baileylake Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 Where do I attach the power for the clock in my P15 business coupe? The clock was not installed when I bought the car. I do not know if it should have constant power or to be hooked up at ignition "on". I sent it to Clock Works for a rebuild and would hate to fry it right away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution harmony Posted February 4, 2023 Solution Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 1 hour ago, baileylake said: Where do I attach the power for the clock in my P15 business coupe? The clock was not installed when I bought the car. I do not know if it should have constant power or to be hooked up at ignition "on". I sent it to Clock Works for a rebuild and would hate to fry it right away. You can wire it either way. Originally it would be wired to constant power, so that the clock would keep accurate time. ( in theory) It requires a 3A - 5A fuse. I installed a switch on mine so I have power going to it when I want to show off that my clock works, like at a car show or if I'm taking a friend for a ride. Unless you drive the car almost daily, or you keep the battery on a trickle charge, the clock will stop working after awhile. It won't be the fault of the guys that rebuilt it. It's an inherent issue. The clock requires current going to it to fire off the points in the clock every minute or 2 ( it can vary). That charge resets the wheels in motion resetting the spring. Once the spring runs down the points close, which creates a burst of energy that opens the points and starts the whole process over again. If you put your ear to the clock you can hear a click each time that happens. So the problem is, if the battery gets even a little bit low, that spark that the points require is now a little less. The result being, there won't be enough umph to open the points. At first they will try and make multiple small sparks trying to open, but there just isn't enough to open them, so at that point, the points will weld themselves together and blow the fuse. So since your points are probably, or at least hopefully new on your clock, with a nice smooth points surface, and you have a fully charged battery( all the time), a 3A fuse might do the job. However, it might not be enough and you might have to go to a 5A fuse. When I rebuilt my clock, I was using the original points, cleaned up as best as possible, and when I was doing a bench test, I was trying to extend the "points open" time as much as possible by adjusting the mechanism. Doing that fine tuning took a lot of patience. I blew a few 3A fuses so I decided to go with a 5A fuse and it works fine. So if you want your clock to be in good working order, you're better off installing a switch or wiring it to the on side of the ignition switch. Either way, you will have to always manually reset the time on your clock. So rather than doing that every time I fired up the car ( a little annoying after awhile) I decided to chose the time that I wanted the clock to be operational using a switch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baileylake Posted February 4, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 Makes sense to me. I will be going with the switch since the car is not a daily driver. Thank you for the fast reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harmony Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 1 minute ago, baileylake said: Makes sense to me. I will be going with the switch since the car is not a daily driver. Thank you for the fast reply. You're welcome. Plus with the switch method, you'll know that the points will always be in good condition. However due to the nature of the clock being electro/mechanical, once the power is shut off, the mechanical side of the clock will wind itself down so that the points are closed. Over period of time, in theory, those points could become marginally corroded, like if the car is in a damp location, Unfortunately unlike the ignition points, where you can run a piece of cardboard through them to clean them up, the clock points are a real hassle to get at. So sometimes if I haven't used the clock in awhile, I'll just turn it on to help keep the points in good shape and clean as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plymouthy Adams Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 the constant running the clock forward with the set knob will cause to clock to beat faster and cause it to run fast....setting it backward will slow it down......however if you run sporadically and adjust it forward one time and backward another...you may keep it balanced out.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sniper Posted February 5, 2023 Report Share Posted February 5, 2023 Here's something to consider https://www.clocksandgauges.com/quartz-conversion.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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