The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi everyone,

I've been reading this site for a few months, but this is my first time posting.

I have a 4 month old Super Avenger that stopped running while on its winder. I wear it about 2-3 days a week. The rest of the time its on the winder for 800 clockwise turns every 24 hours.

Last night at 11:45PM, the watch read 8:45PM but the second hand seemed to be moving normally. I left it alone to deal with it in the morning. When I checked in the morning, the watch had run for what appeared to be another 3 hours and then stopped altogether. The date had flipped over to the next day.

I did have several short power outages last night while I was out around 8:45, and I use the AC adapter for the winder. I hope this didnt mess up my watch either.

I did a search but didn't see anything like this out there happening to anyone else. I was hoping to get some insight from someone much more knowledgeable than me, before going to an AD.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Vatche

I suspect that the winder either isn't providing true 800 cw tpd or the watch wasn't wound fully when it was put on the winder, or more likely a bit of both.

To check the power reserve of the watch give it 40 full turns of the crown and then set it down on a surface and leave it until it stops running, that will tell you what kind of reserve you have and whether the problem is the watch or the winder. My money is on the latter.

Thanks Roff,

I haven't manually wound the watch in weeks and it was running fine and on time until this suddenly happened last night. I'll try doing what you suggested.

Would setting the winder up to say 1000 rotations a day remedy the problem if its not getting the true 800 tpd? Would that damage the SA?

It won't damage the SA, but life's not always that simple. Let's start by finding where the problem lies.

Don't forget that cal13 winds only clockwise.

Right, but that's what the OP said his winder was set for.

Didn't read carefully.

I have an SWI 7751 that runs smoothly and accurately. But the battery powered winder I use for it when I store it in my safe fails to keep it wound. My desktop winder that I use for overnight keeps it purring.
My bet is with your winder. Another thing, the term "winder" is a misnomer. The machine doesn't actually wind your watch, it merely keeps it from losing any further reserve.
I've been wearing my new Super Avenger for a week now and I haven't given it a chance to unwind.

Ok, so after it stopped, I gave it a solid 40-45 turns set it and put it down on my desk to test the power reserve. It went 48 hours before it died. Then I gave it a solid 40-45 turns, set it and put it back on the winder for 5 days. It didn't stop running at all. Everything seems normal.

I still think that it's worth checking how many turns you are actually getting out of the winder. You obviously don't want to sit there for 24 hours counting (!), but it might be worth counting how long it takes for (say) 5 or 10 turns and then extrapolating - taking into account any rest periods if the program has those. If you are only getting 600 for argument's sake then with a 48 hour power reserve it's still going to run for 8 days before it stops.

My SA stops running when it's on my Orbita winder.....but only when it's on its bracelet.

When it's on a leather or rubber strap it's fine, keeps running. I think it's just too damn heavy with the bracelet to get enough "swing" going to keep it wound...

Might be.