Weird issue with Twemco clock motor

[flipoclock]

I am currently restoring/refurbishing a large, wall-flip-clock, made by Twemco.

Essentially it is working fine, I have opened up the motor, removed all the old gunk/oil/grease and lubricated it again and that is working just nicely.

However, when the hour passes (the flaps go to 00), the motor starts acting up, it starts making noise and keeps doing that for 12 to 13 minutes and then goes quiet again.

Ideally, I would love to replace the motor with a brand new one, but it seems that the original supplier is not able to supply such a motor, would anybody know of a place where I could get a sort of similar replacement motor? If I need to create an adapter plate for it to make it fit that's alright. The main things are voltage/hertz and rpm.

If anybody would venture to guess as to what's causing my issue, you're more than welcome to give me some input :-)

[Mackey]

Clearly after flapping to 00 the strain on the motor increases. I guess it’s pushing on gears at thsat point that change the day/date? So those gears may be lacking lubrication at some point. But sounds like you’ve cleaned it up so .... anyway, that’s all that comes to my mind.

[flipoclock]

Good thinking! The only issue is that it has no day/date :-( Just the hours and minutes. I will rummage through all the gears again to see whether one might need some extra lubrication.

[Twemcopal]

Hi flipclock_nl,

I had similar issues, you might recall my previous post about lubricating the drum axles. My Jadco (Twemco) quietened down after that. The drums were really quite binding. Might be a common problem.

The motors can still be slightly noisy. That's not a problem I've found. It depends on how much it had been used.

I love the motors in these because you can fully strip them down.

[flipoclock]

Thanks for reminding me... I will give them a tiny drop of oil to see whether that helps!

Indeed, the motors are not difficult to work on, they come apart like they are supposed to :-)

[flipoclock]

I have taken it apart again, cleaned all the gears and carefully lubed them once again. I put it back together and put it back in place. Sure enough, when the clock hit .59 and .00, it started making noise again. I then removed the motor from the clock while still running and the noise did not go away...? This is interesting, it surely means that it is in the motor itself.

I have also noticed that one of the gears has a crack in it, surely this will only develop to become worse. I will be searching for a replacement pulse motor, 220v, 1rpm.... Should anyone have any tips, I'd love to hear them!

[RetroFlip]

Ideally, I would love to replace the motor with a brand new one, but it seems that the original supplier is not able to supply such a motor.

Just curious, was this who you contacted?

http://www.nipponpulse.com/products/browse/synchronous-motors/

Always had them in back of mind, but assumed volume and cost would not be viable for the small numbers we need.

[flipoclock]

I did not contact them, I read somewhere online that someone else already tried... Nippon pulse is a producer/wholesaler, as such they would not be selling just the one off. They have dealers, but they mostly sell to other companies (this is what I found). It doesn not have to be same brand, as long as it is able to drive the clockwork at 1rpm...

[flipoclock]

I ended up ordering a 1rpm synchronous motor on amazon. For the price it won't starve me to death if it fails. Will keep you posted :-)