Clock used to run reliable, but no more
Hi Steve! First of all, thank you very much for these clocks! They are amazing!
I printed and assembled a SPB5 with the 15 day option. After a bit of tuning and reducing friction using your awesome debug hints I got it to work reliably. I went on vacation and even after a week it was still ticking just fine.
Then I decided to take off the weight shell (for an inspection) and put it back on. I didn't change anything else. Ever since then the clock is not running reliably anymore. It runs for a few hours at most, sometimes maybe just for a few minutes. The pendulum amplitude gets smaller and smaller till it completely stops. (I can restart it very easily though with just a gentle push of the pendulum)
Since then I tested the gears in isolation (without the pallet) and the weight (of ~6kg) drives the gears nicely. I can stop the escapement with my finger at any position and it nicely resumes spinning.
I also re-did the pendulum free swing test and I get about 12 mins of swinging before the amplitude gets too tiny. I assume this is fine too, right?
But when i put the two together, it doesn't run for long anymore. I am now playing around for a few days with a) alignment of the clock on the wall and b) the angle of the pallet against the escapement (by adjusting the two thumb screws); but even when the beat sounds even to me, I cannot seem to get it back to work reliably.
Do you have any tipps for me on what else I should check?
Many thanks in advance,
Andreas
Hi again! The clock ended up running for less than a day. I tried again several times and it went back to running for only a few mins. I finally found the time to do some debugging and made some videos. It would be amazing if you could help me identify what I could do.
Here is what I did recently:
1) I tried to push/pull on the arbors, but it didn't seem to help
2) I checked end shake of the escapement arbor and it seems generous (IMO).
3) I tried to wind up the string by guiding it back and forward (thanks for the tip Flynt!)
Here are some videos I made (please excuse the baby and kid noises :)
1) Pendulum free swing test (wo/ gears): https://youtu.be/Nw2MkyHrC_w
2) Clock running only for a few mins (shows end of run and how I afterwards manually move the pendulum to record the escapement characteristics): https://youtu.be/soqnfmDOZ08
3) Escapement end shake: https://youtube.com/shorts/W0Otkp87lLU
4) Gears running with weight, but without pallet: https://youtube.com/shorts/JQjwDQ9XGiI
Thank you so much for all your work and tireless help!
Andreas