posted on Dec, 21 2023 @ 04:23 PM
a reply to:
Brotherman
I don't know much, i just paint whatever the engineers concocted...
Add some random tolerances to drive production nuts, preferably some that add up over time to then not add up at all.
Kidding aside, it's been a long time since i worked in watchmaking, and the most interesting work i did was design and prototyping, not
manufacturing.
Here in Europe it's ISOsomenumber that regulates tolerances.
Dealing with gears you have to always consider both interactions and the tolerances of the axis on the main plate and those of the gears interacting.
Tolerances in watches are really not fun as it's all one system with many moving and interacting pieces it's a chain of tolerances... Modern CAD
however helps alot if you can input tolerances it will spot adding errors... If you dont have that it's tedious work i best mastered by visual
representations of the tolerances you had on each point of interaction.
Take the 0.0 as a baseline add all + / - that act on this point as fields... That way you'll see if they work together. If one plus surpasses another
minus it wont work.
Then there are so many which one to use...
I'm not good with the technical terms in English but if you have an axial tolerance on the axis and a radial tolerance on the gears you can't quite
figure if your ought to subtract or add the tolerance as the gear would wobble...
Something i learned questioning the designs was that the surface tension keeps the lube in the tiny holes, why you have lube cavities in the top and
bottom jewel bearings on every axis. In my mind the lube was just dripping down the axis so why even put lube on the top.
Oh and jewel bearings, as an honorary mention because they are cool...
edit on 21-12-2023 by Terpene because: Add more