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Power reserve for automatic Breitling watches vary from 40 to 70+ hours.

How exactly is the maximum reserve achieved?

By rewinding the watch or just by normally wearing it?

If you wear your watch for two or three days, can you put it aside and expect it to keep working for the maximum hours provided from the reserve? Or should you rewind it before putting it aside?

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If I understand the question correctly, the maximum power reserve of an automatic watch is measured by fully winding it (something like 40+ full turns of the crown) and then leaving it alone. i.e. not wearing or otherwise moving it. If you wear it, it will continue to top up the power reserve so it will never run out of power. If you only wear it, you might not get quite the full wind that you would by manually winding it, so if you were to wear it for a couple of days then leave it on your dresser you might find that its power reserve is less. But if you plan to wear it everyday then not having a full wind is not a problem as you will always be topping it up.

In summary the power reserve represents the amount of time that a fully wound automatic watch will keep going for if it's not worn. In manual wind watches the power reserve is the amount of time between full winds being required.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Thanks for your answer Driver8.

If I understand you correctly, that means that a 40h power reserve watch might last if left alone only, say, 25h if it's only worn and not manually wound.

Also, does manually winding an automatic watch quite often would eventually damage (or at least deteriorate) the spring?

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In terms of power reserve it depends on how active you are when wearing and what the gearing is like in the rotor (how many turns per day are needed). 'Normal' activity is designed to be sufficient to keep it wound, but if the power reserve is low to start with it won't necessarily rewind the watch.

Manually winding an automatic won't hurt the watch - the mainspring slips in the barrel when fully wound. It will create minor wear on the keyless works, but nothing worth worrying about.

Thanks a lot Roff.

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I'm assuming the wear from the keyless works is not significant enough the contminate the watch?

Correct.

The keyless works is also well lubricated at all of the friction points so even if there are any microscopic particles they should be held in suspension in the oil. The biggest practical risk is probably cross threading on screw down crowns.

Rof,

What if a once or twice a week worn Breitling, and wore for full day, but the next day (or even less than 24 hours) it stopped....
What action should be taken when this's happening?

You need to establish if there is a problem - wearing it may not be enough to restore it to a full wind as I said previously. Wind the watch fully - 40 turns or more and then lay it down and leave it to see how long it runs for. If it's less than 24 hours at that point then there's an issue - may simply need servicing, may be something else, but you need to establish an accurate reserve.

Thanks Rof!

dumb question but I must ask it

the power reserve on the Bo1 goes for about 70 hours. If you put the watch down for say 6 hours before wearing again does that mean that the power reserve goes down to 64 hours ...and eventually it goes to 0 after say 12 days ... or by wearing does it top up again which means that the power reserve never really goes to 0 if you wear the watch.

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Breitling Chronomat BO1 Riviera Blue Dial Stainless Steel Case and Pilot Bracelet

Wearing the watch causes the rotor to move which winds the mainspring. However the mainspring constantly winds down when the watch is running so you need to ensure that if it is worn on a daily basis that more is put into the mainspring than removed - i.e. that you add 24 hours of reserve through wrist motion. Unless you have a very sedentary lifestyle or only wear the watch for a few hours a day then it should be fine.