Nickel Silver Pulsar P1!

[J Thomas]

[abem]

J Thomas,

I'm more and more inclined to agree with you. There was a lot of initial curiosity about the module on the chance in a million that it might be functional. Part of that was also motivated by the fact that the watch was not as pretty as one might hope when I received it. Over the past few days, however, it has improved considerably to the point where I'm actually quite happy with it as is. Most of that is due to just basic cleaning and wiping away the grime. This is going to sound extra super flaky, but it has been my impression in the past that Pulsars seem to "like" being gently handled verses being put on a shelf. A little careful handling seems to help to get rid of a microscopic surface oxidation layer that seems to dull the appearance. Have you noticed this as well?

In any case, it's looking rather sparkly these days and I'm inclined to leave it as a piece of eye candy. I also kind of like the idea of keeping the mystery of the module intact. Who knows - maybe it works, maybe not. Do I really want to know that it's dead? Maybe not.

Thanks for your insights.

-abe.

[retroleds]

Abe: I'm with those who suggest you leave it be. For the finish - after rubbing good with a rag(a little jeweler's rouge(red) would do wonders, rub on any kind of floor or wood wax that contains some carnuba wax, let it dry and rag rub to a shine - it won't dull for years unless handled by the sweatiest of hands. I learned the carnuba trick in a stained glass class - rub the bare lead or copper patina'd lead and it holds it's shine for ages. Works great for brassy base metal cases too(I use Trewax brand "buffable carnuba wax", made for linoleum floors).

[bucko170]

The "new" standard for P1 electronics was the large-board, single-chip module most often seen in the early P2s. The distinguishing feature is the light sensor being located horizontally diredtly below and on the right end of the LED display. Except for the chip and the display, the layout of these boards is totally different from the later P2 modules [where the sensor is vertical and directly to the right of the display; the circuit board itself is also much smaller, due to the tighter layout of components]. A few straggler P1s left Lancaster with the later [second version] electronics.

How rare are the early P2 'single chip' modules? I'm curious as I have a (non-working) P2 with the light sensor situated horizontally below the display.

[bruce wegmann]

I wouldn't even call them rare...maybe "less common". Of my 43 P2s, 18 have the earlier, one trimmer board with the horizontal light sensor. I think that's a reasonably good statistical sampling, with a preponderance [15 to 3] occurring in stainless cases [I have NO explanation for that ]. The one downside to these...because the single trimmer has a more limited range of adjustment, the majority of these tend to run "out of spec", that is, gaining or losing more than the guaranteed 5sec/month tolerance. Since the vast majority of P1s use this circuit board, and there is no easy way to get to the trimmer, most of them don't keep particularly good time now, either. Of the 5 P1s I've opened up, three required new quartz crystals to get them back to original accuracy, the other two were able to be trimmed back...the worst one was running 71 seconds a month slow, the best, 8 seconds a month fast. A few P1s have the later, smaller, board with the vertical sensor, either late returns [by which time the later board was available], or perhaps even originally issued with the second-generation electronics. If only Mr. Wuischpard was still with us, and we could ask the man who surely knew more about the P1 than anyone else on Earth...! His passing was a great loss to every present and future Pulsar collector...

[retroleds]

I came up with fairly different ratio of those vertical sensor P2 modules. I just looked through 116 dead P2 modules(yes I am hoping to do a SASM type project one day) and only found 4 of those. Rest were vertical.

Seemingly, those early horizontal sensor ones died early and were replaced or they are really good and rarely go bad. Who knows. I notice that all of the horizontals sensor ones have the circuit board covered with the sealant; whereas many of the later vertical do not. Maybe it really is a matter of the horizontal sensor one's statistically not dying as often, which is why a repair guy like me does not have many of them in the corpse bin. I am assuming that Bruce wouldn't keep too many dead ones lying around.