It's old, ugly, heavy, and outdated....

[cobrajet25]

...but it still works!  This is a late 1970s or early 1980s Seiko "QT-99 QuartzTester".  Anyone else use one of these old beasts to time their watches?

I got this years ago on Ebay for next to nothing.  IIRC, it cost more to ship it to me than I actually paid for it.  While it has some limitations, don't let the name fool you.  It can time quartz, but it is also pretty useful for timing ANY kind of watch.  You can time balance-wheel mechanical watches, electro-mechanical balance-wheel watches, LCD, LED, tuning fork, step-quartz...pretty much any kind of watch that existed back then.  But you don't get any info on things like balance amplitude, beat error, etc.  Just the daily rate.  The instruction manual actually tells you to let this thing warm up for about 20 minutes after you plug it in before using it!

Here is how a '70 6139-6001 started out (that's sec/day on the display)...



And here is how it ended up after some regulation...



This was a very expensive piece of hardware when it was new.  Not as useful as what's out there today, but a helluva lot better than nothing!  When I got it, I was only able to time quartz watches because a different kind of "optional" microphone was necessary to do mechanicals.  I looked for the original microphone for years...even got a hold of Seiko to see if they had one laying around.  Then it was suggested to me that any old microphone may well work, so I bought a clamp-on Seiko microphone meant for tuning guitars.  Voila!

Tonight I also timed an 0903 step-quartz and an M154 LCD quartz just for the hell of it.  The 0903, which I just lubed, runs a rock-solid .05 seconds per day fast.  The M154 runs a VERY steady .30 seconds per day fast.  It ranged from .28 per day to .31 per day, but was mostly bang-on at .30.  i would have bet on the M154 being the more accurate watch...but NO!  Pretty cool!  Here these two "beaters" together...



Here is the 0903 on the tester.  Amazing.  In 1974, this was a "cheap, entry-level quartz watch".



And here is the M154.



These show up every now and then on Ebay, but it has been ages since I have seen one listed.  Pretty cool old piece of kit!

[SeikoPsycho]

That is a Cool piece of a kit and I would mind having one to add to my Arsenal of original Seiko repair gear.

[Adrian-VTA]

That is super cool. I need one.

On another note, anyone that likes to tinker can use a standard electronics oscilloscope to test beats and regularity etc. As for working out a daily rate, I'm sure if you're good with this stuff you could do it.

[J. F. Sebastian]

If it's not too difficult to do, and you're comfortable with it, I'd love to see a shot of this thing with the cover off.   Some of us are weird like that...

[J. F. Sebastian]

Oct 9, 2014 5:00:31 GMT -8 Adrian-VTA said:

That is super cool. I need one.

On another note, anyone that likes to tinker can use a standard electronics oscilloscope to test beats and regularity etc. As for working out a daily rate, I'm sure if you're good with this stuff you could do it.

You know what, I'm going to take a crack at that this weekend.  I've been meaning to look into some kind of homebrew timegrapher-esque solution for a long time, but have been lazy about it.  Now that I'm actually trying to service some things, it's time to get the ball rolling...

[Groundhog66]

I'd say that's a great investment.

[HiBeat]

Thanks for the great write up.

[solex]

How do you regulate a Quartz watch?

[J. F. Sebastian]

Oct 10, 2014 16:20:54 GMT -8 solex said:

How do you regulate a Quartz watch?

Back when quartz watches were manufactured with some respect, a lot of them had (jewels in the movement!  But also...) variable capacitors in their crystal oscillator circuit, which to the user just looked like a small screw-head you could see when you took the caseback off.  By tightening or loosening the screw you could slightly adjust the oscillation frequency, and hence regulate your watch.  I don't have one of Cobrajet's fancy testing machines, but simply using a notebook, an online atomic clock and some patience, I once regulated an old Seiko LCD watch to the point that it was drifting by less than one second per week.  To my knowledge, nobody makes quartz watches with this feature anymore, which is a shame.

[solex]

Thank you, the only Quartz movement thati know of that can be regulated is the eta in the breitling b1, but it requires a special rig.

[Deleted]

Oct 10, 2014 17:15:31 GMT -8 solex said:

Thank you, the only Quartz movement thati know of that can be regulated is the eta in the breitling b1, but it requires a special rig.

Seiko has many calibres that can be regulated. These mostly have trimmer caps that allow precise tuning of the quartz oscillator. Some are simpler and reguire cutting one or two traces to slow or speed the oscillator up. Typically these make for adjustments of fractions of a second per day.

All of these watches will respond nicely to cobra jet's machine

[Adrian-VTA]

Looking forward to seeing your rig!

You can get a decent oscilloscope for not much these days. I think if you could probably feed the data to a raspberry pi and code something up in python that could give you some interesting stats

Oct 10, 2014 12:50:35 GMT -8 J. F. Sebastian said:

Oct 9, 2014 5:00:31 GMT -8 Adrian-VTA said:

That is super cool. I need one.

On another note, anyone that likes to tinker can use a standard electronics oscilloscope to test beats and regularity etc. As for working out a daily rate, I'm sure if you're good with this stuff you could do it.

You know what, I'm going to take a crack at that this weekend.  I've been meaning to look into some kind of homebrew timegrapher-esque solution for a long time, but have been lazy about it.  Now that I'm actually trying to service some things, it's time to get the ball rolling...

[J. F. Sebastian]

Oct 10, 2014 18:24:23 GMT -8 Adrian-VTA said:

Looking forward to seeing your rig!

You can get a decent oscilloscope for not much these days. I think if you could probably feed the data to a raspberry pi and code something up in python that could give you some interesting stats

If anything comes of it, I'll make a thread so folks can follow along. I have a nice vintage Japanese oscilloscope, not one of the big names, but it works. Ultimately I'd like to knock up something with a microcontroller and an LCD display if possible, but I have a bad habit of getting excited about electronics projects, spending weeks designing them and carefully shopping for parts, placing a big order and then letting those parts sit in boxes for months or years. Sometimes I actually finish things, it would be nice if a simple timegrapher was one of them.

[Adrian-VTA]

Isn't that what electronics projects are all about? *glances over at a box of arduini unos + more*

Seriously though, I am CERTAIN that places like Adafruit and SparkFun etc, less than 20% of the products bought actually get used. Even at the hackerspace they have here, they pointed out a pile of devboards people have collected over the years, never touched.

Oct 10, 2014 19:47:12 GMT -8 J. F. Sebastian said:

Oct 10, 2014 18:24:23 GMT -8 Adrian-VTA said:

Looking forward to seeing your rig!

You can get a decent oscilloscope for not much these days. I think if you could probably feed the data to a raspberry pi and code something up in python that could give you some interesting stats

If anything comes of it, I'll make a thread so folks can follow along. I have a nice vintage Japanese oscilloscope, not one of the big names, but it works. Ultimately I'd like to knock up something with a microcontroller and an LCD display if possible, but I have a bad habit of getting excited about electronics projects, spending weeks designing them and carefully shopping for parts, placing a big order and then letting those parts sit in boxes for months or years. Sometimes I actually finish things, it would be nice if a simple timegrapher was one of them.

[seikoholic]

I'd sell someone's mother for one of those.

Seriously.

I need one, badly.  

[cobrajet25]

Oct 10, 2014 21:32:20 GMT -8 seikoholic said:

I'd sell someone's mother for one of those.

Seriously.

I need one, badly.  

Lol...it's pretty neat.  I was actually able to get a copy of the QT-99 operator's manual from Seiko when I was searching for the proper microphone, and it gives some info about how it works.

The machine has a 4.32 MHz quartz oscillator inside it (which explains the somewhat misleading name), which is contained in a temperature-controlled miniature oven.  The reason it is necessary to let the machine warm up for 20 minutes before using it is so this oven can warm up and bring the oscillator up to stable operating temperature.  This is used as a super-accurate reference signal for whatever movement signal you are comparing it to.  The four colored buttons on the front correspond to different types of watches, but the machine automatically corrects for different beat rates, etc.

There is an earphone that you can plug in to hear your watch run, greatly amplified, presumably to listen for beat error, etc.  I actually listened to an LCD watch running...just hearing the actual signal it created was weird.

I haven't put a tuning fork watch on it yet...but I do have a nice '72 Omega f300!

[mwbuss8]

This is the 2nd one I've seen. The other is on TOF. I'd love to find one myself someday

[seikoholic]

Oct 11, 2014 0:28:18 GMT -8 cobrajet25 said:

Oct 10, 2014 21:32:20 GMT -8 seikoholic said:

I'd sell someone's mother for one of those.

Seriously.

I need one, badly.  

Lol...it's pretty neat.  I was actually able to get a copy of the QT-99 operator's manual from Seiko when I was searching for the proper microphone, and it gives some info about how it works.

The machine has a 4.32 MHz quartz oscillator inside it (which explains the somewhat misleading name), which is contained in a temperature-controlled miniature oven.  The reason it is necessary to let the machine warm up for 20 minutes before using it is so this oven can warm up and bring the oscillator up to stable operating temperature.  This is used as a super-accurate reference signal for whatever movement signal you are comparing it to.  The four colored buttons on the front correspond to different types of watches, but the machine automatically corrects for different beat rates, etc.

There is an earphone that you can plug in to hear your watch run, greatly amplified, presumably to listen for beat error, etc.  I actually listened to an LCD watch running...just hearing the actual signal it created was weird.

I haven't put a tuning fork watch on it yet...but I do have a nice '72 Omega f300!

I'm the proud owner of something like fifteen 754x's, and as you know their adjusters aren't a simple linear "right goes faster left goes slower".   Trial-and-error is a just useless.

[cobrajet25]

I will throw one of my 7546s on this thing and see what happens when I fiddle with the adjuster.  Maybe there is a trick to it.

Just as an addendum...remember that 6139 I timed?  Well, it must be gaining 4.4 seconds off my wrist and losing 4.4 seconds while on it.

Over the last three days since the regulation it is running a total of about half a second fast.

I love these watches...