The Breitling Watch Source Forums

and gives it a couple shakes will you get a full wind on the mainspring by the end of the day? I hear it takes about 800 full rotations of the rotor to fully wind an automatic watch. I can't see it being possible to get a full wind without giving a watch a manual wind first. This is what I got from a Rolex service center. Are we both wrong?

_________________
Don

I assume that you mean wearing the watch all day.

That's a little bit like asking how long a piece of string is - it depends on how active you are during the day, how long the power reserve is, what the gearing is, how long you wear the watch for, etc. Automatic watches are designed to receive at least 24 hours of reserve from 'normal' wear during the day, with a healthy safety margin. If you have a sedentary lifestyle then you may not get the full 24 hours, if you have an active lifestyle then you may get a full reserve.

A couple of other points.....

Automatic watches have different gearings, so you can't really say x turns for a full wind, especially as some wind in both directions, and some wind in only one. Also 800 is an average of the number of turns needed for a 24 hour charge (hence an 800tpd setting on winders), that's not the same as a full wind (unless a full wind is 24 hours of reserve - which is very low).

Shaking a watch isn't really recommended - it won't do much to wind the watch, especially if it only winds in one direction (it will just spin in the direction that doesn't wind because there is less resistance), and while you will start a watch that is out of beat, the preferred process for that is just to rotate the watch while looking at the dial (i.e. so that the crown goes from 3 to 6, 9, 12 and back to 3).

I would be talking about the ETA 2824-2. I am having a discussion with a couple members in WUS that feel you can get a full wind taking it out of the box giving it a shake and then putting it on the wrist. The 2824 winds in one direction so I find this to be a big stretch. I can't see the mainspring getting a full wind when you don't manually wind it first.

_________________
Don

2824-2 winds in both directions and needs 650 turns per day - so about 1,150 for a full (42 hour reserve). If you have an active lifestyle then that's easily achievable just by wearing it. If you sit in an office staring at a computer, it ain't gonna happen.

I was told you need 800 winds per day to get to an accurate running range and 1150 for a full wind. Man, there are so many differing answers out there.

_________________
Don

800 turns for 'accurate' is ludicrous.

The theory goes that a watch with very little reserve in the mainspring will run fast because there is insufficient power being transferred through the running train for the balance to cycle through it's full amplitude. Reduced amplitude = increased frequency which means running fast.

That's real, and it is a problem with a low power reserve, but we are talking about very low - less than an hour or so of reserve, and in practical terms the impact is maybe a few seconds, and if you're that worried about it then never fully wind your watch - you can have similar problems with too much power in the mainspring. On an ETA 2824-2 800 turns is the equivalent of almost 30 hours of reseve - and you sure as heck don't need that for accuracy.

Thanks for the information.

_________________
Don