Greetings from the central time zone, USA

[Louigee]

Hi,
I was looking up "flip clock noise" in duckduckgo and found this fan site. Pretty cool. I too enjoy the flip-clock radios. My first flip clock was back in 1979, when my mom gave me the one sheh had been using. I enjoy the flip clocks firstly because of the gentle "swoosh" sound they make when they change or flip time. It's very comforting. Weird, I know. I also like the clarity of the display. For instance, I was at the charity thrift store the other day and bought a Timex t236b clock radio for ten bucks. Brought it home and found out it takes a coin cell battery to keep the factory time settings when shipped, and three AA batteries for the alarm for if the power goes out. I replaced the coin cell and my my, it must have taken 10 minutes just to hold and depress the forward button to get the year from '99 to 2021! Finally, got it all set. Then, tried it for what I originally bought it for, the radio. Depressed the button, no radio. Depressed it again and again, no radio. I finally depressed it super hard and the radio came on. Cheap depress buttons! Then, found my favorite FM station and noticed a hum. I usually listen to the sleep feature of clock radios at very low, and the hum was even more noticeable when I turned the volume all the way down. Argh! My husband who is a mechanical engineer, told me it was probably poor shielding due to cheap components. I'm in my late fifties and I remember the Timex manufacturing plant along interstate 40 in Memphis during one of our many cross country moves as a kid. Timex is now owned by SDI Technologies after the 25 year ago sell-out by Slick Willy and other like-minded politicians. Enough said about that....then at night when I turned over and glanced at the time, I couldn't make out the numbers as I'm a person of a certain age and the numbers are LED black against three off-white seed lights. You can change the brightness to three different levels, but that didn't help. Brother! If I sound grumpy, well, this was a let-down. So, I got out my old Magnavox and plugged it in and set the time. The only problem is that it makes a rhythmic sound "cha cha cha cha cha, or ja ja ja ja ja. A couple of years ago my husband applied some liquid B12 Chemtool on the motor as it wouldn't spin. But this noise is enough to get to you after a while, but other than that, it has great sound in spite of not having one of those rat tail antennae as is on the Timex clock, and no hum during radio playback and keeps time perfectly.

Oops, my picture came out a bit huge. But thanks for this site and glad I found it.
Regards, Lisa

[Guest]

Hello and welcome. We're here to help with any maintenance, restoration, etc., problems and/or questions. Any Timex made in the last 2 decades or so will have been made overseas (Taiwan, mainland China, Thailand, etc) and the quality is pretty much this: use it, throw it away when it dies. But, they work for what they were intended to do and were cheap. Tell time and play the radio!

The hum in the Timex is probably a dying component...capacitor, leaky current in a transistor, etc. It could even by a poor solder connection or dirty potentiometer. These low power radios only produced about .5 to 2.0 watts of output to the speaker so they don't really need much shielding, if any. They just aren't that sensitive.

Glad you got your Magnavox going. Not sure what model it is, but any rhythmic noise will mostly be related to lubrication. B12 Chemtool is not a lubricant at any level and will evaporate away, eventually. It's a solvent. So, it'll need to be lubricated with a light machine oil, at a minimum. Lightweight motor oil (5w-30) also works well. The trick is knowing where to apply the lubrication.

[Performa]

Welcome!

[Mackey]

Thanks for joining and your back story, Louigee!

[Louigee]

Thanks for the welcomes, Engineer, Performa and Mackey. I appreciate the information Engineer. Yeah, much later after I wrote the above, I thought, Chemtool is a solvent, so the lubricant suggestion is very helpful. And thanks for the added information on the Timex clock radio. Cheaply made for sure, which just means it ends up in the landfill too soon. Such a waste. I can still give it back to the thrift shop with the known problem added if someone (with younger eyes) is interested in it.

Magnavox is a RD3184 WH11. Will give the lubricant a try. We have some Supco Zoom on hand for my sewing machine. It's a synthetic, not a three-in-one. Will check if we have that weight of motor oil.
Thanks again! Regards, Lisa

Let's see if my picture comes out a more agreeable size...

[Guest]

Zoom turbine oil is ok to use. These motors need a lighter oil so it should be ok although I tend to think it's a bit TOO light as I believe these motors need an oil that won't run too much, but also not be too heavy so it doesn't cause the motor any undue strain to push against it.

Zoom oil viscosity (approx. ISO 8) is even below 0w motor oil, which is very light! That's why, in my experimentation, 5w-30 synthetic motor oil (approx. ISO 22) seemed to be right where these motors like it. Light enough to not inhibit the motor movement, but thick enough to stay put and lubricate.

But, in the end, any light oil is fine. Zoom is a high-quality oil. These aren't super-high-performance machines I just like stats and meaningful info. lol

[cyb3rbyte]

What a beautiful Magnavox! I use synthetic clock oil that's sold on amazon for all of my clocks after cleaning the motors. They all run quiet and happy with that stuff. But like engineer said, even 5W-30 synthetic oil is fine.

[Louigee]

Hi Engineer and cyb3rbyte, and again, thanks for the precious feedback. Engineer, you have experience with these devices to get them back into tip-top shape, so I appreciate your advice very much. Your added information is priceless. I haven't gotten around to doing the lube job yet, as gardening and felling a firewood tree has taken up me and my husband's time at the moment, but I'll use 5W30 oil. Thanks for the reply on the Mag, cyb3rbyte. Yeah, it's a pretty radio. I got it from ebay back in '07 for 20 bucks. It had a froze up motor and electrical tape wrapped around the electrical cord where the cord meets the unit. I liked it because it wasn't black. My old GE was all black and plain rectangular looking. This one has some style. Funny, when I looked at the back to find the model number I noticed it had a couple more things I didn't notice at first, like Tone: Hi and Low, Buzzer: radio or alarm, and a jack for earphone. Thank you both! Lisa

[Louigee]

Just wanted to let you all know that as of two days ago I was able to lubricate the motor with some 5W30 I found in the shed used for our Ford Ranger. At first the clock wouldn't advance, and then it did but was two minutes behind after resetting it. Unplugged it during the night due to the noise, then plugged it back up the next day and it was quite and the time was advancing. Now the time is correctly set, it's keeping time and isn't making that rhythmic noise anymore. Just hope it lasts. Thanks for again for all your help!

Regards, Lisa