Post by dAzthis particular movement, no idea, as Frank said, the chinese are
adverse to marking the movements with any brand or model numbers, I have
had a few varieties of chinese movements on the bench lately, mostly
clones of eta 2924/2836/2892, Valjoux 7750, and Unitas 6497/98.
the ETA 2824/36/92 clones are quite nice, not totally compatible to the
swiss versions, the train wheels look like an earlier version of the
swiss, they still use epicycloid gearing in the barrel and first wheels
where the swiss are using involute, but hands, dial and winding stems
are interchangable.
the Val7750 auto chronograph is a nice effort, still has some problems
in the clutch drive for the hands as in slipping too much.
the Unitas 6497 and 6498 are nice solid movements.
overall the quality is more or less consistent with these movements,
they are improving, lubricating the movements could better, some seem to
have enough oil, others are dry, out of a box of 50 2824s 6 of the
movements had spinning auto rotors when you hand wind the watch, this is
lack of oil on the reversing wheels, 4 had hand setting problems as in
the clutch wheel would slip out or the something would jam, so 40 good
movements out of 50, a 20% failure rate seems about right,
just to point out many years ago I worked for a firm that would assemble
watches for the local market, assemble a couple of hundred movements
into cases in a run, failure rate for the swiss made movements, well
there wasn't any.
other minor things like the screws, the chinese don't seem to have the
hardening and tempering of the metals quite right yet, the screws are so
hard that out of 10 movements I will break 6 screws heads off just by my
normal torque, fortunately I have a box of Swiss screws that don't break
so easily to replace then with.
the finish on the pivots and the amount of sideshake (read as sloppy) is
noticeable in comparison to the swiss movements.
all that aside these chinese movements do come out as quite good
timekeepers, most of the movements leave a nice clean trace on the
timing machine and with little variation between positions, what I am
not sure about is the temperature compensation in the materials used in
the balance and hairsprings, how good that is compared to a stock swiss
movement I don't know.
costs wise, an eta 2824 is about $140+, ETA2892A2 is $220+, Val7750
about the $400+ range, the Unitas 6497/98 $140 and up
the chinese versions are about $40-$45, $10 more for the 2892, well
under $100 for the 7750 and Ut6497 $45.
at least these movements are more or less clones so some parts will swap
from the swiss version like the winding stems
on other chinese movements parts are hard to get, the chinese are at the
moment will supply you a complete movement, but parts for those
movements not so much, so for that unusual automatic don't hold your
breath for parts, probably pay you to buy two and keep one for spares.