New PP Aquanaut 8.5mm thick!!! Why can't we get a 15400 or others at the right thickness?

[vcappp]

Well because of the obvious . The 'Aquanaut' is not a chrono and it's obvoiusly not a 7750 movement like the AP, it's a certain kind of Miyota movement. Also the AP's, especially the ROO's and even Royal oak models have deco plates that needed to be accommodated for in thickness. Unless the movement is cloned it will never have gen thickness/thinness unfortunately ..

OP is not talking about ROO.

OP is talking about RO.


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[vcappp]

I don't want to offend the PP fans, but ZF aquanaut is not as genlike as APROOs such as JF 15703 and XF 15706 for the auqanaut has an open caseback and the deco plate is poorly finished. The correct thickness for an aquanaut is not 8.5mm either as the OP stated. Its thickness is acceptable, but not at all indistinguishable from gen.


Indeed, APROO chronos mostly are thicker than their gen counterparts but comparing chrono reps with non-chrono reps in terms of thickness is as nonsensical as comparing apples to oranges. As long as the chrono movement on the gen is in-house, it can hardly be correctly replicated if not a super clone like the noob 4130.

OP is talking about RO, not ROO.


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[uphoto]

Your original post was confusing as you mentioned ROO. AP 15400 is RO instead of ROO.

"Totally understand why they can't get the Royal Oak Offshores at the right thickness but never understood why they can't get any of the Royal Oaks at the right thickness."

I figured that was pretty easy to understand.

 

[Nivka]

"Totally understand why they can't get the Royal Oak Offshores at the right thickness but never understood why they can't get any of the Royal Oaks at the right thickness."

I figured that was pretty easy to understand.

It was

 

[dashindark]

"Totally understand why they can't get the Royal Oak Offshores at the right thickness but never understood why they can't get any of the Royal Oaks at the right thickness."

I figured that was pretty easy to understand.

They did get the ordinary ROOs at the right thickness, but not the chrono models.

 

[Miguel Piguet]

We are all misunderstanding each other and arguing different perspectives LOOL .


Let's be clear first none of the reps mentioned have exact thickness as gens , some closer than others which is the Aquanaut in this case (close enough)

(ROO's) stand for Royal Oak Offshores and (RO) is the Royal Oak ...

Not all ROO's have Chrono movements such as some of the Offshore Divers. Yes there are chronograph divers too

ROO's are often thicker than Royal Oaks

Most of the AP reps have deco plates which accounts for extra thickness

Factories are capable of making them a little thinner but are they ready to do that and is it worth their time as we still buy it and thin ourselves anyway

Various mods including thinning gets the reps a little closer to the right thickness

Non of our AP reps are exact gen thickness with or without mods (thinning case out) only solution is cloned AP movement


Original argument from uphoto was "Aquanaut Vs Royal Oak 15400" why factories can't get the 15400 as closer to gen as the Aquanaut . It's a combination of reasons given above....


Just thought I'd break things down a little more for clarity Anyone correct me if I'm wrong haha

 

[dashindark]

We are all misunderstanding each other and arguing different perspectives LOOL .


Let's be clear first none of the reps mentioned have exact thickness as gens , some closer than others which is the Aquanaut in this case (close enough)

(ROO's) stand for Royal Oak Offshores and (RO) is the Royal Oak ...

Not all ROO's have Chrono movements such as some of the Offshore Divers. Yes there are chronograph divers too

ROO's are often thicker than Royal Oaks

Most of the AP reps have deco plates which accounts for extra thickness

Factories are capable of making them a little thinner but are they ready to do that and is it worth their time as we still buy it and thin ourselves anyway

Various mods including thinning gets the reps a little closer to the right thickness

Non of our AP reps are exact gen thickness with or without mods (thinning case out) only solution is cloned AP movement


Original argument from uphoto was "Aquanaut Vs Royal Oak 15400" why factories can't get the 15400 as closer to gen as the Aquanaut . It's a combination of reasons given above....


Just thought I'd break things down a little more for clarity Anyone correct me if I'm wrong haha

Nobody is denying that the ROO chronos, 15400, and aquanaut all have incorrect thickness.
What I was saying was that it is wrong to assume that all ROOs have incorrect thickness. I don't see how the thickness is wrong on the ROO divers. Really would the OP enlighten me on this? I really did not spot a visible difference on thickness on my ROO diver. And I have never heard of anyone done the thinning mod on their ROO divers as the thickness is much closer to gen than all above mentioned reps, if not 100% correct.

 

[BIONONE]

Nobody is denying that the ROO chronos, 15400, and aquanaut all have incorrect thickness.
What I was saying was that it is wrong to assume that all ROOs have incorrect thickness. I don't see how the thickness is wrong on the ROO divers. Really would the OP enlighten me on this? I really did not spot a visible difference on thickness on my ROO diver. And I have never heard of anyone done the thinning mod on their ROO divers as the thickness is much closer to gen than all above mentioned reps, if not 100% correct.

oh man come on - he was never talking about divers in particular.

he was talking about ROOs while mentioning chronographs..

can we please leave this silly misunderstanding alone and focus on WHY ISNT IT POSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE GEN THINNESS ON THE 15400ST ?

alright we got the answer...

 

[uphoto]

Hahaha now we are including divers in the conversation? Never mind. This topic was simple but people had to make it complicated

 

[mech500]

I'm in the process of getting mine modded.
Person did say work was relatively easy for the factory.
In whatever the case, more work/extra steps for the factory.
If it was that easy of a fix, i'm sure 1 of the factories would have done it by now.

Simple design change to remove the extra thickness from JF RO caseback at the factory.

The cnc machine just cuts the caseback the extra 0.5mm or whatever. It’s not a extra step in the production process.






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[tosoboso]

As someone who's handled a few gen AP dials (incl. 2 RO ref. 15202 and 15400) and a gen Patek 5167 dial I can say this: the thickness of the gen dials of both makers is identical and is probably less than a 1.2 mm once the height of the hour markers is accounted for. So here's my calculation, provided the makers at least stick to a gen thickness for the dials:

A) Rep (these are of course approx., please feel free to correct me if you have the exact specs)
1. Dial: 1.2mm;
2. Hands clearance: 1.5mm;
3. Non-decorated Miyota 9015: 3.9mm;
4. Frontal crystal thickness: 1.2-1.5mm;
5. Caseback crystal thickness: 1mm;
6. Rotor clearance: 0.5-0.8mm
TOTAL: As you can see, even without decoration, the overall thickness of a rep 15400 or a rep 5167 should be closer or above 10mm as opposed to the so desired 9.8mm thickness in the case of the 15400 and the sub-9mm for the 15202 and the 5167.

B) Gen 15400:
All other measurements should remain more or less the same, with the caveat that the gen 3120 is actually 4.26mm, i.e. thicker than the non-decorated Miyota 9015;

C) Gen 15202:
Again, all other measures should remain the same, where as the only thing that changes is the calibre (2121) which is a mere 3.05mm;

D) Gen 5167:
And finally, the gen cal 324, which is 3.3mm.

Against the above background, achieving a 8.8mm thickness in the ZF's 5167 (which is indeed the same in the case of the PF 5711) is quite a feast for a timepiece put together in unknown conditions by unknown members of staff using unknown suppliers The same could be said for the now delayed JF's 15202.

All in all, I cannot complain about thickness in either of the upcoming 5167 by ZF (advertised 8.8mm) and 15202 by JF (advertised 9.5mm). To all the nay-sayers, I'd say this: get on the 6+ year waiting list and buy the gen if you cannot tolerate 10% extra thickness on a piece that's priced at 2% of the gen's price. Of course, people would say that my reply doesn't answer the main question why the 15400 is not 9.8mm, but this was never my goal in the first place

 

[Fat Dave]

Versus the gen size, you will (generally) have a bit of an unavoidable thickness difference due to the movement size. Then, from a cautious manufacturing standpoint, you may want to add an additional tenth of a mm or two for tolerance (both front and back) to allow for lower-quality component tolerances, in order to keep production rates high and reject rates low. With higher-dollar items, these tolerances could be tighter, as both the components and assembly should be to a more uniform standard.

KMF has just released an Aquanaut that is (reportedly) 0.3mm thicker than gen, yet they're using a movement which may be as much as 0.6mm thicker than gen. That means they are removing 0.3mm from elsewhere in the design to meet their goal. This illustrates that additional thickness is not always necessary, as alternative design strategies can be used.

Alternately (and more conservatively), if we use the ZF Aquanaut example, it is 0.7mm thicker overall versus the gen, again using a movement which is 0.6mm thicker. That means ZF kept as much of the design as they could control to within 0.1mm of gen.

These examples show what is currently being done by pushing the envelope a bit.

If we even take the ZF Aquanaut as a base case, and apply that to the 15400 example, using the 0.35mm thinner MY9015 should allow factories to match the gen thickness, and still have reasonable tolerances. It's a matter of design choices. Big decorative plates on that Miyota with no other movement changes means adding half a mm or so, which is where a fair deal of the added thickness is originating. But 10mm is achievable, with a decorated movement, with a conscientious design.

[edit - addendum]

This is not intended in any way as a "complaint'; it's merely observation of what is currently possible within the industry when a factory chooses to apply more judicious design principles. Being 0.5mm thicker than some may like to have is certainly not disastrous, but as these threads show, there is considerable interest in thinning the 10.5mm case. It's not that 10.5mm is bad for a decorated 15400; it's more that 10.0mm is an achievable thickness, and that would be better.

 

[transteam]

Simple design change to remove the extra thickness from JF RO caseback at the factory.

The cnc machine just cuts the caseback the extra 0.5mm or whatever. It’s not a extra step in the production process.


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Cutting the case thin seems easy, no argument here .. But my point was the components going into it will vary in thickness from watch to watch .. Factory is avoiding using thinner cases to account for different thickness of Parts used.

I can't see a solution unless they measure each part before assembly to make sure it will fit Or thin the case after assembly either way are additional steps factory will not want to do

I would pay additional $ for them to make it closer to 9.8 mm but I doubt factories will .. Just because as you said people keep buying the 11mm version without much thought.

So people like me, send it out to get it thinned.

 

[uphoto]

From what I have read it seems like KMF modified the Miyota movement to make up the difference. Not sure what they did to it but I guess that's where they made the biggest change.

 

[Bendori]

JF would need to invest in modifying the bridges of the Miyota 9015 instead of putting a deco plate on top. It can definitely be done, as ZF has shown, but it would raise the price substantially. As I know he's working on an AP clone movement maybe he decided to skip this intermediate step.

Where'd you get the info that JF is working on a AP clone movement?

 

[The Rod]

Where'd you get the info that JF is working on a AP clone movement?

There was a thread at the beginning of this year about what to expect for 2018 in terms of new releases and someone posted an extract from a chinese forum claiming this

 

[BIONONE]

There was a thread at the beginning of this year about what to expect for 2018 in terms of new releases and someone posted an extract from a chinese forum claiming this

but until now no further information... no leaks, no other "official" statements from known sources...

could be easily explained due to the releases of the updated A7750 ROO line which would drastically implode if a clone would come up.. So no TD will be telling us that a clone is coming... In the other way it could be a shitty rumor.

 

[The Rod]

but until now no further information... no leaks, no other "official" statements from known sources...

could be easily explained due to the releases of the updated A7750 ROO line which would drastically implode if a clone would come up.. So no TD will be telling us that a clone is coming... In the other way it could be a shitty rumor.

Hmm I think also reppists did pitch in at one point confirming that JF was working on a non-chrono three hander AP clone movement

 

[BIONONE]

Hmm I think also reppists did pitch in at one point confirming that JF was working on a non-chrono three hander AP clone movement

he seems absent lately...

 

[petonet]

This situation can explain why jf is ultra slow this days delivering ROO’s....
Maybe Angus knows something