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There’s no shortage of service walkthroughs for this and similar ETA quartz calibres on the Internet, and here on WRT. Nevertheless, I thought it would be good fun and educational to create my own walkthrough, and here it is now!

Only having experience of servicing mechanical and automatic movements, I truly learnt that a quartz movement is not “just a time telling battery device”, but indeed a mechanical movement, except that the power source isn’t a mainspring but a battery and that the escapement is made up of electronics (no escape wheel, pallet, and balance). So, just like a mechanical movement, a quartz movement has a train of wheels, a setting mechanism, a dial train (motion works), and in this case calendar works.

The watch belongs to my father who got it as a gift from my mother at his 40th birthday in 1979 (41 years ago!). He asked me if I could fix the crown which had come loose from the stem. So, I glued the crown back to the stem using Loctite 638. Perhaps not the ideal glue but at least the crown will never come loose again. Anyway, I thought to myself; why not try and give it a complete overhaul!? After all, it had never been serviced and I wanted to learn more about quartz watches and return a perfectly working and clean watch to my much-appreciated dad.

One of the things that surprised me while taking this movement apart was that the parts are very small. Smaller than the parts in an averagely sized mechanical movement and that was a bit of an extra challenge. So, before servicing a quartz movement I think it’s a good idea to gain some experience servicing a few averagely sized mechanical movements first.

Both the disassembly pictures and the assembly pictures basically mimic and complements @Mark's videos How to service a quartz movement. ETA 955 412. Watch repair tutorials” and How to service a quartz movement. Part 2. Assembly. ETA 955.412” which I used for guidance (Thank you!). However, my walkthrough includes lubrication suggestions according to ETA’s technical communication which are intentionally omitted in the videos to save time. For reference I also used the video Quartz Service ETA 955.112, @HSL's quartz movement walkthrough, and @Lawson's walkthrough (Thank you!). All part names I’ve taken from ETA’s technical communication.

So, without further ado.

ETA Calibre 955.112 Disassembly

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  • Like 3
  • 3 months later...
Posted (edited)

With this superb walk-through you should be on top of the score board. Excellent job and this one is a treat for anyone ever to strip / service one of these movements !

Very well done and I'm sure your father will be happy & proud of his son !!  :Bravo::bow:

Edited by Endeavor
  • Like 1
Posted

Thanks guys, much appreciated! :thumbsu::wub:
Lawson’s walkthrough of this Calibre has a very nifty trick for reinstalling the rotor that I forgot to use in my walkthrough.

  • 2 years later...
Posted

@VWatchie, thank you so much for posting this! I just finished up servicing of a 555.415 movement, and your detailed write-up was a great help. Quality of your photos is outstanding. Much appreciation!

  • Like 1
  • 2 months later...
Posted

Thank you very much for taking the time to make this posting VWatchie, and to Mark and others who were sources for you.  I know I will be referring back to this excellent documentation when servicing quartz watches.

  • Like 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, TimeWerks said:

Thank you very much for taking the time to make this posting VWatchie, and to Mark and others who were sources for you.  I know I will be referring back to this excellent documentation when servicing quartz watches.

Thanks for your kind words @TimeWerksand good luck servicing!

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    • Your only partially correct here. Let's look at a magnified view of the image up above. Then for a flat hairspring to function correctly there has to be a little bit of breathing room unfortunately. If you would like Better timekeeping if you get a watch with the over coil hairspring then those regulator pins are supposed to be as tight as possible but still allow the hairspring the slide. With if the pins are opened up at all you'll see a dramatic timing change based on amplitude. So in our example down below initially hairspring is basically free-floating not touching anything the effective length of the hairspring is at the stud. As the amplitude picks up at some point in time they hairspring will just tide should one pin on one swing and the other pin on the other swing. As soon as it does that it changes the effective length to being closer to the regulator pins. As the amplitude picks up more and more it's obviously touching the regulator pins more and more and the length of the hairspring shortens the watch speeds up. This is where in your video at around 16 minutes he opens up the regulator pins and the watch slows down. This is because they hairspring is no longer bouncing off either pin as much. Then because the watches running slow he speeds it up just to show that yes you could regulate the watch but now you have a problem. Because the regulator pins are much farther apart amplitude is going to have a much greater effect. Like in the image down below they hairspring is properly spaced between the pins. But if those pins are farther apart the effect of amplitude will be much greater. So he speeds up the watch to cancel out the effect of the regulator pins at the particular amplitude which was dial down then when he moves the watch to a crown position which will always have an amplitude decrease because the amount of friction on the sides of the pins now the hairspring is not touching the regulator pins as much and the watch dramatically slows down.   Let's look at the other example image. In this particular example they hairspring is actually touching the regulator pin at restWhich means the effective length of the hairspring is at the regulator pin the watch runs fast. As the amplitude picks up hairspring will lift off the PN moving the effective length towards the stud which is why the watches slowing down. As you can see is the amplitude picks up They hairspring is not centered C not getting even timekeeping and the watch is slowing even more down. But at some point in time when the amplitude gets high enough this will depend upon the watch the spacing Excedrin whatever the amplitude is will be balancing actually between the pins in the watch will of course speed up and then at some point time you reach that sweet spot where it's bouncing between the two pins but as you can see it's at a much higher amplitude. So this is why hairspring has to be properly centered between the pins and the pins have to be at the right spacing otherwise you going to get strange timekeeping based on amplitude which no matter what you're going to get a little bit of that as you do have to have a little bit a spacing. At least on a flat hairspring.  
    • My understanding is that In the Etachron system the spring is only centered n order to set the stud angle when the the pins are wide open and the regulator block in at the midway point.  After that the pins are rotated in one direction only so that the width between the spring and one of the studs is 1/2 width of the spring. This results in the spring always being closer to one stud than other one.   
    • The idea is that the spring is centred between the pins when at rest. Then when the watch is running it will oscillate equally between the pins i.e. bounce off one pin then the other, as the hairspring breathes. If the spring is only hitting one pin, then it isn't centred, and most likely the pins are too far apart. Yes, the regulator pins are there to adjust the effective length of the hairspring. The spacing of the regulator pins should not affect the amplitude.  The vertical positions typically have lower amplitude than the horizontal ones. This has nothing to with the regulator - hairspring interaction. Increased friction in the verticals sucks energy from the system and reduces the amplitude. If the amplitude is less, the breathing is less. More tim between the pins = more effective length. Depending on how well the hairspring is centred, and which direction it sags, some vertical positions might run faster than the horizontal ones, and others slower. For example, if the spring is off centre towards on pin, and pressed against it by gravity, it might never bounce off that pin => faster. At the position 180 deg. away, the spring will spend more time in between the pins => slower.
    • Thank you all for the tips and insights. I'm looking carefully at the Sherline lathes with a milling attachment. I need to figure out exactly what I'd need to get in terms of the base lathe and attachments to be able to fabricate basic parts and learn how to fabricate some of the less basic ones- like a cannon pinion. Thank you again.
    • Welkom Sebastiaan! Veel plezier met deze hobby!
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