The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Myth: Magnitized watch always runs very fast. BUSTED !

My 2003 Ti Avenger Seawolf was regulated very nicely at about +/- 0 sec per 24 hours.

Suddenly the watch gained about ten seconds a day, both on wrist and on the winder. This was steady for a few weeks.

It wasn't due for service or anything like that so ordered such a blue 20$ demagnitizer from ebay and guess what. After using this device the watch ran at it's beautifull +/- 0 sec/24hrs again !!!!

All the time I read that magnitized watches run minutes or hours fast per day, but my personal experience this is not true !!
This deviation can be very small as well !

Interesting, I may take a shot at this for my Sub.

thanks for sharing your experience

_________________
life's too short and you only live once

We've been saying that here for some time.

Oh, and you overpaid for the demagnetiser

20 bucks was including shipping from China to Europe !

Probably know the cause, laying the watch on my ipad with magnitized cover at airport TSA frequently.

On some other watch forums "the experts" always shout a watch can only be magnitized if it runs fast for minuter or hours per day, glad here the people are wiser

It must be said that these blue gadgets are sold on ebay for both 110V and 220V but work MUCH better on 220V due to more powerful demagging capacity on 220V.

I have a 50+ year old Swiss demagnetiser that I think I paid $5 for. Magnetism is generally an issue because of the hairspring and it's not unusual for it to cause significant gain because the spirals of the hairspring 'stick' together making it significantly shorter and increasing the frequency dramatically. However, it doesn't have to be that dramatic as you found out - a small gain like that wouldn't automatically suggest that it was magnetised, but entirely possible.

I've never heard that, only that magnetising can cause the watch to run fast, and that if it runs several minutes or even an hour fast per day, it's usually magnetism that did it. Not that if it's a few seconds fast, it's not magnetism.

If the watch has been subjected to a very strong magnetic field, that can cause the hairspring to stick in several places and drastically shorten the rate (and the amplitude, which itself can cause the rate to change). Another thing is that the watch has had a nasty shock, and the hairspring has got caught on itself or something else. Haven't seen that personally, though.

Oops! You and me both. I recently sent my Longines away due to gaining over a minute per day. They did the work under warranty, but stated it had been magnetised. I though that was BS until I realised the strong neodymium magnet in my ipad case......

Aye they're a menace those cases. I have - had - one on my Google Nexus, not a cheap case either, but I've had to shove it in a drawer.