The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I just bought an airwolf and I was wondering how long the hands and numbers should stay illuminated. It seems mine will only stay illuminated for about 30 mins or so. Seems to me it should stay illuminated longer than that? Could i have a defective one or is this normal?

Your eyes might not be adjusted to the darkness. Try giving it a full charge under a bright lamp (halogen or something) for 30 sec. or so, and checking it after your eyes have adjusted to the darkness completely (maybe 10 minutes or so).

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-RJ

As RJ said it will need a decent "charge" first. However Breitling lume generally isn't the thickest and therefore isn't the brightest on the market. They also don't tend to cover much area with the lume either. If you want real lighthouse-style lume then Omega, Seiko and Panerai tend to be the leaders.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Models seem to luminate differently as I have come to learn. My super avenger doesn't luminate very well at all, but my 6.75 is amazing even though they both exposed to the same lighting...

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Breitling Bentley 6.75
White Baton Super Avenger
Rolex DSSD

Well I exposed it to light, it shined great when i took it into a dark room. I walked back in there 30 mins later and it was completely dark. I thought it would last longer than that.

Again, I dont know if it will solve your problem, but when you walk into a dark room your eyes have not adjusted and therefore are not sensitive to small amounts of light. What may appear completely dark at first, may actually become visibly lighted after you spend about 10 minutes in the dark room.

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-RJ

Actually last night i was sitting in the dark room with it so the eyes where adjusted to it. It glows real bright when i hold it up to the light, just looses all of its illumination after a few mins.... it will be completely dark no matter how long i stay in there. Just seems like it should last more than a few minutes.

As RJ says I don't know if this is your problem, it may be something entirely different such as lume concentration, age of the lume or other factors, but he's right about the light adaptation aspect of this. It takes over one hour for the human eye to fully adapt from a light environment to one of total darkness. The rods of our eyes, our night vision neural receptors, are non-funtional when exposed to light but are extremely sensitive in the dark. However after exposure to bright lights they initially don't work for up to a few seconds and take time, up to an hour to fully adjust. That is why when you come in from the bright sunlight to a darkened room you initially see nothing but black. The cones, our light receptors don't work in the dark and the rods have been wiped out and depleted of pigment. This pigment slowly regenerates, the pupils dilate and slowly vision returns.

I encounter this phenomenon almost nightly with my own watches. I'm one of those unusual characters who basically wears his watch 24 hours a day. When I go to bed at night I wear my watches. After turning off the light i'm always dissapointed in the intensity of the lume of my watches, in fact I usually can't even see it well enough to tell what time it is. However if I awaken in the night, sometimes 5-6 hours later, and look at my watch, even though the lume is dim I can clearly see the time. It's because the rods of my eyes have had time to adapt and adjust.

It never ceases to amaze me.

Just my thoughts. I hope it helps and theres not another problem with your watch.
Good luck.

Whoops. Took me too long to write the above and didn't realize that you had posted.

Thanks i will give it a test tonight and see.... like i said it starts out bright then seems to get darker until i can see nothing it goes completely black.... maybe my eyes are giving out

Well I have set in the dark with it and it will go completely dark, i can see no illumination at all. I would think for the price i paid for it the thing could be seen in the dark for more than 30 mins .

Lucky that you can push the crown for an NVG compatible back light. I also have an Airwolf. Same issue. My Blackbird, on the other hand, is still readable hours later.

R/

Sorry to hear that. I really would have expected some residual light perception after allowing the your eyes to acclamate. As D8 said Breitling is not well known for it's lume intensity but I haven't experienced just total absolute failure of any residual lume light production on any of my Breitlings. Granted I don't have an Airwolf and so can't speak to that particular model, but as you said I would expect more.

Maybe someone else has some ideas.

Ah, well it sounds like its the watch.....not a huge deal but would be nice to know what time it is without having to push that button all the time.

I very much doubt that there is a 'problem' with the watch. SuperLuminova doesn't age and the only realistic cause of SL failure is moisture - and that would give you a lot more problems than bad lume.

I suspect that it's just the lume on the model being less than your expectations.