Dr No
[Moderator Omega - Wristscan]
34907
How would a movement serviced . . .
. . . with too thin (or weak) a mainspring be affected? Would the timing be slow? And, would the discrepancy be reflected in the read-out of a timing machine, or would it manifest only under long-term observation?
Just got a chance now to thoroughly read thru the article. Even a technical dunce like myself can comprehend this tutorial.
Exceptional, Don. Thanks!
WatchTech101.2 - Main Spring Curvature
WatchTech101.2 - Main Spring Curvature It is always interesting to see the beautiful curve of a main spring when removed from the barrel. It looks like it was drawn by an artist looking for a beautiful organic form. But it is, as so often, not an eye with...
Clear and elegant.
Many thanks. I'm curious whether anyone has experimented with obtaining the same result by graduating the thickness of the spring or even changing materials along the length of the spring. Couldn't the outer coils be thicker than the inner ones?
My first thought...
...on varying the thickness of the spring is the difficulty of cold rolling (I believe this is how they are formed) a thickness variation without altering the cross-section. And whether the difference in the section would mean the thin end would be more w...
Exactly..
BDLJ I think you have called it just right. In the next article in the series we will visit a main spring factory and see how the springs are made. The raw material is round wire which is rolled rectangular. The cross sectional area of the wire must match...
Another excellent post, Don
And a question. Given mainsprings are rather brittle, how close to the elastic limit does one design the acceptable curve angle?
A little patience....
next post in the series we visit a main spring factory. But actually, the elastic limit is not where the spring breaks, it just deforms. So in manufacturing the initial form is made so it will go above the elastic limit, it deforms so that it is just at t...
Elastic vs Plastic
Sorry, I should have phrased it better. So, the 'S' curvature of the spring is designed to [ideally] provide a consistent stress throughout the length of the spring once it is loaded in the barrel. This stress is close to the elasic limit. If that limit i...
Thank you Don.
I have been waiting for your posts, they are very informative. I love watches, but never known how they work. Now finally you have taken the time to try to teach us what makes our watches tick. I am starting to appreciate how much planning and engineering...
How would a movement serviced . . .
. . . with too thin (or weak) a mainspring be affected? Would the timing be slow? And, would the discrepancy be reflected in the read-out of a timing machine, or would it manifest only under long-term observation? Just got a chance now to thoroughly read ...
A too weak mainspring...
We need to go back to WT101.1 to see. This is the relevent graph and below the formula Your watch with it's designed in mainspring will start up somewhere between 1 and 1.5 turns of the barrel, from this graph let's claim that the watch starts from about ...
Interesting...
These days, brands are trying to extend the power reserve or maintain the power reserve while reducing the number of the barrels (Lange's Grand Lange 1 comes to mind, for example). Would you elaborate about such efforts - what is the key to such result (h...
Like portable electronics...
Hi Ken, Like portable electronics, with a watch you have two possiblities to extend the autonomy. 1) Increase the amount of power on-board. 2) Reduce the power consumtion. Portable computers and cell phones have been living from the fact that the big semi...
