Noob Clone 4130

[MD12112 44]

Hi guys, so my review is really of the mechanism of the 4130 superclone as oppose to the whole watch. I have 2 original daytonas and 3 superclones, been through countless 7750a. 7750a daytonas are a waste of time. 

NOOB have done a very good job copying the individual components, and its very close just their assembley is very poorly controlled. From initial observations they seem to run well and fairly close to the real one, BUT after some time and upon detailed investigation and disection, the conclusion is very different.

Ivehad to buy 3 clones before I got one working flawlessly.  My observations;

1) First watch arrived in november, second in december (both 904 ss models) and the third in Februrary(gold plated one). First one broke down after 1 month, second one chronograph would not reset properely. Third one worked without problems but not so good at time keeping. 

2) different temperatures would result in drastic changes in accuracy. I am from London, uk. When it is room temperature, the mechanisms run decently say +3 or +4s per day , when it is cold for example outside the mechanisms run about  +12 seconds per day faster, if you go to a warm climate they slow down sometimes - 5 seconds a day. 

So I decided to rip them apart and fix what was wrong with them , bring them to +5/-5 which they are capable of at RTP. Ripping them appart I found;

1) In the first two mechanisms , there are atleast 2 or 3 damaged gears , some gears with one or more sheared teeth.  Some gears which mesh together perfectly only in a certain combination, when out of sync their meshing is very turbulent, sometimes ceased. 

2) Almost all the mechanisms have a lot of dirt and sadly one was also magnitized. Not really sure why such poor care was taken when assembling them. There were dirt particles on the spring. 

3) Pulling out the stems is a huge issue, if you over press the release the pin just lodges and the stem does not sit back in. 

4) the Incablocs are VERY DELICATE , and during reassembley, one popped out , the spring holding the rubies in places so fragile, it's very easy to damage or break them. They are nowhere as strong or as robust as the original. 

5) The min jumper counter lever, this is again terribly fragile and one mistake rips appart the spring from the lever, I ended up breaking one of these despite my best attempts to be incredibly careful.

6) again the winding mechanism is not very well assembled, sometimes the watchers needed manual wind in addition to the daily wear. They were charged up only enough for 8 hours of accurate timekeeping after a normal day's wear. after cleaning and lubricating, was able to get it to charge amlost last 24 hours from 1 normal day of wearing and no winding. My genuine one charges almost 40 hours in a day. 

Conclusion;

Honestly it is actually amazing how noob have been able to manufacture a very very good copy of the original 4130 mechanism. however the assembly is incredibly poor all three mechanisms had dirt in them. They are in need of service. QC for these mechs need to be stepped up , so as to not use any damaged components. Once was able to clean and re-assemble the unit, using the best parts from all three. Following that, calibrate it and tune it, it was able to run very reliably and in 8 positions tested it gave  0-10 seconds / day, and then measured it on the wrist , its about 6 seconds a day very consistently for 1 month. 

I would say that until the quality is stepped up it might be a bit of a gamble, the mechanisms of certainly capable of being reliable if they are cleanly assembled and properely lubricated from the getgo. 

I would certainly not advise anyone who has not had plenty of experience with these to even try to service these. Chances are you will end up breaking one component. 

it's definitely worth the money that you pay for if you'll end up with a mechanism that works fairly well, and the chronograph resets property and keeps good time (within 10s a day)

Following this I will be reviewing the rest of the watch later on

[MD12112 44]

Just some of the faulty gears.....

[Glaude 1,615]

That's a great technical review ! I've been waiting some feedback on that super clone movement for some time now ! 

Thank you for taking the time to share your observations ! 

[MD12112 44]

Very welcome. 

[GenTLe 1,496]

Thanks!.

Looking your 1st picture, it seems that the part top right is there just to break...

[MD12112 44]

I wasn't able to photograph the minute counter for the chronograph because I assembled it but if you have a look at that you will cringe, its super fragile, it has a fragile hairspray spot welded to the lever...

[tony06200 0]

Really interesting but frightening post.

At this price point they must be able to do a better QC. 

My thought on my reading on the forum on rep chronograph is they are expensive box queen for the enthousiasts. 

No one one seems to be reliable.

Hope one time they will release a good chronograph. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by tony06200
Misspelling

[Automotiveromance 1]

Thanks! Very good to see a more long time review on these. 

[MrZoSo 15]

Flat out over priced over hyped crapola .  

[GenTLe 1,496]

Considering all this... If I'll ever get a Daytona, it will probably be the ARF one.

[SCShrek 494]

57 minutes ago, MrZoSo said:

Flat out over priced over hyped crapola .  

Overpriced maybe...but if you think this is crap, take a look at my super thick Daytona with the a7750 modded to correct the subdials. The base movement is good but what was done to it to get the chronos working is pure CCRRAAAPPP!!!

On the other hand, my I havent had a single issue out of the daytona with the 4130...yet. I've only had it about a year or so.

Edited May 17, 2019 by gwbmcse

[MrZoSo 15]

Yeah well, it's not the only crap movement lol.

Plenty of great movements as well. Chrono movement...ST-19 is an incredible manual wind.

Fantastic bang for the buck.

Eta Clones. Great workhouse movement. 

[GingerApple 7,272]

How cool, thanks for taking the time OP! I'm very envious of your skills. And your watches to be fair.

I bet you're not balding either, you bastard!

[MD12112 44]

Please don't get me wrong this is by far the best Daytona replica money can buy (original is £15k  plus vs £600 for a very very close replica)... like I said after a good service it's actually very stable. Haven't reviewed the watch overall but .... it's good, I've been snorkeling with it, in a water park, done loads of sporting activities with it and I am using it as my daily wear. It is still running well. Does not scratch easily. 

I do hope that they do improve their quality control during mechanism assembley because they can be so much better, and maybe just use a slightly better hairspring which is not so susceptible to temperature difference like some of the replicas ive seen. 

[Glaude 1,615]

3 hours ago, MrZoSo said:

Yeah well, it's not the only crap movement lol.

Plenty of great movements as well. Chrono movement...ST-19 is an incredible manual wind.

Fantastic bang for the buck.

Eta Clones. Great workhouse movement. 

This ! The ST-19 is fantastic for vintage Dayto ! 

Those superclone are a bit too pricy for what you get ! 

I don't ask or even hope for a good QC regarding the state of the movement, but the flaw you pointed are pretty big to me ! There's few feedback on this movement, yet it seems to be in high demand, I wonder if people just don't use the chrono, or if we just need to wait a year or two to get the final word on that

[SCShrek 494]

56 minutes ago, Glaude said:

This ! The ST-19 is fantastic for vintage Dayto ! 

Those superclone are a bit too pricy for what you get ! 

I don't ask or even hope for a good QC regarding the state of the movement, but the flaw you pointed are pretty big to me ! There's few feedback on this movement, yet it seems to be in high demand, I wonder if people just don't use the chrono, or if we just need to wait a year or two to get the final word on that

I can’t give anyone a real good review but I do run the chrono quite a bit when I wear it and haven’t had any problems. I’ve run the chrono for several hours so the hour hand would move around a bit but I’ve never run it constantly. I also only wear it about once or twice a week. Take that for what it’s worth. 

[Glaude 1,615]

2 minutes ago, gwbmcse said:

I can’t give anyone a real good review but I do run the chrono quite a bit when I wear it and haven’t had any problems. I’ve run the chrono for several hours so the hour hand would move around a bit but I’ve never run it constantly. I also only wear it about once or twice a week. Take that for what it’s worth. 

That's still a good feedback in my opinion ! Thanks for sharing !  

[fatarms 7,759]

Just to play devil's advocate...

In all fairness, Rolex has been making these movements since 2000 and had to have had prototypes in the years leading up.  The Chinese have probably had prototypes only within the last couple of years, it seems they push things to production rather quickly.  Give it a few versions to work out the kinks and see where this is in 5 years.  The fact that the gears are eating themselves in the movement by either crappy materials or binding with imprecise movement function is going to take a bit to straighten out.  For now, all the more reason to stick with the tried and true Asian clone movements or just go with the frozen chrono.  Just a penny for my thoughts, and usually, you have change coming

[Foxindebox 462]

Thanks for the great review, made very interesting reading.

There must be some real mis-assembly going to chew those components up so badly,  or those wheels are made of cheese...

 

[MD12112 44]

I would be inclined to agree with @fatarms, if you are not fussed about the chrono function, the  fixed needle is better.

But to be honest I've had a lot of problems with modified asian 7750s , especially when it comes to servicing them, up to the point of service they run OK, however the modied plates and components are very poorly made ... Example daytona 7750a or the AP secs@12 (corrected) , once taken apart to clean, no matter how carefully you for the back together, it never runs nearly as well. I dont know why, can only guess poor meshing.

Re future improvement - It just depends on if noob factory has a tendency on improving the mechanisms, from past experience with other factories , they don't bother with the mechanisms , improvement usually just on the asthetics like dial , case etc. 

@Foxindebox some of the components are made from very good materials , tried to break them and test them , they withstood a lot. These teeth seemed to be fitted like that, only one I know got chewed up was the barrel gear. 

[GenTLe 1,496]

1 hour ago, MD12112 said:

Example daytona 7750a or the AP secs@9 ,

Take care: the ARF Daytona are indeed made based on 7750, but they use the same movement of the IWCs with sec at 6 which works fine. And APs with risky movements are those with secs @12. 9 is the natural position for secs in 7750.

[MD12112 44]

Sorry @GenTLe You are correct. Ive corrected my statement. I was refering to the secs at 12. 

Also I have NEVER tested the ARF daytonas so rightly as you say They are excluded from my observations. However the working chrono daytonas 7750a are what I am refering to in my review above. They are decent, but in my experience the plate to shift the needles around to 3, 6 and 9 are not possible to service, once dismantled, never work the same again, atleast in my experience . I have taken appart 100s of replicas and originals ... Be it eta 775X , eta 28XX  , asian clones, asian 775Xs. Asian 7750 are pretty decent and are servicable and last long , the min they are modified....Im weary of it from experience. 

[MD12112 44]

A very sad update. My watch fell in my bathroom from 1.2m height on a thin mat. Sharp impact ! No damage to the physical housing of the watch including the crystal. The case is defo 904L because it sustained literally no damage except few light scratches, however the mechanism stopped working. Upon full disection - the incabloc holding the balance wheel got damaged, the tiny metal spring holding the rubies in place seemed to have snapped! This is the first sharp impact of its kind, the same thing has happened to an ARF dssd i have using the sh3135 , exactly same issue! So the clone mechanisms cannot sustain impact ! Bit of a bummer if you want to use these watch as daily wear watches! 

[GenTLe 1,496]

1 hour ago, MD12112 said:

My watch fell in my bathroom from 1.2m height. [...] So the clone mechanisms cannot sustain impact !

This sounds like that joke about the flea and the scientist.

1st day: I cut first pair of legs, I say "JUMP!", the flea jumps.

2nd day: I cut second pair of legs, I say "JUMP!", the flea jumps.

3rd day: I cut the last pair of legs, I say "JUMP!", the flea doesn't jump.

Conclusion: if you cut all the legs of a flea, then the flea becomes deaf!

I think the majority of mechanical watches, if falling on a hard surface from more than 30/40cm can have damages of some sort. When it reaches the ground (from 0.4m) it has 11km/h speed.

[MD12112 44]

Agreed to an extent....Copy mechanical movements yes, would not expect them to, but a good genuine wellmade swiss....no, they should survive without mechanical damage. That is why the 4130 use 4 shock absorbers , they are "tool watches" so are supposed to sustain shocks, boxing, sports impacts etc...