Reply With QuoteGive it a full wind and see what the power reserve is like then.
Bought my first daily auto recently and was after some advice please.
It is a seiko SRPA21K1 with 4R36 movement.
I only wear at nights after work and have begun also wearing in bed at nights, it’s states it has 41 hours of power reserve, but so far I have not had anywhere close to this at all.
I have not yet wound it up instead just used the movement of my wrist to keep it moving ( maybe where I am going wrong?)
I had it on last night for a good few hours and in bed until I got up this morning at 6am,when I took it off,when I got home tonight it had stopped at 13:00 so only 7 hours of reserve?
Should I be manually winding as well as wearing to obtain the maximum reserve power, I’m getting fed up resetting the time every time I go to put it on at nights!
Thanks
Give it a full wind and see what the power reserve is like then.
+1. Since you’re only wearing in the evenings (and it’s probably not getting much movement while you’re sleeping) it’s not getting a chance to fully wind therefore you won’t get the full stated PR. You might also find the timekeeping isn’t as good when the watch is running on a lower reserve.Originally Posted by Kirk280
Edit: I’m not familiar with the 4r36 but it’s probably best not to make a habit out of manually winding regularly. I know the eta2824 shouldn’t be regularly handwound.
Last edited by Mr Tetley; 22nd October 2021 at 20:23.
I’ll give it a wind and see how it goes
Do most people who wear autos daily manually wind as well as just wearing them?
Hard to generalise but a modern auto should hold a good level of power (without manual winding) if worn daily, unless the wearer is particularly inactive. Unfortunately wearing at night time is unlikely to provide sufficient movement in the same way.
The level of power will depend how active or otherwise you are in the evenings; it won’t be getting much power while you’re asleep.
I presume there are circumstances as to why you don’t want to wear it in work (the obvious solution to keeping it going), but even small changes like wearing it for the commute should give it more chance to wind.
To satisfy yourself that it’s not faulty, fully wind it (50 twiddles, to paraphrase Uncle Alec), take it off and see how long it takes to deplete.
Good luck.
If the watch us hand wound fully (approx 60 twists of the crown) there’s a fair chance the amount of wear will keep it running, it depends how active the OP is whilst wearing it.
Without getting the watch into a high state of wind initially its hardly surprising that it stops after a few hours, none if this is rocket science!
If the watch is running in a low state of wind with low amplitude the timekeeping won’t be good, mechanical watches need to be run in a high state of wind to keep the amplitude high enough to give optimum performance.
I had similar concern with my turtle. So I tested by giving a good wind and then leaving it. It managed to run for 43 hours. So I guess I wasn’t as active when on my wrist as I thought i was.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
No, that would defeat the object. I own a lot of autos (without counting, at least 15 at a guess) and I've never had one that wouldn't keep going with just a few hours of wear a day.
Ok, lets assume the wearer isn't very active and over an 8 hr period only puts 20% power reserve back into the watch (approx. 8rs running). If the watch is fully wound by hand, then worn for 8hrs each evening, it'll eventually stop after around 4 days if worn for 8hrs/day.
Wearing a watch for a few hrs in the evening is unlikely to allow it to self-wind sufficiently to keep running and if it does it'll run with low amplitude and won't keep good time.
If a watch is worn daily for 16 hrs/day by someone moderately active it should eventually reach a high state of wind (80%) and maintain that, even if it isn`t fully wound initially, that's why most people see satisfactory results.
Basically, if you're not very active you'll have problems with an automatic watch, but starting off with it fully wound will help. It shouldn't be necessary to hand-wind regularly unless you spend all day and evening not moving much. Walking doesn`t always ensure the watch winds efficiently, on some designs the rotor doesn`t move through a big enough arc to take up the backlash in the reversers..
I`ve had several examples where an owner claims poor power reserve on a watch and it turns out that there's nothing wrong.
Maybe buy a watch with a PRI (Power Reserve Indicator)
https://gevrilgroup.com/blog/watch-c...ns-simplified/
“ Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” HHGTTG
Posting Permissions
