The 2813 movements are not exactly bad, just "simple", for example they don't have the eccentric screw for fine tuning, but potentially they can be decent movements.
There are plenty of posts around on how to regulate the rate, the two-dotted lever to set the rate and speed up or slow down your watch. That is easy, and if you have patience (adjust, wear it for a day or two, adjust again, etc) a timegrapher is not needed. If you have one, then it takes a couple of hours.
A timegrapher is about £130, something I'm thinking about but not yet gone for it. There is a number of phone apps out there but most of them didn't work or not well enough, mainly, I think, because of the microphone sensitivity being too low. I recently had a new phone and tried Tickoprint and it happens to work with the back lid taken off, and in an extremely silent environment (basically wife and daughter in bed) with the phone resting on the dial.
Now the start of the story, I have some 2813-based reps, some are good and deviate a few secs/day, others are truly sh**ers and run away a minute per day or so.
With those bad ones I noticed that Tickoprint said they were pretty well, a few secs/day but that didn't match reality. So I used to think it was because these apps "not being a proper timegrapher".
Many tutorials and guides tell you **never touch the beat error lever** and I used to stick to that. Now because Tickoprint also tells you the beat error and I noticed those sh*t movements had beat errors more than 2 ms I decided to give it a go and correct the beat error with the help of Tickoprint instead of a proper timegrapher.
So here it goes:
- I used to stop the balance movement before any adjustment, but that was probably not necessay. At the end I adjusted with the watch running
- I don't think there is a way of knowing the beat error sign and in what direction to move the lever, so I just tried a random direction and noticed the change in beat error. If less, good direction, if more, change direction.
- It can take quite a while (~ 2 min) for Tickoprint to stabilize its beat error. That could be because I stopped the movement.
- As with the rate regulation, the saying "if you see the lever moving, it was too much" also holds true, especially below 1 ms.
- As I moved into errors below 1 ms, I just applied some pressure to the lever, expecting it to move an unperceptible amount.
- Reaching an error of zero is very tricky, if you had, say, 0.5 ms and you nudge the lever and get 0.3 ms, there is no way to know if you changed it by 0.2 or by 0.8 (changing sign) so a further nudge may either improve or make it worse.
Eventually I got a beat error that was oscillating between plus and minus and less than 0.3 ms. I guess that's the best I can get with these movements. I left the watch overnight and the next morning was just a few secs off. Much better than before.
So, in summary:
- Tickoprint may work as a timegrapher, with the limitations of being less sensitive/ needing more silence and probably needing longer measurement times to get a reliable reading
- Beat error adjustment is not that much fearful, unless you fear having lots of patience.
- Obviously, as with rate regulating, be careful not to touch the hairspring as that would probably ruin it.
- Beat error adjustment can be done without a timegrapher, it just takes much longer than rate regulation
There are plenty of posts around on how to regulate the rate, the two-dotted lever to set the rate and speed up or slow down your watch. That is easy, and if you have patience (adjust, wear it for a day or two, adjust again, etc) a timegrapher is not needed. If you have one, then it takes a couple of hours.
A timegrapher is about £130, something I'm thinking about but not yet gone for it. There is a number of phone apps out there but most of them didn't work or not well enough, mainly, I think, because of the microphone sensitivity being too low. I recently had a new phone and tried Tickoprint and it happens to work with the back lid taken off, and in an extremely silent environment (basically wife and daughter in bed) with the phone resting on the dial.
Now the start of the story, I have some 2813-based reps, some are good and deviate a few secs/day, others are truly sh**ers and run away a minute per day or so.
With those bad ones I noticed that Tickoprint said they were pretty well, a few secs/day but that didn't match reality. So I used to think it was because these apps "not being a proper timegrapher".
Many tutorials and guides tell you **never touch the beat error lever** and I used to stick to that. Now because Tickoprint also tells you the beat error and I noticed those sh*t movements had beat errors more than 2 ms I decided to give it a go and correct the beat error with the help of Tickoprint instead of a proper timegrapher.
So here it goes:
- I used to stop the balance movement before any adjustment, but that was probably not necessay. At the end I adjusted with the watch running
- I don't think there is a way of knowing the beat error sign and in what direction to move the lever, so I just tried a random direction and noticed the change in beat error. If less, good direction, if more, change direction.
- It can take quite a while (~ 2 min) for Tickoprint to stabilize its beat error. That could be because I stopped the movement.
- As with the rate regulation, the saying "if you see the lever moving, it was too much" also holds true, especially below 1 ms.
- As I moved into errors below 1 ms, I just applied some pressure to the lever, expecting it to move an unperceptible amount.
- Reaching an error of zero is very tricky, if you had, say, 0.5 ms and you nudge the lever and get 0.3 ms, there is no way to know if you changed it by 0.2 or by 0.8 (changing sign) so a further nudge may either improve or make it worse.
Eventually I got a beat error that was oscillating between plus and minus and less than 0.3 ms. I guess that's the best I can get with these movements. I left the watch overnight and the next morning was just a few secs off. Much better than before.
So, in summary:
- Tickoprint may work as a timegrapher, with the limitations of being less sensitive/ needing more silence and probably needing longer measurement times to get a reliable reading
- Beat error adjustment is not that much fearful, unless you fear having lots of patience.
- Obviously, as with rate regulating, be careful not to touch the hairspring as that would probably ruin it.
- Beat error adjustment can be done without a timegrapher, it just takes much longer than rate regulation