Does normal wearing fully wind up the perpetual rotor?

[rollee1]

I am wearing a few watches on rotation, the 3135 or 3185 movements is rated a power reserve of 48 hours. My wrist time is about 8 hours/day of normal activity.

On a couple of occasions my watch stopped at under 40 hours, I am wondering if normal wrist activity is enough to fully wind the watch, or power reserve goes down with the age of the watch.

[Sublover2166]

No. When I went on vacation back in March I took both of my Subs but left the winder at home. I alternated wearing each Sub and sure enough after about 4 days my Hulk stopped running. This caused me to wind it back up 40 full turns and I also wound up my other Sub just in case the mainspring was just about unwound. This is why at home both Subs stay on a winder when not being worn. They never stop running even if I choose to wear the same watch more than a day. As far as age of watch, has nothing to do with power reserve. Mainspring is replaced as part of a normal movement service. BTW, I wore each Sub much more than 8 hours a day and every other day was not enough to keep the mainspring wound. I am sold on my watch winder, regardless of what others say.

[SemperFi]

Will manually winding a watch that is worn every day, usually about 16 hours, cause it to gain time? My Black Bay runs about 5 seconds slow each day which I'm perfectly happy with. Just wondering if a manual wind will cause it to speed up slightly.

[Tools]

An automatic watch will always run down to the amount of power that is put into it - always. It is also about activity, not how many hours it is worn. It doesn't matter what the "power reserve" is - that is simply the maximum a fully wound watch is capable of.

If you only wear the watch 8 hours a day you may not be putting enough power into it to keep it running if you are not extremely active.

It is not unusual for a watch to stop on your wrist in many professions that do not entail much hand or wrist activity, keyboard entry for example..

[Brian Page]

Originally Posted by Tools

An automatic watch will always run down to the amount of power that is put into it - always. It is also about activity, not how many hours it is worn. It doesn't matter what the "power reserve" is - that is simply the maximum a fully wound watch is capable of.

If you only wear the watch 8 hours a day you may not be putting enough power into it to keep it running if you are not extremely active.

If is not unusual for a watch to stop on your wrist in many professions that do not entail much hand or wrist activity, keyboard entry for example..

Great info, I always top mine off to make sure it's got a full wind, do you have an opinion on that? - winding to the point that you feel it slip when it's fully wound?

[Tools]

Originally Posted by Brian Page

Great info, I always top mine off to make sure it's got a full wind, do you have an opinion on that? - winding to the point that you feel it slip when it's fully wound?

If you are someone who knows that your activity does not top up the watch, or at least put enough wind into it that you can take it off overnight, you should wind it once a week or so to keep the torque in the upper power curve where it is most accurate..

[Brian Page]

Originally Posted by Tools

If you are someone who knows that your activity does not top up the watch, or at least put enough wind into it that you can take it off overnight, you should wind it once a week or so to keep the torque in the upper power curve where it is most accurate..

That answers yet another question about the watch performing best at it's upper torque. I'm active but rotate watches so it would be common to have one sitting for a day.

[rollee1]

Originally Posted by Tools

If you are someone who knows that your activity does not top up the watch, or at least put enough wind into it that you can take it off overnight, you should wind it once a week or so to keep the torque in the upper power curve where it is most accurate..

Great information, thanks.

My watches usually gets about 30hours of rest in between rotation, but in the past couple of days I wore my SeaDweller more, and another watch stopped this morning.
The thought of daily wearing not fully winding the main spring came to mind, thus my post.

I guess a watch winder may be on the shopping list

[padi56]

Originally Posted by rollee1

I am wearing a few watches on rotation, the 3135 or 3185 movements is rated a power reserve of 48 hours. My wrist time is about 8 hours/day of normal activity.

On a couple of occasions my watch stopped at under 40 hours, I am wondering if normal wrist activity is enough to fully wind the watch, or power reserve goes down with the age of the watch.

Its always important to fully manually wind say a stopped watch before starting to wear.But in a normal say daily wearing of around 8 hours its doubtful if that will fully wind the mainspring but merely top up to whatever the power reserve the mainspring had to start with.And even when worn will do no harm whatsoever to give watch a manual wind once a week or so.

Originally Posted by Sublover2166

No. When I went on vacation back in March I took both of my Subs but left the winder at home. I alternated wearing each Sub and sure enough after about 4 days my Hulk stopped running. This caused me to wind it back up 40 full turns and I also wound up my other Sub just in case the mainspring was just about unwound. This is why at home both Subs stay on a winder when not being worn. They never stop running even if I choose to wear the same watch more than a day. As far as age of watch, has nothing to do with power reserve. Mainspring is replaced as part of a normal movement service. BTW, I wore each Sub much more than 8 hours a day and every other day was not enough to keep the mainspring wound. I am sold on my watch winder, regardless of what others say.

Well they should not call them watch-winders as they dont really wind the watch, yes they will keep them ticking but mainly just top up the power reserve to whatever was in the mainspring to start with.

Below is a direct quote from one of our respected forum Rolex watchmakers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanessa CW21 View Post
Okay I'm here to give my 2 cents since I was asked to give an opinion.
I haven't read the responses given, since it's late and I plan on going to bed soon!

I don't like winders.
I don't like them for several reasons:
1) Most people assume they actually wind the watch... No, they keep the watch wound, which means it should still have a good amount of power reserve in order to maintain the power. I get plenty of customers complaining that their power reserve is too short "even though the watch was on the winder all day 3 days prior".
2) Cheap winders MAGNETIZE watches! The motors aren't insulated and cause the watches to start running erratically! I just had one two weeks ago, with a 2 y.o. DJII. A complete service of the movement was required.
3) Unless you're too old, or have some kind of medical condition that prevents you from having the feeling in your fingertips to wind the crown, I don't see a reason to need a winder.
4) I don't like the unnecessary wear it causes the movement. Unnecessary because you're putting wear on the watch while you're not even enjoying it.

In the end, it's all up to you and I'm pretty sure all you TRF'ers know what to expect. I'm mostly having a hard time explaining to people who have absolutely no clue about the inner workings of a watch.

[VICI]

Solution - wear it on your dominant hand if you are THAT stagnant all day.

I sit in an office all day and never had a problem with my watches stopping. My sister, on the other hand, has a breitling galactic 36 mm (brand new) and it always stops for her after just 1 day of wear.

The technician from the breitling store in NYC said that she needs to 'top it off' every night.

Sounds to me like a pain in the a$$ for a movement that should wind naturally by normal movement such as walking.

[rollee1]

My daily 16600 usually does +4.5/day. I gave 40 winds yesterday and in 15 hours it gained +1.

Tools noted to keep the torque in the upper power curve where the watch is most accurate works great

This shows that my daily activity is on the low side, it is like my Rolex is telling me to up my physical activity.

Ah ha moment
My Rolex has become a smart watch!!
I'll call it the R-watch

[locutus49]

I just ordered a Chiyoda winder (one watch) from Amazon, and it won't arrive until mid June. It looks like one of the best one watch winders I could find.

[Rockrolex]

Originally Posted by Tools

An automatic watch will always run down to the amount of power that is put into it - always. It is also about activity, not how many hours it is worn. It doesn't matter what the "power reserve" is - that is simply the maximum a fully wound watch is capable of.

If you only wear the watch 8 hours a day you may not be putting enough power into it to keep it running if you are not extremely active.

It is not unusual for a watch to stop on your wrist in many professions that do not entail much hand or wrist activity, keyboard entry for example..

Or lawyers who do a lot more reading than anything else.

Originally Posted by padi56

Its always important to fully manually wind say a stopped watch before starting to wear.But in a normal say daily wearing of around 8 hours its doubtful if that will fully wind the mainspring but merely top up to whatever the power reserve the mainspring had to start with.And even when worn will do no harm whatsoever to give watch a manual wind once a week or so.


Well they should not call them watch-winders as they dont really wind the watch, yes they will keep them ticking but mainly just top up the power reserve to whatever was in the mainspring to start with.

Below is a direct quote from one of our respected forum Rolex watchmakers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanessa CW21 View Post
Okay I'm here to give my 2 cents since I was asked to give an opinion.
I haven't read the responses given, since it's late and I plan on going to bed soon!

I don't like winders.
I don't like them for several reasons:
1) Most people assume they actually wind the watch... No, they keep the watch wound, which means it should still have a good amount of power reserve in order to maintain the power. I get plenty of customers complaining that their power reserve is too short "even though the watch was on the winder all day 3 days prior".
2) Cheap winders MAGNETIZE watches! The motors aren't insulated and cause the watches to start running erratically! I just had one two weeks ago, with a 2 y.o. DJII. A complete service of the movement was required.
3) Unless you're too old, or have some kind of medical condition that prevents you from having the feeling in your fingertips to wind the crown, I don't see a reason to need a winder.
4) I don't like the unnecessary wear it causes the movement. Unnecessary because you're putting wear on the watch while you're not even enjoying it.

In the end, it's all up to you and I'm pretty sure all you TRF'ers know what to expect. I'm mostly having a hard time explaining to people who have absolutely no clue about the inner workings of a watch.

I happen to disagree with Peter. I am a firm believer in using winders to keep my multi-complication watches running so that I do not have to keep setting them each time I want to strap one on. This is especially true of my Breitling Navitimer Olympus, that needs adjusting once every 4 years, and my IWC 3756 GST Perpetual, that should never need adjusting.

[BLACKHORSE 6]

Great information. Thanks.

[steptoe]

Originally Posted by Rockrolex

I happen to disagree with Peter.

Based on what ?
Do you disagree about the use of winders or do you just disagree because it doesn't suit your particular requirements/needs.

[Rockrolex]

Originally Posted by steptoe

Based on what ?
Do you disagree about the use of winders or do you just disagree because it doesn't suit your particular requirements/needs.

I disagree about the value of the use of winders generally. I think they perform a useful service, especially for watches with at least date complications. When using a winder, you don't have to reset the watch each time you want to wear it. But if you don't want to use a winder, I have no quarrel with that. It's just that Peter and I have had a long running debate about this subject for many years.

[Wooddog44]

Originally Posted by Rockrolex

I disagree about the value of the use of winders generally. I think they perform a useful service, especially for watches with at least date complications. When using a winder, you don't have to reset the watch each time you want to wear it. But if you don't want to use a winder, I have no quarrel with that. It's just that Peter and I have had a long running debate about this subject for many years.

I now have two Rolex and am "responsible" to keep my wife's running as well.

She wears hers daily and it runs about +5 sec. per day so once a month I adjust the time, date when needed, and give it a full wind. At that time I would do the same thing for my Sub which runs about +1 sec. per day.

Now that I have two, and will be alternating between them on a regular basis, is it better to get a winder or just make sure to give the "non worn" watch a few winds from day to day?

[multigeek627]

This is really a mixed bag of answers, which I think simply means YMMV. When I was gainfully employed I wore my "red" Sub from 0500 when I left for work to 1700 when I returned home, Monday-Friday, plus perhaps 10 hours/day Saturday & Sunday, and did that for 40 years without having it wind down once. That was working in an office, mainly at a desk, but with 3-5 miles/day of walking thrown in during the work week and "normal" activities (whatever that may mean) on weekends. When I retired last July I started wearing it maybe 6 hours a day and it would wind down after about 3 days, so I started manually winding it every second day and that was all it took to keep it running, gaining 7 seconds a day prior to its recent service.

In March of this year I bought myself a new Explorer II and if I wear it 10 hours a day every day it runs fine, but if I put it down and wear the Sub for a couple of days it winds down. I've started wearing them, day on/day off, starting about 0400 and taking the WOD off at 2000 and they stay wound, but just to give them the benefit of the doubt, when I put the WOD on in the morning I give it a hand wind.

I've toyed with a winder but the results are inconclusive. I reject the argument that keeping a watch wound when it's not being worn is causing wear to no purpose. As I said, the Sub was purchased in 1973 and except for parts that are normally replaced at service it has never had a repair, nor has it ever stopped prematurely or failed to keep excellent time. As for the question of a winder magnetizing the ferrous parts, I don't have the physics or the experience to say one way or another, but it does seem plausible. I'll let you know the results of my field test in 10 years.

[mike]

The only winder I've found that works.

[AlvinC]

Originally Posted by mike

The only winder I've found that works.

Perfect one... where did you get it?... I need 16.. LOL