The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I ask as I have a recently serviced SuperOcean Pro (A17345) that I took off the other day and actually noted how long it ran for. The answer was 30 hours or thereabout. I took it off about 10:00 AM shortly after rising from my pit (the joys of the retired eh?) so it would have been a bit depleted already.

Now, I'm not the most active person on the planet and spend a lot of time laying down pretty much immobile. Would this lack of activity explain the short power reserve?

many thanks.

It might.
The best is to run a test, fully wind it (40 crown turns) and leave it on the table.
It should have about 40 hrs before it stops.

Yes that certainly would explain the short power reserve. Automatic watches do need a certain amount of movement per day to keep going. Unfortunately there's no specific amount of movement that can be quantified, although with modern self-winding mechanisms the average person tends to moves enough to keep an automatic going indefinitely.

I always wear a watch during the day and take it off overnight. If I keep to that routine a watch will keep going for me indefinitely..... and I work in an office, so it's not the most active of careers.

And in answer to your thread title question - what constitutes a full wind - well, manually winding it, a full wind means at least 40 turns of the crown. To be on the safe side you can go well beyond that with an auto as you can't overwind them.

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Driver8

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Thank you guys. That puts my mind at rest. I really am a dreadful old "worry wart"

Here is a result of wearing a Chinese watch for around three hours mostly sitting at my desk in front of a computer and going for a half hour walk to the shops.
Note the difference in time and the power reserve which happens to be quite accurate despite it being a Chinese movement,

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"It is just a matter of time!"

That's missing the variable of the rotor gearing though - turns per day and direction will have a major impact on the amount of activity needed - a 650tpd bidirectional gearing will wind a heck of a lot faster than a 1200tpd unidirectional gearing.

@wessa
How much is the real power reserve?

2 minutes.

(Just kidding Wessa!)

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Driver8

Site Moderator