Eppler 292

Description

Eppler was a german manufacturer, who managed with a single construction, a pillar movement with 10 1/2 ligne diameter, to be an important player on the german lower price market. Mainly in the 1960ies to the 1980ies, watches with the name “Anker 100” and “Ancre Goupilles” were omnipresent in Germany.

The final revision of the Eppler standard caliber is the base caliber 17, which was available in different versions, with the Eppler 292 described here as their top movement featuring a true pallet lever escapement, center second and date indication.

When you see the base plate, you immideatly recognise its pin lever origin, which was improved here with ruby bearings, shock protection and a pallet lever escapement.

The gear train is technically still on the level of the first Eppler constructions after WW II. It is a one-storey construction with a directly driven center minute wheel, followed by third wheel, seconds wheel (at 6 o’clock position) and escape wheel, which is here implemented as a filigrane steel escape wheel.

The flyingly beared center second hand is indirectly driven and to avoid flutter, a tiny spring applies a little bit of force to the center second axle.

It’s noteable, that the center second gear is actually made of plastics!

Since the Eppler 292 is a pillar construction, it builds very high and all gear axles are very long, too. Especially the long lever axle is pretty odd.

The anular balance is beared in two RUFA-Antishock protection bearings and beats slowly with 18000 A/h. The way, the height of the balance cock is adjusted is pretty funny: The third (and a little smaller) screw on the cock bends it and so adjusts the vertical clearance. For a balance wheel with conic axles, this is pretty useful, but not for a precision bearing of a shock protected pivot axle.

On the dial side, you can see the well executed ratchet at 10 o’clock. Its spring is also the spring for the rocking bar winding system.

The calendar mechanism, which is rare to find on Eppler movements, consists of a simple switch wheel with a punched out finger, which is simply put on top of the mainspring barrel bearing. It is driven by the double geared hour wheel. The partial covering of the switch wheel also contains the spring for securing the date disc position.

There’s no quickset possibility for the calendar of the Eppler 292, so the only way to correct it is to turn the hands 24 hours back or forth for each day to be corrected. The drawback is, that when you do this too often, you will ruin the friction of the cannon pinion.

Technical data

Usage gallery