Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

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hoppyjr
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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by hoppyjr » Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:25 pm

When Unimatic first launched I loved the design of the original model. I reached out via email with some basic questions, but only got generic “canned” answers. When I pressed for specifics on a couple things I was brushed off.

I found that enough to keep from giving them my business. Now I’m glad I did.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by logan2z » Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:53 pm

tattoo chef wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:23 pm
Apparently someone emailed Unimatic and sent them the link and their response was “haters gonna hate”
That doesn't sound very Italian :rolleyes:

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by tattoo chef » Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:57 pm

hoppyjr wrote:When Unimatic first launched I loved the design of the original model. I reached out via email with some basic questions, but only got generic “canned” answers. When I pressed for specifics on a couple things I was brushed off.

I found that enough to keep from giving them my business. Now I’m glad I did.
That’s interesting. I say that because one of the benefits to microbrands is that you can usually get great communication from the owner etc and it’s surprising that as a potential customer they brushed you off.


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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by gwells » Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:14 pm

just makes me appreciate jason and halios more. he's obviously had some issues with the seaforth popularity, but he still communicates, accepts the blame when things go wrong, and treats people with respect. seems like we keep seeing more and more of the micro owners essentially lashing out.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by 93 Turbo » Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:54 am

logan2z wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:53 pm
tattoo chef wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:23 pm
Apparently someone emailed Unimatic and sent them the link and their response was “haters gonna hate”
That doesn't sound very Italian :rolleyes:
Right about now their watches have become hot potatoes...
Strength is = 2 or > than "tipping over a so- called smart car plastered in “Coexist” bumper stickers".

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Ryeguy » Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:31 am

logan2z wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 7:53 pm
tattoo chef wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:23 pm
Apparently someone emailed Unimatic and sent them the link and their response was “haters gonna hate”
That doesn't sound very Italian :rolleyes:
"Odiatori che vanno a odiare" - sounds much better!

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by toxicavenger » Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:02 pm

mfxr wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 6:40 pm
I hope people benefit from knowing what is going on inside here, but also I think torches and pitchforks aimed at Unimatic is a bit much. If it was a big expensive Swiss brand, then hell yes they should get flamed, but in the context of a cheap micro not so much (IMHO)

For me, I flexed the plastic bridges up a bit and reattached the caseback. This has improved the moving around, probably back to the level it was before (when I didn't notice it) Obviously I notice any movement now (ignorance is bliss I guess)

u1b.jpg
Matt thanks for the update. Glad you got it sorted. :salute:
deepcdvr wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:55 am
In my line of work, where we deal with weapons, demolition, navigation systems, etc, there is zero tolerance (pardon the pun) for substandard parts or shoddy work. A considerable percentage of the cost of military gear is the requirement for government (ie independent) inspection and testing of vendor supplied equipment during the acquisition phase before the government fields said equipment. The process requires rigorous testing in various environments before we send a lot of taxpayer dollars to a vendor. (I know, there have been spectacular mistakes made in the past - just explaining how it’s supposed to work).

In this case - again, pardon the pun - the watch company designs, manufactures, inspects, tests and sells the public a product. We, the consumers, have to trust that the vendor is 100% above board in performing the QA before taking our money. I understand what Terry is saying about this maybe not being such a big deal, but watching how they react to this isssue would tell me a lot about wether they are a company to deal with or not..
Paul I totally get where you are coming from. But I was just a comms guy in the military. And most of my equipment was bottom of the barrel shit. To the point that they took all of our plates from our armored vest because they were recalled. At that time we were still doing red zone missions without any plates because they returned them :banghead: . We constantly had shitty equipment to the point that a bunch of us bought our own stuff.

So for me that process is not the same at all.

I don't think Unimatic will say anything. Because I really don't they see there is a problem. And honestly neither do I. All I see is a case that has a notch on the inside for another movement to work in it. The manufacture of that watch makes a thousand watches a month, they would definitely know what works or what wouldn't work.

I know as a armchair watchmaker we would all like to see a better designer for the movement holder. I definitely would. But if brands relied on us to tell them what is correct or not correct then they would never put out a product.

If anything I would love to hear Jake's reasoning for the video. For some reason I don't see the angle. :shrug:

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by toxicavenger » Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:34 pm

matt.wu wrote:
Sun Oct 14, 2018 6:20 pm
tattoo chef wrote:So, I saw this post on Facebook while scrolling through today. Jake actually posted it and has it as a sponsored Facebook post.

Apparently someone emailed Unimatic and sent them the link and their response was “haters gonna hate”



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Loll

Took a page out of Orion's book.
:roll: :roll: :roll:

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Jcp311 » Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:12 pm

Wow....What a thread. I've got three U1's and to my knowledge they all have the plastic spacer ring. I've also known this for a while and didn't think it was scandalous. On occasion not too long ago I opened up my U1-D out of curiosity and noticed the plastic ring. I thought it was cheap, but then I remembered it wasn't a hugely expensive watch. That said this video was more enlightening to the issue.

I don't think it devalues the watch if it doesn't create an issue. I actually did have the dial play issue on my first gen U1, but unimatic paid for shipping both ways to fix it. Not sure what they did as I haven't opened the case to check, but my hunch is that they just put another plastic spacer ring in there that didn't allow the dial to move.
Way too many watches

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by justsellbrgs » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:10 am

freakin sherpas at it again...
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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by stonehead887 » Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:37 am

Wow, just got through this thread, mainly because I am interested in buying the U2, advertised as fitted with Seiko NH35 movement. I know this discussion is centred around the U1 but it's also brand and product confidence.
Once I had got through the sometimes slightly heated and off topic debate, has any on the Unimatic owners had any kind of feedback from the company! Has any one gone back to them with their concerns? Apart from 1 mention of the brand taking down an IG, has anybody heard anything from them!

I ask as this will go towards brand confidence? Some will view it as a one of embarrassing mistake, other will happily trash the whole company but for me, making a mistake is one thing, how you respond is something entirely different and depending one whether there is any company feedback anyone can give, will go towards my decision as to whether they gain a new customer. I will likely email them too and see how it goes.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by toxicavenger » Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:18 pm

stonehead887 wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:37 am
Wow, just got through this thread, mainly because I am interested in buying the U2, advertised as fitted with Seiko NH35 movement. I know this discussion is centred around the U1 but it's also brand and product confidence.
Once I had got through the sometimes slightly heated and off topic debate, has any on the Unimatic owners had any kind of feedback from the company! Has any one gone back to them with their concerns? Apart from 1 mention of the brand taking down an IG, has anybody heard anything from them!

I ask as this will go towards brand confidence? Some will view it as a one of embarrassing mistake, other will happily trash the whole company but for me, making a mistake is one thing, how you respond is something entirely different and depending one whether there is any company feedback anyone can give, will go towards my decision as to whether they gain a new customer. I will likely email them too and see how it goes.

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This is what I heard from Unimatic:
Unimatic Watches <info@unimaticwatches.com>
Thu, Oct 25, 9:45 AM (6 days ago)
to me

Hi Terry,

Sorry for the late reply, our office is hectic at the moment and thank you for the heads up!
We are really disappointed to see Dagaz put up such a misleading video content and aimed to simply show what he intended to show.
We will investigate this matter and thanks again for letting us know. :)

Thank you

Best,
Katherine

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Ryeguy » Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:33 pm

I'm actually really curious as to what Unimatic discovers in their investigation and what they are willing to disclose to the public.

While I have no personal Dagaz experience to go by, I don't think Jake was dishonest in his video. That said, I do think it is odd that a watch brand owner would make a video disparaging another watch brand's product. It is almost like he is calling out Unimatic to take apart and find fault with one of his watches.

I really don't think there is much mystery to this Unimatic scenario. I'm betting Unimatic originally designed the cases for the Miyota 9015 movement and something went wrong with their intended supplier. When the supply fell through, Unimatic had to jump to the NH35.

The use of two spacers is obviously a sub-optimal design, but they probably couldn't afford to scrap all those cases, so they did what they did to save the production run.

Personally, I would have preferred to see Unimatic machine a more robust movement spacer ring out of metal or Derlin. I think this would have been more secure than the provided ring, but I also realize they were likely highly budget constrained - potentially more than normal assuming my hypothesis about the last minute movement swap is accurate.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Selym » Wed Oct 31, 2018 2:56 pm

Ryeguy wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 12:33 pm
Personally, I would have preferred to see Unimatic machine a more robust movement spacer ring out of metal or Derlin. I think this would have been more secure than the provided ring, but I also realize they were likely highly budget constrained - potentially more than normal assuming my hypothesis about the last minute movement swap is accurate.
Agreed. I like Vostok's design. They use a spacer that is fastened to the mid-case with two screws, and has two screws whose heads snug against Seiko's integrated spacer.

Image

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Wald12 » Sun Mar 24, 2019 7:15 pm

stonehead887 wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:37 am
Wow, just got through this thread, mainly because I am interested in buying the U2, advertised as fitted with Seiko NH35 movement. I know this discussion is centred around the U1 but it's also brand and product confidence.
Once I had got through the sometimes slightly heated and off topic debate, has any on the Unimatic owners had any kind of feedback from the company! Has any one gone back to them with their concerns? Apart from 1 mention of the brand taking down an IG, has anybody heard anything from them!

I ask as this will go towards brand confidence? Some will view it as a one of embarrassing mistake, other will happily trash the whole company but for me, making a mistake is one thing, how you respond is something entirely different and depending one whether there is any company feedback anyone can give, will go towards my decision as to whether they gain a new customer. I will likely email them too and see how it goes.

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Hi - so did you ever get a reply back from Unimatic?
I was also looking at getting one, but my research has ended up here...
If only they could have sourced the Miyota and everyone would be happy.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by hoppyjr » Sun Mar 24, 2019 8:22 pm

I had inquired about origin and materials back when they first launched. They kept telling me it was “Made in Italy” but refused to disclose more. I explained that I was aware of Made in China components and didn’t have a problem with it at this price point, but I was curious. Unimatic kept providing partial answers and I eventually lost interest. It’s too bad because I was a fan of their Diver designs, but it always seemed to me they were not being forthcoming.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Wald12 » Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:56 pm

Yes agree, its a real shame coz I have been looking for something just like this. As someone said, its how they respond to an issue like this that tells you alot.
And if "haters gonna hate" is the best that they can come up with - on a public forum to existing and prospective clients - they will soon go out of biz.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by Wald12 » Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:00 pm

toxicavenger wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:08 am
Selym wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:59 am
toxicavenger wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:57 am
Matt,

All movements have play once the spacer is removed. The spacer is there to make the movement fit the case snugly. Is this what it does when installed? There is a lot of companies who use a movement spacer to fit the watch.
The Seiko movement has an integrated spacer. It's meant to fit snugly in the case as-is, not with another spacer surrounding it.

This is a hot mess.
Maybe you are right. I don't know. But I do know a movement holder is common place. And as low down on the movement the Seiko spacer is in that picture I see no way in hell on how it would keep a movement secure in a case unless it had movement holder screws.
BacoNoir wrote:
Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:00 am
True Terry, but the dial shouldn't move with the crown out (in the video and per Matt's post too) and the spacer shouldn't deform to stop the rotor.
Roger, I have seen a lot of watch dials move slightly when operating the crown. We just had a PO 2500 come through that did that.

I agree about the spacer deforming. Maybe it is squished in assembly? If the movement holder is made for the movement and inserted correctly then with the notches for then there will be no issue. If you look at Matt's pictures it looks like the holder is made for that movement and it does fit into it correctly. :think:

Did you say you had a PO 2500 do that? is this surprising for an Omega?

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by DoctorC » Mon Mar 25, 2019 8:21 am

Wald12 wrote:
Sun Mar 24, 2019 7:15 pm
stonehead887 wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:37 am
Wow, just got through this thread, mainly because I am interested in buying the U2, advertised as fitted with Seiko NH35 movement. I know this discussion is centred around the U1 but it's also brand and product confidence.
Once I had got through the sometimes slightly heated and off topic debate, has any on the Unimatic owners had any kind of feedback from the company! Has any one gone back to them with their concerns? Apart from 1 mention of the brand taking down an IG, has anybody heard anything from them!

I ask as this will go towards brand confidence? Some will view it as a one of embarrassing mistake, other will happily trash the whole company but for me, making a mistake is one thing, how you respond is something entirely different and depending one whether there is any company feedback anyone can give, will go towards my decision as to whether they gain a new customer. I will likely email them too and see how it goes.

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Hi - so did you ever get a reply back from Unimatic?
I was also looking at getting one, but my research has ended up here...
If only they could have sourced the Miyota and everyone would be happy.
Welcome to forum!
Feel free to post up an introduction post and let us know a little about you.
Greg

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by mfxr » Mon Dec 09, 2019 3:52 pm

It seems that Unimatic has made some adjustments in their manufacturing now:
I wonder if the midcase has been altered or just a new metal movement holder?


..."
Moreover, the new Modello Uno references take advantage of an improved internal case construction, specifically designed in order to fit the automatic movement into a solid metal holder, in order to increase performance and durability.

"...


I just sent them a message asking if the new metal holder is something that could be retrofitted into the older models like mine.
We'll see what they say.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by hoppyjr » Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:23 pm


I noticed that article today too. Metal movement holder sounds good and I still like the designs, big don’t really need another watch.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by toxicavenger » Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:32 pm

great move.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by mfxr » Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:02 am

Reply from Unimatic:

"Unfortunately we are not able to retrofit the metal holder to the older models"

I followed up and asked if I could just buy the part, but they basically just repeated the statement above.

I would love to see the inside of the new ones, but no way am I buying one myself.

thumbs down :snooty:

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by hoppyjr » Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:48 am

I received similar replies from them when I asked questions. They don’t seem to care about customer satisfaction.

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Re: Wrong Movements Installed in Unimatic U1?

Post by unixshrk » Thu Dec 19, 2019 7:24 am

I’ve always had great interaction with them. Massive shipping error and they bent over backwards to help and shipped another one.

This arrived last night.

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