Reply With QuoteThat sounds about right. It's generally in the region of 600 to 800 rotations of the self winding rotor, which is about 4 hours of normal wearing activity. A slipping clutch prevents automatics from overwinding themselves.
I don't often put my Parnis Power Reserve 'portuguese' on. Today I put it on, bicycled to work (2km) and did some office work. When I checked it was almost fully charged!
(I've tested the power reserve indicator before, it's certainly doesn't err on the side of overestimating!)
This shows how little is needed!
https://imgur.com/d3L9eFJ
That sounds about right. It's generally in the region of 600 to 800 rotations of the self winding rotor, which is about 4 hours of normal wearing activity. A slipping clutch prevents automatics from overwinding themselves.
Interesting and a lot less effort than I thought. Stonking looking watch!
Love the discreet power reserve - I had to look a couple of times to even spot it (thought it might be a chrono). This and power reserve indicator as part of display back are the only two types I can tolerate.
I’ve been treated to laughs, chortles, and snickers when I posited that a standard auto will fully wind with four hours or so conventional wear. What-evah.
Interesting. I usually only wear my GMTc at home for around 3 to 4 hours per day over the weekends. It never stops in between daily wears and seems to run for a few days before running out of power after I stop wearing it.
It depends on the watch, and also depends on the type of activity. The Zenith El Primero and 70s Omega 1012 are amongst the worst I’ve come across, both have very long mainsprings which doesn’t help.
This is what I would have initially thought. Presumably the friction of the rotor bearing may also come in to play?Originally Posted by walkerwek1958
I fully wound my Breguet marine last tuesday, wore it to work for a few days, relatively quiet at the moment so only worn for 10hrs a day, didnt wear it over the weekend except for a couple of hours saturday evening. Changed watches yesterday and its stopped working at 7am this morning, so 36 hours after it was last on my wrist. It has a 70hr power reserve when fully wound (which I've verified) so this suggests my daily routine def isnt enough to fully charge the power reserve.
The gearing of the winding mechanism, the weight of the rotor and the strength (and length) of the mainspring are all factors. Friction in the rotor bearing isn`t usually an issue, but a worn rotor bearing with lots of freeplay can allow the rotor to scrape against the movement or caseback (or both) and this doesn`t help matter!
After an exceptionally frustrating morning trying to sort out a breguet hairspring problem, I took the dog for a long walk to clear my head a bit. I got to thinking about the power reserve thing, one of the drawbacks with a longer power reserve is the fact that it'll take more activity to fully wind. Indeed, if the watch isn`t fully hand-wound to start with it's likely it'll never reach full wind if the wearer is only moderately active, thus negating any advantages.
The only advantage I see with longer power reserve is being able to leave the watch off for 2.5 full days and still have the watch running. That's assuming it's fully wound at the point it's removed. Take it off on Friday evening, it should still be running Monday morning.....if it was fully wound!
The second advantage is a longer period of constant torque from the mainspring, that should give more consistent timekeeping.
Personally, I can`t get excited about any of this, I`m happy with ETA movements that give around 38 hrs. I certainly wouldn't pay a premium to get one of the newer movements on the basis that it gives better power reserve.
I liked Roger Smiths thoughts (in the video in another thread here) of slowing the beat down (and hopefully keeping accuracy) to reduce wear on parts and increase power reserve. Obviously, there is a limit to what can be achieved in power endurance terms but it seems to have a certain elegance if achievable.
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