XF New AP Royal Oak 15202 Releasing Soon!

[slaughterer62]

You can search this forum for rotor silencing threads. Tons of useful info that modders have shared. Basically, you open the caseback, pry off the fake screw sticker that covers the 3 screws holding the rotor. Take off the rotor and use möbius D5 or 8200 oil in the bearing to provide more lubrication and resistance so it doesn’t spin crazily.

I use 8200 oil as recommended by one of the modders, sorry for not giving proper credit because I don’t remember which thread it came from. And you can use liquid rubber on the back side of the rotor to dampen the sound

He he, I take credit for that: that was my thread on how to silence a rotor. I need to update it on how to take apart the rotor assembly, as the best approach is to clean and polish all of the small ball bearings inside the assembly, and apply lubricant to the tracks internally, but that tutorial is for another day. Taking the assembly apart to access the individual ball bearings is a delicate, delicate operation, but it is the best way to get to silence.

 

[Phantomtech]

Now that I am back at home I see the lume mismatch between dial and hands many members have referred to. I will need to correct that for sure. It is easy for me, and something that personally matters to me: The dial has an ivory lume that is quite strong, but the hands have the cheap imitation Chinese C1 lume that is white and much weaker. Easy to fix, but a little tedious and expensive. Plus, I see my bezel is not brushed vertical. Will have to redo that, and make the edges a little sharper with a sharpening stone. No problem. As for the movement: The timegraph is great at 300amp +/- 10 s/d. No servicing needed. My thickness measures at the typical 8.6mm glass to glass. I will refuse every request to make it thinner--it can, I suppose, be done, for a little more thinness (maybe .1mm) or rather (more truthfully) I do not want to do it (as I do not think it is worth it): the watch wears light and thin enough. I did not have any problem with the screws being loctited (I hate that too), and I kind of admire XF for using the same antiquated system as AP. It is fine with me. The only other thing that bugs me is the crystal. I suppose XF crystals (from their Divers on) are a matter of taste: there is AR, but it is tinted and a little weak. I am not suggesting 2AR, as I do not want to see that dial/hand combination clearer, but a Prof 1AR would be a nice upgrade. Then, of course, there are the hands: that is a big turn-off for me. Admittedly, the XF hands are better than the "flying saucer" hands of the JF 15202, but the deco plate to cover the seconds pinion is off-centered on the deco plate, and the surrounding hand is just too thick to be anything close to a gen hand set--speaking as a person who has spent thousands of dollars on gen 15202 and 5402 hand-sets over the last year, for better or worse (they are very thin around the pinion). The consumer advocate here at RWI will want to do a comparison of the JF and XF (and ZF when it is released). My JF has been laying in pieces under a dust cover since release, so I cannot do this. Will re-post when I re-assess though which is the better base for a 15202/5402 Franken: not that there are many people interested in that, maybe 1 or 2 are. As for the XF dial, hmm, the tapisserie is just circular and the print is not exact, but in this case I am not really thinking the dial is so important for some reason. Good news: the bezel screws did not really irritate me as much as I thought they would, and those who are driving their TDs insane rejecting QC photos because of defective bezel screws need to calm down. Surprise: they are not that bad in real life. (Here an endorsement for the super obsessive): Perhaps send the whole screw set to flying-tommmy for white gold plating, but overall they are a lot better than your QC photos would suggest. But,then, I got one of the first examples from XF, and maybe it is an exception. Still, had to wait a long time for it to arrive. Hope all this feedback helps. Not much more for me to say.

Thanks for all that, it is very helpful!

What color tint is on the factory AR?

Do the hour markers have a greenish tinge in everyday light? Seems like that in almost all the photos but maybe it just looks green compared to the hands?

 

[slaughterer62]

The XF AR on the their 15202 has a light blue tint, not a purple one like so many AR post-processed crystals. The XF 15202 AR is not so irritating, but it is there, and it will irritate gen owners or people who have handled the gen. Some people like this XF AR, and I have had clients request the XF AR, and I have sold out of those XF crystals now because of that. But I am divided on XF AR, even if it is better than many other Chinese factories as I like Prof 1AR very much, and gen the best. But that is perhaps moot, as the gen crystals trickle out in the market so rarely.
The hour markers on mine have a slight vintage light brown tint, maybe I have a weird outlier sample, it might even be a prototype, but the lume on the hourmarkers is very strong, more strong than some gens, and the reason it is green compared to the hands is because the markers glow much more strongly than the hands. When people photo the watch, the markers are acting up with their glow by comparison to the weak glow of than hands. I am going to relume the hands with the same tint lume, thanks to a refreshed supply of some vintage colored Tritec lume. But it will be a mix, with some C1 in it as well. It is a good mod, but so is the bezel rebrush. But the hands will be the important mod for those who love this watch but also love the gen. And that will be more difficult.
All in all, XF gets my vote for the most interesting up-and-coming AP rep factory, the one that might challenge JF most seriously, but I have not yet handled the ZF 15400. But the XF Divers this year were very strong in quality, and this XF 15202 is also very strong, for what it is, at its price point. And I like it that XF is taking its time and only doing about 2 or 3 AP releases a year rather than pumping out a slew of half-assed reps with careless assembly, insulting and shamefully thick like the new JF V2 ROOs, which glommed the IP of some of the dedicated people here, like Mikey and Prof, who got their DW and cyclops analyzed and repped by the Chinese. When factories start repping the modders, you know this little world has become crazy.

 

[daft772]

He he, I take credit for that: that was my thread on how to silence a rotor. I need to update it on how to take apart the rotor assembly, as the best approach is to clean and polish all of the small ball bearings inside the assembly, and apply lubricant to the tracks internally, but that tutorial is for another day. Taking the assembly apart to access the individual ball bearings is a delicate, delicate operation, but it is the best way to get to silence.

Thank you, sir! I knew it was either you or legend... both very knowledgeable and well respected

 

[gilrob]

slaughterer62

Very informative write up. Can you elaborate more about the hands, why is it more a difficult and what are your plans to modding them? Thank you.

 

[slaughterer62]

slaughterer62

Very informative write up. Can you elaborate more about the hands, why is it more a difficult and what are your plans to modding them? Thank you.

If you look at photos of the gen, you will see that the pinions that hold the hands for the gen 15202 are very much thinner than the MIyota 9015 pinions, and the dial hole for them on the gen dial is very, very small by comparison to the XF and ZF dials which have much wider holes for the these pinions. AP has carried this tradition of thin pinions into most of their in-house movements. The pinions on the gen 15400 or the Diver for instance are uniformly (for all three hands, including the thin second hand pinion) .1mm thinner than the standard 2824. This is part of the elegance of the AP design language: very thin pinions to make it look like the hands are floating on air almost. .1mm does not sound like much, but the human eye can see it easily on a narrow watch dial, and it is especially visible for the small seconds hand, where it is a little less than half the size of the pinion, i.e. the gen seconds pinion is almost half the size of the rep seconds pinion. For the XF 15202 they used the Miyota 9015 with the thicker pinion and thinned the base of the hands more by comparison to the wider JF hand bases, but I do not think XF went far enough. I think the Chinese are afraid the if they make their hands too thin their factory workers will break too many of them during assembly. But a more skilled person might work with a thinner hand base, like aflop (fond memories brother) did with the thinned hand bases for the 7750 ROOs. Of course these are more fragile, but they are visually more accurate, and that is what is needed for better correspondence with the thin hand bases of the gen. Best would be to have a factory make these, rather than shave them with a tool, and I have miraculously two sets of 9015 hands with thinner bases (I showed them in a previous post on this thread), but I need to see if they are thin enough and the correct length. Maybe it will not work out, but there is also a little circular deco plate on top of the minute hand to cover the hole for the missing seconds pinion (the 15202 is only a two hander but he 9015 is a three hand movement). And this little deco plate, if you look at it closely, has a fake little pinion circle etched into it, but that circle if off-center, and that is something that visually disorients the centering of the hands, so that needs to be addressed, and probably can, through some micro.machining of a new little deco plate. But I have said enough and I am getting ahead of things. Good night I have to wake up early tomorrow.

 

[Phantomtech]

If you look at photos of the gen, you will see that the pinions that hold the hands for the gen 15202 are very much thinner than the MIyota 9015 pinions, and the dial hole for them on the gen dial is very, very small by comparison to the XF and ZF dials which have much wider holes for the these pinions. AP has carried this tradition of thin pinions into most of their in-house movements. The pinions on the gen 15400 or the Diver for instance are uniformly (for all three hands, including the thin second hand pinion) .1mm thinner than the standard 2824. This is part of the elegance of the AP design language: very thin pinions to make it look like the hands are floating on air almost. .1mm does not sound like much, but the human eye can see it easily on a narrow watch dial, and it is especially visible for the small seconds hand, where it is a little less than half the size of the pinion, i.e. the gen seconds pinion is almost half the size of the rep seconds pinion. For the XF 15202 they used the Miyota 9015 with the thicker pinion and thinned the base of the hands more by comparison to the wider JF hand bases, but I do not think XF went far enough. I think the Chinese are afraid the if they make their hands too thin their factory workers will break too many of them during assembly. But a more skilled person might work with a thinner hand base, like aflop (fond memories brother) did with the thinned hand bases for the 7750 ROOs. Of course these are more fragile, but they are visually more accurate, and that is what is needed for better correspondence with the thin hand bases of the gen. Best would be to have a factory make these, rather than shave them with a tool, and I have miraculously two sets of 9015 hands with thinner bases (I showed them in a previous post on this thread), but I need to see if they are thin enough and the correct length. Maybe it will not work out, but there is also a little circular deco plate on top of the minute hand to cover the hole for the missing seconds pinion (the 15202 is only a two hander but he 9015 is a three hand movement). And this little deco plate, if you look at it closely, has a fake little pinion circle etched into it, but that circle if off-center, and that is something that visually disorients the centering of the hands, so that needs to be addressed, and probably can, through some micro.machining of a new little deco plate. But I have said enough and I am getting ahead of things. Good night I have to wake up early tomorrow.

Hats off to you on this very informative post

 

[gilrob]

If you look at photos of the gen, you will see that the pinions that hold the hands for the gen 15202 are very much thinner than the MIyota 9015 pinions, and the dial hole for them on the gen dial is very, very small by comparison to the XF and ZF dials which have much wider holes for the these pinions. AP has carried this tradition of thin pinions into most of their in-house movements. The pinions on the gen 15400 or the Diver for instance are uniformly (for all three hands, including the thin second hand pinion) .1mm thinner than the standard 2824. This is part of the elegance of the AP design language: very thin pinions to make it look like the hands are floating on air almost. .1mm does not sound like much, but the human eye can see it easily on a narrow watch dial, and it is especially visible for the small seconds hand, where it is a little less than half the size of the pinion, i.e. the gen seconds pinion is almost half the size of the rep seconds pinion. For the XF 15202 they used the Miyota 9015 with the thicker pinion and thinned the base of the hands more by comparison to the wider JF hand bases, but I do not think XF went far enough. I think the Chinese are afraid the if they make their hands too thin their factory workers will break too many of them during assembly. But a more skilled person might work with a thinner hand base, like aflop (fond memories brother) did with the thinned hand bases for the 7750 ROOs. Of course these are more fragile, but they are visually more accurate, and that is what is needed for better correspondence with the thin hand bases of the gen. Best would be to have a factory make these, rather than shave them with a tool, and I have miraculously two sets of 9015 hands with thinner bases (I showed them in a previous post on this thread), but I need to see if they are thin enough and the correct length. Maybe it will not work out, but there is also a little circular deco plate on top of the minute hand to cover the hole for the missing seconds pinion (the 15202 is only a two hander but he 9015 is a three hand movement). And this little deco plate, if you look at it closely, has a fake little pinion circle etched into it, but that circle if off-center, and that is something that visually disorients the centering of the hands, so that needs to be addressed, and probably can, through some micro.machining of a new little deco plate. But I have said enough and I am getting ahead of things. Good night I have to wake up early tomorrow.

Thanks for taking your time to answer my question with precise detail.

 

[SuperLory]

Microcycle fyi

 

[ssr905]

Just arrived! The watch looks amazing, the only thing that is noticeable when looking at it at arms length is the lume difference between hands and markers: The hands look white and the markers look green, as a whole it would be better if everything was like the hands (althought the C1 lume strength is clearly weaker), but the gen has very white lume.
When looking under a loupe you can tell the bezel screws don’t fit exactly in the slots, and the dial markers at 12 are not perfectly parallel, but not noticeable at all when looking at it normally.
Mine has a silent rotor, no problems with this miyota.
As a whole I’d say it’s one of the best reps I’ve handled, very very happy with the purchase!

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

 

[ssr905]

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

 

[Phantomtech]

Just arrived! The watch looks amazing, the only thing that is noticeable when looking at it at arms length is the lume difference between hands and markers: The hands look white and the markers look green, as a whole it would be better if everything was like the hands (althought the C1 lume strength is clearly weaker), but the gen has very white lume.
When looking under a loupe you can tell the bezel screws don’t fit exactly in the slots, and the dial markers at 12 are not perfectly parallel, but not noticeable at all when looking at it normally.
Mine has a silent rotor, no problems with this miyota.
As a whole I’d say it’s one of the best reps I’ve handled, very very happy with the purchase!

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

That looks awesome, congrats!

 

[velox]

Hey all, got my XF today Ordered from Li at JTime and i couldnt be more happier with the whole process, from ordering to delivery. Very nice TD experience and highly recommended . . .jtimewatch Many thanks for your professional work and assistance Li

The watch.
After reading through this post, looking at pics etc. im amazed how well this rep is made. Yes it is a $500 rep vs. 45K gen and hard to compare but im super impressed with this model. On the arm its so tiny and petit and as i was worried about bezel screws, dial pattern, DW etc. after getting the watch there are no need to be fussy or worried about that, thats how good it is

I took some pics of it, enjoy.

 

[racingeagle]

Hey all, got my XF today Ordered from Li at JTime and i couldnt be more happier with the whole process, from ordering to delivery. Very nice TD experience and highly recommended . . .jtimewatch Many thanks for your professional work and assistance Li

The watch.
After reading through this post, looking at pics etc. im amazed how well this rep is made. Yes it is a $500 rep vs. 45K gen and hard to compare but im super impressed with this model. On the arm its so tiny and petit and as i was worried about bezel screws, dial pattern, DW etc. after getting the watch there are no need to be fussy or worried about that, thats how good it is

I took some pics of it, enjoy.

How’s the rotor noise? Thanks

 

[velox]

How’s the rotor noise? Thanks

Its there but ill oil it. As of now it doesnt bother me

 

[gigi77]

When is your sale coming?

Lol! one hour later, no joke, check his history!

 

[Cheeps]

Lol! one hour later, no joke, check his history!

Yea already commented on that one lol

 

[slaughterer62]

velox Congratulations, and thanks for the photos.

 

[Blaze00215]

Sorry for the hijack, but it seems like many people are looking forwards to the release of a 15202BC rep (there's no reps at all out there except for crappy automatics from DHgate). This one just popped up on trusty's website. It seems low quality and is quartz, so I guess it is similar to the DC quartz. Looks alright and very thin for the price. If anyone with more experience could check it out I would be very grateful. Keep in mind that Fat Panda told me XF is releasing a 15202BC next year.
https://www.trustytime02.cc/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=241_246&products_id=20776

 

[velox]

velox Congratulations, and thanks for the photos.

Sure thin bud. I also forgot to say i really like how the replicated the quick date settings. Thats a new for me and truly great to be able to set the date like the gen