Clock out of sync, hour flips too late

[Flipflop]

I have a problem with my Sanyo RM5320 clock radio. The hour flips too late. And it doesn’t flip at the same time each hour. Most hours it flips at 02-04 minutes, but at hour 21 and 22 it consistently flips at 08/09 minutes.

Any idea how to fix this?

[Johan de Jong]

First thing to check is if the 'tines' (the little strips of metal holding back the tiles) are in good shape. Whether they are not broken or bent and whether they are the same length.

If these are ok then somehow the hours and the minutes got out of sync (maybe someone worked on it before?). These are coupled by gears. To correct that you need to shift one gear with respect to the other. Probably you need to disconnect some gear, shift it and connect them again. This is a difficult affair and how difficult depends on the details of the mechanism. I think I have had a clock with the same mechanism and the same issue and I remember it was quite a struggle to correct it. Complicating factor is that it may also affect the timing of the alarm, so you need to take that into account at the same time. Ideally the hour tile should drop around minute 55 so it will be caught by the lever between the lever that is pushed aside by the minutes. This may be slightly different for each hour as the tiles will wear differently. It is the lever between the number that assures that the hour tile drops at the same time as the 0 minute tile.

Alternatively you could remove all the hour tiles and reinsert them at a new position on the wheel. This has though a high risk of breaking a tile

[Flipflop]

Thank you for the reply. The tines look fine to me, but I don’t really know much about flip clocks. Here is a video of the clock, does this give any indication of what the problem is? If the problem is the gears, I’ll probably give up on it to be honest.

[Johan de Jong]

Nice video, that always helps!

The tines look fine, but the hours are way out of sync. There are two tiles for each hour. The.first one is supposed to drop at around minute 25 and will not be held back by the hour sync lever. The second should be released by the tine at the top around minute 55 and then be caught by the lever from the side until that is releases at minute 0. I see in your video the first tile drops at minute 37 and is then caught by the lever. That is about 13 minutes late. So the hours and minutes are really a lot out of sync.

It is possible to solve this, but it Is not easy. I could dig through my old stuff somewhere next week and see if I can trace back how I did solve this issue and then might be able to give you detailed instructions. But if you are not the kind of person that likes to fiddle with these small mechanics (which is perfectly fine) then I think it is better to sell it on.

[Flipflop]

Nice video, that always helps!

The tines look fine, but the hours are way out of sync. There are two tiles for each hour. The.first one is supposed to drop at around minute 25 and will not be held back by the hour sync lever. The second should be released by the tine at the top around minute 55 and then be caught by the lever from the side until that is releases at minute 0. I see in your video the first tile drops at minute 37 and is then caught by the lever. That is about 13 minutes late. So the hours and minutes are really a lot out of sync.

It is possible to solve this, but it Is not easy. I could dig through my old stuff somewhere next week and see if I can trace back how I did solve this issue and then might be able to give you detailed instructions. But if you are not the kind of person that likes to fiddle with these small mechanics (which is perfectly fine) then I think it is better to sell it on.

I was hoping it would not be too difficult or complicated to fix, but sounds like it is. I think I will try to sell it on and look for another. I picked this one up for €2 so it’s no big loss.

Thanks again!