Anyone have one? This one shows one of my fake Rolex's is 3 seconds/day off and the amplitude and the beat error are excellent. Probably equal to a Rolex
Timegrapher
- Thread starter Al
- Start date
I have one. Useful tool to correct watches with massive errors.
If I'm not mistaken Rolex advertises +2/-2 per day so not bad, well within COSC standards.
I don't have one. I have a Swiss made mechanical wind Delbana. I no longer wear it but had it serviced once and made it more accurate tweaking it. I got it down to gaining 36 seconds a week or a bit over 5 seconds a day and used an atomic clock to do so.
I want to buy a good watch. Leaning towards a Bulova Persistionist Marine Star 43mm with the 262Hz movement and a white face or a Tissot Seastar 1000 40mm. Both are quartz but the Bulova second hand sweeps smooth. After having a few cheap automatic watches like a Seiko 5, I think mechanical watches are overrated and I don't care for the gyro affect.
I want to buy a good watch. Leaning towards a Bulova Persistionist Marine Star 43mm with the 262Hz movement and a white face or a Tissot Seastar 1000 40mm. Both are quartz but the Bulova second hand sweeps smooth. After having a few cheap automatic watches like a Seiko 5, I think mechanical watches are overrated and I don't care for the gyro affect.
Of course quartz are more accurate but I prefer a mechanical watch. I'm old school.
Turn your watch over, and on its side. Then show pictures.
I've got a timegrapher. Good fun. I've tweaked in my automatics to make them reasonably accurate. All except my Seiko dive watch. That one I haven't touched; for some reason, it doesn't bother me that it's not very accurate. My kid recently bought a Hamilton with one of those powermatic 80 movements, which by some accounts, are cheap, but that watch is very accurate. Within chronometric spec.
I have one.
My 1987 Rolex Datejust (last service was 2022) and my daily Tudor BB 41 Monochrome (METAS) are both 2 seconds per day. Day to day wearing the Tudor, it was off by about 15 seconds after 2 months so my guess is wearing the Tudor it's much closer to 0 seconds per day.
My 2002 Tag Link is 10 seconds per day. Pretty impressive considering it has a ETA off the shelf movement.
My cheap Seiko is about 15 seconds per day. Not great but it's a $200 watch.
My $150 Citizen Ecodrive is rated at something ridiculous like +/- 5 seconds per year. Quartz isn't sexy but it sure keeps time well.
My 1987 Rolex Datejust (last service was 2022) and my daily Tudor BB 41 Monochrome (METAS) are both 2 seconds per day. Day to day wearing the Tudor, it was off by about 15 seconds after 2 months so my guess is wearing the Tudor it's much closer to 0 seconds per day.
My 2002 Tag Link is 10 seconds per day. Pretty impressive considering it has a ETA off the shelf movement.
My cheap Seiko is about 15 seconds per day. Not great but it's a $200 watch.
My $150 Citizen Ecodrive is rated at something ridiculous like +/- 5 seconds per year. Quartz isn't sexy but it sure keeps time well.
Tom NJ
$100 Site Donor 2026
Sure does. My $140 quartz pocket watch is 2 seconds fast per month!
Bareky changed in 8 positions. In 2 positions it was actually. This watch is the real deal for $112
JHZR2
Staff member
That’s what cellphones are for at this point. or Apple Watch (and equivalent).
I’ve found that my mechanical watches (multiple Rolex, Omega, Sinn) do indeed have noticeable differences depending on how I lay them overnight. But figuring out what’s best is a pain. And not using all routinely probably doesn’t help.
Quartz won’t be worth spit if the mushrooms sprout.
Call me old fashioned but I still like the look of a nice watch around my wrist - even if I use my phone 95% of the time and rarely look at the watch to tell the time.
JHZR2
Staff member
Me too. That’s why I have too many.Call me old fashioned but I still like the look of a nice watch around my wrist - even if I use my phone 95% of the time and rarely look at the watch to tell the time.
Yea...same here. And I would not wear a quartz watch. Its fake (to me)Call me old fashioned but I still like the look of a nice watch around my wrist - even if I use my phone 95% of the time and rarely look at the watch to tell the time.
Just saying quartz is not a mechanical. Most folks that really "value" a mechanical/automatic watch would not wear a quartz watch IMHO)How are REAL ATOMS vibrating FAKE
I have a decade and a half of using timing machines under my belt. I’ve noticed an increasing number of more casual hobbyists having them now.
Serious questions to anyone using one:
1. Can you look at a running watch and visually estimate amplitude?
2. Can you listen to a watch and hear gross beat error?
3. Given a fully unwound watch, can you look at it correctly see/set beat error to at least a few milliseconds?
4. Do you know what the lift angle is and why it’s relevant to timing machines? Do you know how to find it absent a reference that tells you?
I don’t ask this to sound snobbish or “gatekeep” as the kids these days say-it’s just that a timing machine really is a tool intended to more exactly quantify observations that a watchmaker can already make about a watch without the use of such a tool.
I say all that to say that when timing machines are wrong, they’re often REALLY wrong, and being able to confirm the readings(and I don’t mean gross time-consistent error is easy to fix-I mean all the other information the trace and numbers give) by other means is a fundamental skill along with using one of these.
Serious questions to anyone using one:
1. Can you look at a running watch and visually estimate amplitude?
2. Can you listen to a watch and hear gross beat error?
3. Given a fully unwound watch, can you look at it correctly see/set beat error to at least a few milliseconds?
4. Do you know what the lift angle is and why it’s relevant to timing machines? Do you know how to find it absent a reference that tells you?
I don’t ask this to sound snobbish or “gatekeep” as the kids these days say-it’s just that a timing machine really is a tool intended to more exactly quantify observations that a watchmaker can already make about a watch without the use of such a tool.
I say all that to say that when timing machines are wrong, they’re often REALLY wrong, and being able to confirm the readings(and I don’t mean gross time-consistent error is easy to fix-I mean all the other information the trace and numbers give) by other means is a fundamental skill along with using one of these.
@bunnspecial. I think anyone who is a "serious" watch hobbyist. I have both pocket watches and wrist watches. Py pocket collection is worth like $6K. A couple grand in wrist watches.
I have observed a couple of things. Amplitude and Beat Error are useful in determining the overall "health" of a watch. Interesting that a very cheap watch "can" operate as well as a very expensive watch.
I have 2 places that I have had 992Bs cleaned/oiled. The timegrapher has told m e I will now only use one of them. All and all its just "part" of being an enthusiast.
I have observed a couple of things. Amplitude and Beat Error are useful in determining the overall "health" of a watch. Interesting that a very cheap watch "can" operate as well as a very expensive watch.
I have 2 places that I have had 992Bs cleaned/oiled. The timegrapher has told m e I will now only use one of them. All and all its just "part" of being an enthusiast.
Sorry, not trying to stir stuff up, just that I've been repairing watches for a while(and I have single pocket watches worth $5K...I've been collecting for a while...).
My point-again-on all of that was that a timing machine really is not a magic bullet to look at/measure the "health" of a watch. If you toss something on there and it shows low amplitude and positional variation, yes that's not a healthy watch. At the same time, low amplitude is easily observable just by watching it run, and low amplitude DU/DD(the positions that usually have the highest amplitude in a watch in any condition) is going to inherently contribute to poor positional variability.
My point, again, is that a timing machine isn't a substitute for just looking at and listening to a watch. When I service a watch, I do put it on a timing machine, but it's to check my work and make the final tweaks, not to make a sweeping decision about it.
Out of curiosity, when you say that one of your 992Bs was serviced by a watchmaker that you won't use again, do you mind to share what specific concerns you have about the service? I'm not defending them or saying that the machine is wrong, but also, when dealing with a now 60+ year old watch(or 100+ years for most of my collection) there are a lot of variables at play. A competent watchmaker can make any watch perform to factory standards or better, but we're also talking about watches that have been run a lot and may have been worked on in the past by a lot of different people. Factory performance may be a difficult task without spending a lot more than the watch is worth or without compromising the collectibility/originality of a watch. At the same time, I've serviced watches that were worked on by well known watchmakers, and it was obvious that they didn't do basics like remove the cap jewels for proper cleaning and oiling when servicing, and of course the watches did run poorly until actually given the full treatment...
