Re: Timekeeping Accuracy

On May 24, 7:57 pm, "Jack Denver" <nunuv...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I wonder, given that Casios apparently have a trimmer capacitor (which is
rare for modern quartz watches - most modern ones have one time trimming
done at the factory by cutting certain lines or burning certain memory
registers) whether somehow the trimmer was jarred out of regulation and
whether you could fix the problem by readjusting the trimmer? There is
really no excuse for any modern quartz watch to be off by more than 1/2
second/day - even the kind that they give away with Happy Meals do this
well. I'm realistic about the timekeeping of my mechanical watches (though
some of them do surprisingly well - my Chinese Seagull ST-16 is -10 for the
entire month of May) but it would bother me to have a quartz watch go off 7
secs/day.

"MP" <waran...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:C45D8945.4635%waranoid@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Now that's dedication to accuracy! Although I formerly worked in
electronic
test equipment calibration, that's more trouble than I care to go to for
my
watches. I'm content just to test them to see how they're doing.

The "bad" Casio is not typical of that brand, I'm sure. I'd had it for
over
a year, when I noticed that the hourly beep would get very noticeably out
of
synch with the beep on the other one over the course of a single day. So
I
ran the test, and ended up checking all my other quartz watches, too.
This
watch may just have been a rare slip by their QC department, or I may have
abused it somehow without realizing it.

MP

On 5/24/08 4:53 AM, in article 5IGdnamcApMHSqrV4p2d...@xxxxxxxxxxxx, "Guy
Macon" <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit

MP wrote:

Just an addition on the point of radio-controlled quartz accuracy
without
the synchronization signals. I have two different Casio G-Shock RC
models.
As with my other quartz watches, I have tried tracking the accuracy
against
the clock on a GPS unit, with the automatic synchronization turned off..

One Casio was good to a respectable + 11 seconds per month
(specification is
± 15 or better), but the other was a horrendous + 70 seconds per month.
I'm
sure this one is atypical, and with the synchronization back on, it
doesn't
have time to drift by much more than 2 seconds a day anyway. I was
surprised to find a quartz watch that bad, though.

I have a half dozen Casio DBC-W150 watches, and I have been turning
off the RC updating, letting them run, and adjusting the trimmer
capacitor inside. I have been doing this for about a year, and
four of them are within +/- 1 second per month, 2 within +/1 2
seconds. I have to wait longer and longer to see which way the
watch is drifting. All of this is in a contolled 72 dgree F
environment; eventually I am going to do some tests at high and
low temperatures as well.

Utter precision is not needed in normal daily life. I am quite
surprised at the concern expressed by so many over watches' minute
precision. I am enjoying wearing my watches for many different
reasons, none of which having to do with time keeping performance,
which anyhow still remains within acceptable variations.

.

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