In Aug 2003 we were asked to supply a suitable Master Clock & Slave mechanism to drive the large outdoor historic display period clock as part of a restoration project at the school. The actual clock installation was undertaken by the school's own contractor and we were not involved in the actual installation or commissioning of the clock.
About June 2007 we happened to be in the neighbourhood and noticed the clock was not displaying the correct time. Enquiries with the school revealed the clock was randomly losing a few minutes per week and had done so for some time. When we pointed out that it had been covered under a 3-year manufacturers warranty which was now expired, they said they had not complained because they had been advised by their contractor that this amount of time loss was acceptable for an exposed-hands type of clock in their windy hill-top environment. They had become accustomed to correcting the time routinely.
We were able to advise them that they had purchased a high quality product which was rated for use with their clocks exposed hands weight & dimensions for up to hurricane strength winds. With the permission of the School and with the "training exercise" cooperation of the local Volunteer Fire Service (who provided long ladder access), we participated in a Community effort to dismount the clock in order to find and rectify whatever was causing the problem. The fault was traced to a bent vane in the mechanical movement possibly being caused by the minute hand shaft having been forced with excessive pressure, backwards into the movement at some time in the past (bird/object strike or careless minute-hand fitting?).
After the fault condition was repaired, the clock was reinstalled and reset. It then worked properly with no further time loss and in September 2007 we installed an upgrade to the Master Controller firmware so that it would follow the new daylight savings regime recently introduced for NZ.
