The Breitling Watch Source Forums

If you watch is not being serviced will it stop glowing at night or become not as much as strong when newly purchased?
dont understand how that works

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Breitling Emergency Yellow Dial

I think you need to be a little more specific about the watch in question.

But if you mean the illumination on the hands and face of a mechanical watch, then I would not think these are a regular servicing issue.

The afterglow is based on fairly inert materials that have a luminous quality, which become excited when exposed to light. Similar to fluorescence. These materials are applied to parts of the watch face. The materials react to light and give off a temporary afterglow of bright light so the watch can be read in low light conditions or in total darkness. As the material ‘settles’ down after being removed from light, the afterglow will lessen & eventually disappear. It will not start emitting a glow until the material is once again exposed to light.

Eventually (after many many years) the illumination effect wears off within the material itself and it’s only then that you might replace the items that are not responding to light exposure. Usually these are the hands and face markers on a watch. There are many versions of the materials used by makers, Super Luminova, Tritium, LumiBrite, the list goes on. But essentially they all do the same thing.

If it’s a quartz watch with controllable illumination or with an inbuilt light, then this is a different matter. That could be a number of issues, if as you say, the light is getting less and less with age.

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Jim

"You have Control".

Not quite the case.

All lume on Breitlings is SuperLuminova and SL does not age, it doesn't 'fade' over time. It's pretty much ageless unless exposed to water which will damage it. There are major differences between materials like Tritium and SL, they may both glow but that's pretty much where the similarity ends.

SL's glow needs 'charging' with light and will fade during the course of the night, and the brightness of the lume is affected by the amount used and the colour of SL that is applied. Breitlings are not the brightest lume, but in many cases what is perceived as 'bad' is often the result of eyes not adjusting to the dark, the presence of some ambient light, etc.

The only modern luminous material that fades is tritium because it is a radioactive material and so ages based on it's half life (around 12 years).

Thanks Roff for your in depth specialised knowledge on Breitling lume. Thats information I did not know regarding SL, which is imformative.

Not sure how I went for a technical description on what Lume does, but hopefully its a mechanical watch Thunberbirds was enquiring about, and he now has a better understanding of the principle.

Jim

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Jim

"You have Control".

Roff is that true for all model years?

Well all recent ones - don't remember the last tritium piece, but it was a very long time ago - 20 years plus.

If it was that long ago, then I would guess that any tritium piece from Breitling will have minimal usable light at best (unless someone purchased a 'vial' and redid it). Makers of night sights often state tritium's usable light output as being 12-ish years (half-life), but by the time it gets close to this, it's usability is questionable at best. I agree that SL = better. I've noticed that night sight makers have been transitioning in this direction with some using a combination of the two or using fiberoptics to enhance usable light.

I've never seen a tritium product that glows as much as some of the heavy SL models such as the Seiko or Citizen divers. Is this because SL has more light-output capability versus tritium?

SL is initially brighter but fades over several hours, tritium is less bright but doesn't fade (at least over a period of hours). In watches tritium is generally good for about 2 half lives - 20 - 25 years. Any Breitling repairs would be handled with SL now as they no longer use tritium and would be in the form of a simple dial change rather than a reapplication.

It's also worth noting that in the US tritium is a restricted substance requiring an import license (which Breitling don't have).

Do you know how they make watches last for so long using tritium? A lot of people with night sights become unhappy with them often before the decade mark (I imagine part of this is because the sights are more exposed to elements than a watch dial in an enclosed environment). Many have purchased 'vials' (as you noted, legality is complicated and I personally wouldn't advise) only to try to 'redo' the sights with it coming out worse than it began with...

I've also noticed some older watches have what people refer to as a 'patina'...is this darkening amberish color because of the tritium itself?

After 25 years tritium still has approximately 25% of it's original luminescence, 'they' don't have to 'do' anything. Patination of the lume in tritium powered lume watches is generally aging of the luminescent compound - generally Zinc Sulfide.

I have some Breitlings from '97-'99 era and all have been serviced in the last 12 months.
The lume on the hands is nice and bright, obviously because the hands have been changed as part of the service.
The lume on the dials however are a lot more faint.
This would imply that Breitling did not use SL in the late '90s. Or?

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"It is just a matter of time!"

They will be SL I'm sure (at the bottom of the dial will be a 'T' next to the Swiss Made if not). As I said before only moisture really affects SL and the air in the watch will have some moisture in it - especially in more humid parts of the world, so while it's not a significant issue there will be some very slow and gradual deterioration of the SL. You are noticing it more now because the hands are brand new.

Makes perfect sense as usual Roff

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"It is just a matter of time!"

Thanks for the info guys,great read.

Col.

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can breitling re-apply SL during overhaul?