ETA 2842

Description

After the ETA 2840 and the ETA 2841, the ETA 2842 is the third iteration of the reduced ETA 2824-2, exclusively made for Swatch wristwatches.

What exactly the differences are between these three “Swatch” movements, is unknown, especially since the ETA 2842 featured here uses neither a plastic escapement nor a date indication.

The base plate of this 11 1/2 ligne movements shows its high quality. All bearings, except for the center seconds pinion, contain rubies.

Since some other bearings don’t contain rubies, it uses “only” 23 jewels, and not 25, like the [ETA 2824-2].

We have the standard ETA gear train here, with mainspring barrel, second wheel, third wheel (which drives the hands on the dial side), center seconds wheel and escape wheel.

The latter ones uses fewer teeth, since the beating frequency was reduced.

The ETA 2842 does not offer a hacking function, altough it is already prepared (upper pin next to the winding stem).

Of course, a swiss pallet lever escapement is used, and as balance, the standard monometallic three-leg anular balance.

It beats with only 21600 A/h and can only be regulated directly at the hairspring key, which is inconvenient, since the hairspring key is located below the selfwinding module.

The ETA 2842 uses no Incabloc shock protection, but the slightly cheaper Novodiac shock protection, which was later rebranded to Etachoc.

The upper bearing of the second wheel is not a bearing ruby, but a white plastic bearing (at position 5 o’clock).

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This is not the only odd plastic bearing, on the selfwinding module, there are three further plastic bearings on its lower side. Their durability during decades will probably never be tested, since the plastic cases of the Swatch automatics often break on the lugs after several years, just like on the specimen shown here.

If you wind the movement by hand, the pawl changers turn with enormous speed, abd so does the oscillating weight, because the decoupling does not fully work. Because of this, you should wind it manually only, if it really neccessary.

The pretty simple oscillating weight of the ETA 2842 is already ball-beared!

On the yet empty dial side, you see at position 8 o’clock near the center the gears of the third wheel, which later drive the hand works.

Additionally, the color of the yoke keyless works is notable, since a golden tone is pretty unusual here.

The pinion of the thrid wheel drives the center minute wheel, on which the cannon pinion is attached with a slipping clutch. The cannon pinion carries the minute hand and drives the changer wheel for the hour wheel.

On the ETA 2842, the gears of the display works are covered to allow the use of e.g. transparent dials or even no dials.

It’s noteable, that on the left of this picture, you can see the preparations for a date indication. Probably, other versions of this movement might have a date indication.

In the lab

Timegrapher result

Absolutely impressive, what a fantastic result this movement shows on the timegrapher. And even when it’s just a momentary consideration and probably won’t be stable over a long time, it shows, how good even the simplest ETA movements are!