Setting Up Your Jaeger LeCoultre Atmos Clock

Hello everyone. This is a little bit of an informal video about Atmos clocks today. It's a little bit of a generic video. It's going to be on how to properly set it up. So bear with me here as I'm going to do this all with a handheld camera, so I will not have use of both hands. But at any rate, so you got your clock where you want to set it. Okay. As you see here, I have mine set up here. This is one of my personal ones here. So anyway, what we want to do is we want to make sure that your clock is level. Now, most of these clocks have a bubble level located right here at the front of the clock on the bottom of the case. Now, you'll notice that this one's a little askew. Okay. So it's showing that it's not level. What we're going to do is we're going to take off the front door here. Now, some of these have a fully removable top with two pins on either side. Others, like the one you see behind, actually have a door in the front that swings open. More on that one later. So with this one, push down, pull out. I always try to be careful not to touch the glass, keep fingerprints off, and then gently set your front somewhere safe. So now we have access to the inside. You'll notice on the bottom, you've got two adjustment platform nuts right here. Okay. These are actually bolts that go all the way through the bottom of the case, and they have little pads on the bottom so that you can adjust the height. Now, you'll notice the space here and here are slightly different, and that reflects in here. Okay. What we want to do is we want to adjust these so that this indicates level. This is showing that it's leaning ever so slightly backwards. Okay. So what we want to do is we want to drop the front. To do that, we actually raise these guys. So what we're going to do is we're going to reach in here. Let me switch hands here. Undo this, and while I'm doing that, you'll notice that the front is dropping a little bit. Now let's check our level. Okay. So we're a little off still, so we'll go ahead and do this side. You want to try to do this carefully, but once you get it set the first time, you should be pretty much, you know, you should never have to really adjust this. Okay. So now this one's all the way down, or all the way up, rather. So the front is now actually touching the surface of my bench here. And where's our level? Okay. Let's go ahead and adjust this one now. You can watch the level as I do this. Okay. This is now all the way loose. What are we showing on the level? It's pretty darn close. Okay. But it is showing that it's leaning to the back corner a little bit. So sometimes what you actually have to do is take a piece of, you know, cardstock or some kind of something, and you'll rest it against the bottom back foot. There's only one back foot on these. Let me show you that real quick. Okay. So here's the bottom of the clock. Now these are those feet I was talking about. These are the front ones right here. Right under this spot here is your level. And then there's this back foot. So what you can do is just place a little something underneath of this. It doesn't need to be anything substantial necessarily, but something that will raise this a little bit so that we can lower the front of the clock to get the level where it needs to be. Okay. So you'll see here I have two business cards. So the approximate thickness there, okay, should be about all we need in this instance. Okay. So now the clock is sitting with the back foot. You can see that little indent right there. That's where the back foot is. And I have the cards right under that. Now let's look at our level. Okay. That's looking pretty close. So now it's actually showing that the front is too far down. So this is good. We have lots of room to maneuver this. So we'll adjust this up. Okay. We're getting close. Okay. So right there is pretty much perfect. Okay. So now that we've got the clock leveled, at least according to this, now we can get to where we can set the time and then unlock the pendulum. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to set the time. So according to my watch here, it is 623. Okay. So I want to go ahead and set this ahead. So always rotate these hands forward. Don't ever turn them backwards. It can actually cause damage. It's also a good idea, I'm sure you've noticed me using these gloves, and that's to help keep fingerprints from getting on the shinier surfaces of your clock, which actually preserves it over time because your oils can actually eat away at the finish and cause unsightly little blemishes on your clock. All right. So I set it to 625 because we're not quite there yet. It's always the best thing to set your clock ahead to the time that you want it to be at when you actually unlock the pendulum. Now, before we get to that, there's one major thing to make note of, and that is the position of the pendulum in relation to the fork. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you here the roller, which is that silver cylinder that's engaging in the fork. Right now it's in the center, so it's at the rest position, okay? What we want to do is get this in a position to where when we unlock the pendulum, it'll actually start the pendulum rotating and the clock running. So what we're going to have to do, and I'm already past that point, so I'm going to have to reset the time again, but that's okay, is I'm actually going to carefully unlock the pendulum, and then you'll notice when I'm doing this that when I get to a certain point, you'll notice the pendulum starts to wiggle a little bit, kind of move, even rotate a little bit whenever I move this, when I move the lock handle. Now, this can cause a problem, which I'll demonstrate here in a minute, but for this portion, I'm just going to very slowly unlock the pendulum, okay? Now it's at the rest position. You'll notice if I just touch it, see? It's loose in there. Now, some people will tell you that you can just take this lever and just flip it across all the way in one fluid motion, and that's good enough to unlock your pendulum. However, if we get in here, and if all of a sudden when you do that, it turns the pendulum, it'll actually impact the fork, and what that can do is either cause damage to the fork by bending it closed a little bit, or it'll actually cause damage to this spring and will throw your clock out of beat. Now, what we want to do is we want to rotate the pendulum 270 degrees one direction or the other from center point. So, basically, if the fork is, say, to the right, okay, we want the roller to be on the left side of the case, so we have to rotate through that and then back around. So, what I'm actually going to do is do the opposite way. So, I'm going to rotate this this direction, and then I'll put this in here so you can kind of see, and I've just got it kind of free-spinning around here, and then get right about to where it's facing almost directly to the side. Now, this isn't super important, but it's a good rule of thumb and practice for getting your clock off and running. So, I'm still gently holding the actual pendulum disc, and now when I get it set to the right time, which I will do here right now, okay, so now I've got this set, and I'm a stickler, and I like to get it to where the hand is right in the center of wherever the indice is. Each one of these, you know, basically has a center point, and I like to line them up, because every time this hand moves, it goes a 30-second interval each time, okay. So, what I'm going to do is, because I'm a super stickler for my clocks being right on time when I look at it, is I'm going to start it again with the roller facing the opposite side of where the fork is. I'm going to check my watch again. Now, I've got about a minute or two here, so we'll be back in just a minute. Okay, so we're just approaching the actual 630 mark, which is where I have the hand set on here. Now, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to unlock the pendulum, and then I'm going to just hold on to it, just to keep it from rotating. And then, okay, so we're at 630. So, what I usually do is, I count about 13-14 seconds. So, there's 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and on 14, I'll release the pendulum. Now, we'll watch, and then we'll watch the hand, and click. So, now, my watch is at 30 seconds past, and now so is my clock. Now, the clock should be running, and it should keep going. All that's left to do now, is now that it's set to the correct time, is to replace the front. However, before we do that, we already know that this shows level, but let me show you something. Through the side, down near the bottom, you see that collet? So, that's attached to the pendulum tube that goes all the way up to the top. Now, it's not quite centered in that hole, which means, in actuality, this clock is not perfectly level. Now, is this clock level enough to run properly? Yes. However, in the case of the clock that is sitting behind it, this next step is very important, because if you'll notice, this clock doesn't have a level. So, the only way you can set this one up is what I'm about to show you now. So, we want to center that collet up as best we can. Now, it doesn't, again, need to be perfect, but for the interest of this video, we're going to try to get that set to where it's pretty well right in the middle. With this in mind, you're going to notice that it's leaning to the back ever so slightly, and maybe even slightly to the right. So, what we need to do is to lower the front, but on the right side, or I'm sorry, excuse me, on the left side, to get that to line up a little bit better. So, what I'm going to do is gently loosen this. Okay. Okay, there we are. That's pretty doggone close. How about the other side? We'll check that, and we can actually go a little more here. There we go. Check it over here again. Yep, that's pretty close. I know it's kind of hard to see, but now that collet is in the center. Now, again, that one back here, that's how you have to set that one up to be level. Okay. So, once that's all done, we can then take our piece of glass, set it in here, and then it's spring-loaded in the bottom. Give it a push down, push it in, and up, and you're all done. And again, if you have the type where the entire top removes, you want to very carefully set it on, being careful around your hand shaft, because the case could actually interact with that and damage it, break it off. That's not good. And then you can push in your little pins on either side, and then you're off to the races. So, now you can sit back, enjoy your clock, and hopefully it'll tell good time for you. And again, there's adjustments for the timekeeping, which is on the top here. So, here it shows S or R, slow, and then the R actually stands for retard, not the negative form of that word, and then there's F and A, so fast or advance. Each one of these little hash marks on the top, okay, represents 10 seconds per day, okay, difference. So, sometimes if your clock is, say, off, you know, a minute, a month, you only need to give this a little tiny adjustment one way or the other, and then check it after a couple more weeks and see where you're at. That's about all there is to it. You can keep adjusting it here and there until you get it to where it's keeping really good time, and then you're set to enjoy your clock. Thanks for watching the video. I hope this has been very informative for you, and hope you enjoyed it. I know there were some portions of it that kind of went a little off track and in different places, but in the end, we got there. Perhaps it's a little longer than it should be, but at the same time, I tried to give you as much information as possible about the clock, so that way you can be informed. So, anyway, thanks for watching. Hope y'all are having a good day. Take care now.