Critical Need for Discussion - Stop the alcohol bath? Why our flip clock motors may be doomed

[Jeremy]

I am working on a RC-7589 right now that was very noisy when I first got it going. After the bath (washed off most of the red dot pattern whirligig) and oil soak it is pretty quiet but the bearings must be shot as it has a pretty serious wobble. The play seems to be mostly in the bushing on the gearbox side.

I picked up that Zoom oil at the hardware store last year, the description seemed like it would be good stuff. Since these mechanisms use a combination of metal and plastic gears it is important to use something that will not harm plastic.

Jeremy

[Mackey]

I really appreciate all the input on this topic. This has turned out to be one of the most important discussions in flip clock restorations that I’ve ever seen. It’s got me thinking about another topic - now that we’ve seemed to assembled a great group of active restorers.

[flipoclock]

Work in progress :-) It IS a lot more work than I anticipated since the original is not in the best of shapes and even though you will not see the details that much up close, I also want it to look good when you zoom to 3200%...

[flipoclock]

It's only coming along very slowly, it's very low on the priority list. But it is a good job for me, I am very good a correcting or colouring details on a max-zoom-level, I have the patience for it :-)

[flipoclock]

It has been awhile since there were any last updates in this topic. I wonder whether anyone has made any progress worth mentioning?

I have not to be honest, still just bathing and lubricating my motors :-)

Would it be an idea to try and reproduce some of these parts through 3d printing? There are printers nowadays that can print metal!

[Mackey]

It has been awhile since there were any last updates in this topic. I wonder whether anyone has made any progress worth mentioning?

I have not to be honest, still just bathing and lubricating my motors :-)

Would it be an idea to try and reproduce some of these parts through 3d printing? There are printers nowadays that can print metal!

The only problem is that there's just no money to be made. I just don't thing that there are that many people restoring these clocks and people don't want to pay what it's worth to restore a clock.

[flipoclock]

That is the biggest issue indeed... In order to be able to do that and not lose any money, you would have to look at the big picture. I would not have an issue in having 50 or a 100 parts made and put most of them on the shelf whilst selling some here at cost and elsewhere with some profit, but it would need to be developed first and that is where the costs are, it would be trial & error.

[flippin' 'eck]

Would a lanoline based spray be a solution? Thinner than synthetic oils, somewhat penetrating but greasy rather than WD40 slipperiness.

[Mackey]

Would a lanoline based spray be a solution? Thinner than synthetic oils, somewhat penetrating but greasy rather than WD40 slipperiness.

Actually, our current practice works. Whether it's loosening with alcohol or some other light solvent then followed by some sort of oil.
The issue we've been discussing is that ultimately, these little motors are going to wear out - oil or not, with no known supply of replacements.

[davidm]

This company makes or supplies various different new electric clock motors: https://www.american-time.com/produc...tors-movements
Maybe one of those would be suitable?

[flipoclock]

Does anybody know the actual RPM of a Copal motor? I have never seen this stated on one nor have I tried to measure it... It certainly is not 1RPM, far from it!

[Mackey]

Does anybody know the actual RPM of a Copal motor? I have never seen this stated on one nor have I tried to measure it... It certainly is not 1RPM, far from it!

I believe the rotor is spinning at 1800 RPM on 60 Hz and 1500 RPM on 50 Hz. So that would be 30 times a second and 25 times a second.
I just put an article together to explain how I got to this conclusion.
How Fast Does a Flip Clock Motor Spin
or just to make it easier, I'll repost it below:

---

Here's a random question to ponder:

How fast does a flip clock motor spin? This question recently came up amongst members of FlipClockFans.com. Let's see if we can figure this out.

The Japanese Copal II motors are used probably in the majority of vintage flip clocks. These are a type of AC (alternating current) motor known as a synchronous motor. What this essentially means, is that the speed of the rotor (or turning part of the motor) is in sync with the frequency of the electrial current being used to run the clock. In the US and Canada, the frequency of household current is 60 Hz or 60 cycles per second. In the vast majority of the rest of the world, the frequency used for home current is 50 Hz.

The formula for calculating a motor's synchronous speed in revolutions per minute (or RPM) is as follows:

120 x the result of the frequency in Hz divided by the number of poles of the motor.

Trying to go into what exactly are poles in an AC electric motor is beyond the scope of this discussion, maybe another time. But in small motors such as used in the these flip clocks, the number of poles is said to be 4 (the number of poles will always be an even number - usually between 2 and 8 in these applications.

The following is just a video of the motor in action

So, in the USA, to figure the speed in RPM you would devide the frequency (60) by the number of poles (4) to get 15. Multiply this by 120 and you'll get 1800 RPM (Revolutions per minute). Devide 1800 by 60 to get the revolutions per second. In this case, you end up with 1800 devided by 60 to get 30 spins per second. If you look at the video of one of these little mighty Copal motors in action, it looks believable. Doing the calculation for people running clocks with 50hz current yields the result of 50/4 = 12.5 times 120 = 1500 RPM or devide that by 60 to get 25 revolutions per second. Either way, these little guys are moving pretty quick.

So what are we going to do with this little piece of trivia? Maybe bore our uninitiated family and friends further with our fascination with flip clocks. That's what they deserve for not loving these little guys.

So bore on Flip Clock Fans.


Sync. Speed (in RPM) = 120 x Frequency (Hz) / # poles

[Mackey]

This company makes or supplies various different new electric clock motors: https://www.american-time.com/produc...tors-movements
Maybe one of those would be suitable?

Thanks for the link. Many of those motors are pretty pricy. But it's still a good question. The problems is that in different clocks, you have different internal configurations (that is, available space) then there matching the output motor speed as well as the number of gear teeth on the motors output gear. It would be wonderful it was a simply matter of pulling a motor, leaving the gear box and just replacing the motor. The problems is that these clocks were never designed for that sort of swap out - the motor and gear box are integral. Opening up that can of worms (the gear box) is difficult and often the gearbox is put back together in pretty rough looking shape. I've done it and I've seen others do it online, but it's not as easy as it sounds.

Ultimately, it's going to take someone to build a motor and gear box for a particular clock, or model set of clocks. The problem always comes down to this .... there' no money in it.

If a person wants a retro flip clock, there's now brand new modern ones online than ever before (Amazon.com has a pretty good selection). So unless the person is fixated on a vintage clock, they can spend as much as one of the motors on that website costs and get a pretty cool looking retro styled flip clock. What I'm saying is, that there's precious few of us who really appreciate the vintage ones (outside of the Back to the Future and the Groundhog day clocks). And making motors for clocks for a very limited market, makes no business sense.

As an example of the cool modern clocks, here's one I'd like to check out for under $50

https://www.amazon.com/Victrola-VC-425-SLV-Clock-Large-Silver/dp/B07DS3DD4H

[banggothebells]

When I got my first vintage flip clock a couple of years ago and the motor was seized, I watched your alcohol bath tutorial on youtube. it worked great and i've used this procedure a few times since then. That said, I always grab any and every flip clock I see in the Goodwill bins, no matter the condition. Having a spare parts bin has saved me when trying to repair flippers.

Also, I have a similar modern flipper! it runs forever on a single AA battery.

[Mackey]

When I got my first vintage flip clock a couple of years ago and the motor was seized, I watched your alcohol bath tutorial on youtube. it worked great and i've used this procedure a few times since then. That said, I always grab any and every flip clock I see in the Goodwill bins, no matter the condition. Having a spare parts bin has saved me when trying to repair flippers.

Also, I have a similar modern flipper! it runs forever on a single AA battery.

I've got one of those Centrios clocks

It's really a nice clock and I use it on my FlipClockFans Studios desk daily.