My Speedy Pro has just had a full service via Omega, everything seems very good, chronograph is crisp, pushers feel nice to operate, timing is very accurate etc.
It stopped Tuesday afternoon and I couldn't remember if I wound it the day previous, or even the day before, so on Wednesday morning at precisely 8:10am, I set the time and fully wound the watch.
Well, it's now 11:25am Friday and it's still running!
That's over 51 hours! :)
When will this stop??
Probably soon :)
My year-old Speedy lasts about 51-52 hrs on a full wind.
Interestingly I get about 54 hours out of my old vintage Zenith, which has no service history (and may never have been serviced...) when the movement I believe has a claimed 50 hour reserve. Always brings a smile to my face when I see it continuing to tick on way past spec after all these years!
My 321 (1967) does over sixty hours on a full wind... I also remember being blown away when I first noticed...
Well, it Finally stopped at 11:56am.. Not too shabby. :)
Absolute power reserve isn't something I give any thought to, what's more important is how much amplitude the watch has lost over 24hrs. Once the amplitude falls below a certain level the timekeeping usually deteriorates sharply; a watch that's running at around +2 fully wound ( with amplitude >280) may run at -30 when the amplitude's fallen bellow 150. Clearly, allowing the watch to run for 2 days without winding is doing no favours to the timekeeping, it's likely that the rate during the 24-48hr period is well below optimum and this'll affect the overall timekeeping. Once it's run beyond 48hrs the rate will definitely be way out. The exception is a movement designed to have a very long PR, but the same rules will apply when it's less than 30% wound.
Power reserve for an automatic is governed by the design (ie length of mainspring) but is also influenced by the condition of the mainspring barrel. A badly worn barrel will allow the spring to slip at a lower state of wind, thus reducing the total power reserve of the watch. This will be evident from how the watch runs on a timegrapher; if the watch is hand-wound slowly the amplitude may reach a high level but it'll fall significantly over 20-30 seconds as the spring slips around the barrel.
Absolute power reserve tells you little about the condition of a hand-wound movement but it can be a useful indicator for an automatic, where a significantly low value is an indication of a worn spring barrel.
Like I said, I don't pay much heed to power reserve, timegrapher is the only reliable way to check the health of a watch. By all means, check the power reserve if it interests you, but the results don't mean much unless the watch is an auto.
So why does my 1950 Omega automatic run for 55hrs when it's official PR is around 46?......... simple answer, it's the replacement mainspring that's slightly longer than the original!
Paul
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 9th September 2016 at 13:50.
^^^ I love posts like this. :) One reason why this forum beats a lot of others hands down.
I know that I'm going to get some stick for this but here goes, I've just got a speedmaster snoopy and it says in the book to wind until the crown stops. Does it stop? or do you get more resistance? I'm afraid to wind it to much, at the moment I give it about 20 turns each day. heip needed.
I'm sure you could break the clutch if you really tried but it will be VERY obvious when to stop unless you're the most ham-fisted person on the forum. The crown will have some give but won't continue to wind once you're fully wound.Originally Posted by ml.williams
Cheers for that, I thought it might be the case but I was a bit tentative with a manual wind my other watches are automatic and I only give them a few winds to get them going and let the self wind to do the rest.
You would need to be very ham-fisted to damage a hand-wound watch; when it's fully wound it's very obvious. The mainspring winds onto he centre arbour until it's tightly wound, the outer coil of the mainspring is located positively onto a notch in the wall of the spring barrel, so it becomes nigh-on impossible to turn the crown any further. If the watch was automatic you could keep winding it forever because the spring slips around inside the barrel when it's fully wound.
I grew up in the 60s, as kids we got our first watches at around 9 or 10 years old, and they were all hand-wound. I literally grew up having to wind my watch daily..........I find it hard to grasp the fact that this is alien to many people thesedays. We also had clockwork toys which worked on the same principle......I bet no-one under 40 has ever come across one.
Paul
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