| Telechron Clock Motors [message #92639] |
Thu, 19 November 2020 09:50  |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18783
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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I want to give a quick callout for Dave Friedlund of TelechronClock.com. If you have a clock/radio that needs clock repair - if the clock runs slow or not at all - check to see if it has a Telechron motor in it. And if it does, send it to Dave and he'll fix you right up.
Brief back story:
I have a Montgomery Ward clock radio that has worked perfectly for many years, but the clock stopped working recently. It actually worked fine when I bought it over ten years ago. But I replaced the capacitors and rewired it 'cause the insulation was brittle and cracking. Never had to work on the clock.
It started getting pretty noisy about a year ago and eventually the clock stopped working. So I looked at the movement and found the mechanism was in good shape. I cleaned the gears with brake cleaner and put some clock oil on its little bushings. No joy. So I pulled he motor out and installed it backwards. This way the motor would have no load and I could see the output shaft. It didn't spin, but if I lightly tapped it, it would spin for a little while and then stop.
The motor had several identifiers stamped on it, but the one I thought was its part number was "H3HNK." So I did a search for that on the internet. As I sat down to the computer to try a search, I wasn't really optimistic about finding it. It seemed likely to me that this was old and forgotten technology.
Much to my surprise, I found a handful of eBay listings, so I bought one. Some guy had listed a motor he said was refurbished and offered with a 5 year warranty so I pulled the trigger on that one.
A little more searching brought me to the TelechronClock.com site I mentioned above. That site was a wealth of information, including instructions how to interpret date codes and how to identify different versions of the motor. It also described the technical details and history of the technology of these little motors.
It's very interesting stuff, and rather than re-state the information here, I encourage you to pop over to Dave's website and read about it there.
After reading a little more about Dave's site and service, I decided it might be wise for me to send the existing H3HNK motor I had to Dave and ask him to refurbish it. It's not like they're making any more of them. So I wrote to him and asked him about it, and he told me to send it on over. And I did.
The first eBay motor arrived, and I installed it. It worked perfectly. Ironically, that "eBay guy" I blindly purchased from - the one that advertised the 5 year warranty - was Dave. So I now have two refurbished H-3 motors from him. One in the clock and one for a spare.
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| Re: Telechron Clock Motors [message #92664 is a reply to message #92656] |
Mon, 23 November 2020 09:04  |
Rusty
Messages: 1185
Registered: May 2018
Location: Kansas City Missouri
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Illuminati (3rd Degree) |
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I'm happily enlightened knowing such an obscure and arcane service is available to people. That someone invests their time and effort providing with integrity. Nice to know something like this still exists to keep things going still from a time when things were fixable and made durable. Like the old fix it shops that used to proliferate. That's a definite link keeper. And I don't even have an old clock like that.
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