to keep saying this, yes I agree. I understand completely that people expect something to work as it should, and that they are disappointed when it doesn't.




This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the problem actually is. This is not a "chronograph" problem, so "pushing buttons" during the testing isn't relevant. It's an "excess load" problem created by the deterioration at the center wheel and the black debris generated. I'm not allowed to show Omega internal communications, but the photos they have sent make it clear what the problem is.


This adds drag to the movement, and brings the balance amplitude down. Once the chronograph is started, it adds even more load, and the watch stops. The problem is not the starting of the chronograph, but the lack of power from the center wheel issue. The fact that the watch stops when the chronograph is started is just the symptom.


I actually talked about this once already in this thread...




Since I made this post Omega released additional information, including the photos I spoke of above., This confirms to me that this is an amplitude problem, and not a chronograph problem.


Good luck with your emails to Arnaud, but Omega already knows what the problem is and how to fix it. They don't really need your help.


Cheers, Al


So to conclude, I will be taking my speedy back to the AD and hope they can resolve it fairly quickly. It does suck, since this is my first expensive watch, and It is barely a month old, but then again, it does seem that a fix is in place and it is possible to solve.
Edited:
 
YY77
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D dtd
total, the watch had run for about 43h 20 min with the chronograph activated, and adding 15h plus 5h and 20min, the grand total was approximately 63h 40min.
...
So to conclude, I will be taking my speedy back to the AD and hope they can resolve it fairly quickly....
I don't think your watch has a problem, read this earlier post in this thread again:

Archer Archer
So if any of you want to prove this, fully wind your chronograph, set the time, and lay it dial up and let it run down. Note how long it runs and this is test 1.

For test 2, repeat the same thing but this time turn the chronograph on, let it run down until it stops, and note how long it runs. Then turn the chronograph off, which will start the watch ticking, and without winding it again, let it run down and note how many hours it runs. Add the time with the chronograph on to the chronograph off in this test, and it should equal the time it ran for the whole time the chronograph was off in test 1.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/3861-movement-broken.120071/page-7#post-1815428
Edited:
 
Archer
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D dtd
Note that after the 43h, the chronograph seconds hand stoped at 58 sec both times. This tells me that I also have an issue that is similar to the original issue described by @stevec14

The reason it stops at 58 seconds, is that this is when the minute recorder is being tripped, which is another momentary added load on the system. This would be the case with a perfectly normal functioning watch, so the time that it stops at is not indicative of anything in particular, other than normal expected functioning.

D dtd
The power reserve with the chronograph running is below the advertised 50h, but way above with the chronograph disabled.

The power reserve stated for this watch is not measured with the chronograph running. There is not stated power reserve with the chronograph running.

Based on what you have posted, I don't believe there is enough evidence to conclude that your watch has any problem at all.

Cheers, Al
 
F
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I guess the question I have is how long until new models start showing up at ADs with the better bushing?
 
D
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I guess I did not read this thread as thoroughly as I thought! Maybe I will wait and see if I notice some other symptoms, beside the fact that the watch has stopped 3 times when activating the chronograph (instantly, like it got jammed)
 
Archer
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D dtd
I guess I did not read this thread as thoroughly as I thought! Maybe I will wait and see if I notice some other symptoms, beside the fact that the watch has stopped 3 times when activating the chronograph (instantly, like it got jammed)

By all means, if you want to send it in, they will change the bushings. Just saying that what you observed in the test and attributed to this problem, really isn't the conclusion that I would come to.
 
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