Marking Time in a Market
In mid-2022 We were asked by our Swiss business partner Mobatime to contact Borough Market management, about an existing clock installation, that had failed in 2020, but they had not actioned the work. Not much was known about the double-sided suspended clock other than it was a Mondain Swiss rail style clock that had been supplied by Mondain in 2014 as a gift from the House of Switzerland after the Olympic Games hosted by the UK in 2012, no one knew who fitted it, what movements were fitted or even how it worked. We were called in to investigate and see if a repair was possible.
The clock is mounted high inside the markets main throughfare and we could only access the area on Monday’s, when the market is closed and even then, not before 10am. We attended site and managed to find the control unit which was an old Inducta GPS unit, we were unable to access the clock to inspect at the time due to Budget restriction, so we changed the control unit to a ECT14 master clock and crossed our fingers, hoping that one of the many output options would rectify the problem, unfortunately, we were unable to get the clock running and the next phase required us to use a large scissor lift to access the clock
Once the budget was agreed, we set a date to attend and finally got up to the clock, we took half our workshop with us, to ensure that we could get the clock running, we fitted new Mobaline self-setting movements SEM100T and new hands, checked all the cabling and at last got the clock working again. Although the project had taken the best part of a year to resolve, due to access and budget restrictions, the customer was very satisfied with the results. Once again, the clock was marking time in this historic market.
