Rolex - longer mainspring I guess. Omega - 2 barrels.
What breakthrough technology has allowed Rolex, Tudor, ETA and others produce new compact movements with a massive increase in power reserve?
Rolex - longer mainspring I guess. Omega - 2 barrels.
ETA ?
Inter alia, didn't Rolex skeletonize the escapement or some such?
Some watches have even longer power reserves, though maintaining accuracy throughout the entirety of the unwinding of the mainspring is the real challenge.
Presumably some metallurgical advances have assisted in this regard?
There are watches by several brands (Panerai, IWC, JLC & Baume et Mercier, for example) which have 8 day movements. It's nothing new & has been around since the days of pocket-watches. They used to call them 'hebdomadal', which is an old word for 'weekly', i.e. you'd wind it once a week.
Lange has a watch with a 31 day power reserve, so 70 hours/3 days ain't all that!
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Jim.
There's the Vacheron 65 day too now! Really interesting method of achieving it:
http://watchesbysjx.com/2019/01/vach...perpetual.html
Last edited by hughtrimble; 27th February 2019 at 16:10.
In the new Longines HydroConquest they reduced the rate of the ETA 2892 from 28.800 to 25.200 which increased the PR from 42 to 65 hours.
That is one way of going about it.
Additional barrels, or longer springs only increase the stresses on the pivots and reduce the life expectancy of the movement... especially with 9 days PR.
Rolex claim to have made some subtle design changes to reduce the friction at different places in the movement, thus allowing a weaker (thinner) mainspring to be used. This allows a longer spring to fit the same barrel size, thus increasing the running time.
Longer springs won’t increase wear on pivots, stronger springs do that.
GS Autos are now 70h and pass more stringent accuracy tests than COSC. 70h is de rigueur these days.
I have a PAM 562 with 8 day movement but it's always 1m fast after a week.
My 3235 powered Sea Dweller has gone over the 3 days without being worn and stopping.
I last set the time and date at the end of November, and is currently running 20 seconds slow nearly 3 months on.
I feel Rolex have hit the sweet spot with this latest movement - I love it!
The 8 day IWC 5000 caliber was also notoriously inaccurate...
120 hrs power reserve,with good price,few problems that can be solved ;)
Seiko spring drive has a max of 192 hours (8 days) by utilizing 3 barrels.
Last edited by Wilson_smyth; 27th February 2019 at 22:31.
Witchcraft.
Mobil 1 Synthetic watch oil. The use of this has resulted in a reduction of friction yielding longer operation time and extended service intervals.
Eberhard uses only one barrel for 8 days of power.
The most accurate watch I’ve had was an Oris 111 with ten day power reserve. A single barrel mainspring, 1.8m long. Almost perfect accuracy right across the range. I wasn’t expecting that.
Just bought a Rado with the Powermatic 80 in it, will be interesting to see and quite useful to have a longer reserve.
I don't usually rise to such a lazy post.
But I did google 3235 movement, and even added "Rolex" and "issues" for good measure.
Nothing in the first 2 pages, so lost interest in your revelation.
I'm sure I could find some bile if I turned enough stones over … as we all know the internet is full of folk with spleens to vent.
The two Rolex that I have with a 70hr Power reserve are easily my most accurate mechanical watches. Typically never more than a couple of seconds fast over a few weeks of wear.
Glashütte Original Caliber 36 automatic with one barrel, perpetual calendar, moonphase and panoramadate have 100 hours power reserve.