NAWCC or AWCI, classes?

[watchdogg]

The videos I have gotten from Bob has really jump started my passion for learning. Now that I am in the business I want to know more. The only problem is my money is short.
I’m looking at a quartz class at NAWCC for 4 days and $500 , or the AWCI class for 5 days at a little over $1000 (seems to cover more) .
I guess my question is, has anyone ever taken a class from eighter one and could you tell me if one is any better then the other,OR does anyone have any other ideals where I could get this education?
Thankd you, Phil (watchdogg)

[david pierce]

Watchdog,
H.B. Fried wrote a book on this subject and I bought a copy off of Ebay. It was a lot less expensive than the price you were quoted for the course. The Bulova Accuratron watches can be repaired if you have special Accuratron tools and parts. Quartz movements are so inexpensive there would be no point in repairing them anyway.
david

[arutha]

As David states, in most cases you just put another quartz movement in but I know some of these watches are almost a cross between quartz and mechanical. I would seriously consider a book if you dont already have one before paying so much money for a course. Some of the early quartz watches are becoming quite collectable and I think in the future there could be some profit to be made from learning about them. I imagine the course would teach how to test for faulty components and how to replace them including the quartz crystals themselves. I dont honestly know how much work there is currently for quartz watch repair, it could be worth investigating!
Paul.

[watchdogg]

Thank you Paul and David.
I work as a bench jeweler in a jewelry store 3 days a week and a watch repair shop 3 days a week. I’ve been offered the oppertunity to make a little extra if I’m good with both quartz and the automatic wrist watches. But my money is so tight I’m stressing as to where to go for this education . I tend to do better after I read the book then have someone show me in front of me hands on..
Gosh ..
Anyway, the dilemma goes on
Watchdogg

[david pierce]

Watchdog,
A few years ago I purchased a watch repair course called WATCH REPAIR IN A BOX that covered the repair of battery and capacitor powered watches. I do not know if the course is still available or not but when I bought it the cost was around $10.00. The course was put together by a working watch repair techhician and did a good job showing how to repair electronic watches. Understanding how these devices work requires a knowledge of basic electronics, switching circuits, flip flops, bit level software development, and shift registers and is beyond the academic realm of watch repair. Repairing them however does not require a knowledge of how they work. First of all, if you take an oscilloscope and trace the timing signal from the crystal down through the circuitry and find out where it stops, so what. There is nothing you can do to fix it and will have to replace the entire movement anyway. So the repair process boils down to this: 1). Check the power source by replacing with a battery or capacitor known to be good. 2). If it still does not run, replace the entire movement. There may be a rare occasion when a high end Seiko comes in and it might be worth while to replace the crystal but most of the common movements are so inexpensive it is cost prohibitive to do this. There are only a small number of companies that manufacture these movements: ELEMEX, ETA, FE (French Ebauche), HARLEY RONDA, HATTORI, and ISA. Check out some of the suppliers to get a feel for the cost of these movements: Jules Borel, Esslinger, Cas-Ker, Frei and Borel. Get some old movements that do not work and practice putting new movements into the cases. If the watches were sent to a factory service center for repair that is all they would do.
david

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