Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

^^^^ Not that I'm aware of Andrew.

I've always thought of the quoted reserve as a minimum.

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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by JasperCat »

jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:59 am I’m curious. Is there a spec for power reserve tolerance? Say a stated power reserve if 56 hours means 56 hours +/- a certain amount?
Not sure about these movements, but on reading the METAS certificate for my Omega AT, they do in fact test the power reserve and reject if less that the stated 60 hours :clap:

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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by rkovars »

jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:59 am I’m curious. Is there a spec for power reserve tolerance? Say a stated power reserve if 56 hours means 56 hours +/- a certain amount?
I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by jkbarnes »

rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:44 pm I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by ajax87 »

jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:47 pm
rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:44 pm I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
Mostly, yes. But I think a higher PR is also a sign of higher quality materials and better engineering used in the design and build of the movement, indicating better reliability and longevity.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by rkovars »

ajax87 wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:54 pm
jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:47 pm
rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:44 pm I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
Mostly, yes. But I think a higher PR is also a sign of higher quality materials and better engineering used in the design and build of the movement, indicating better reliability and longevity.
I'm not sure the PR alone is an indicator of quality. Just as often it is just a bigger barrel with a bigger mainspring. That is basically how the 300 series of movements gets the increase over the 200 series.

EDIT to add: The some of the 300-1s were 42 hours before they were fully transitioned to 56 (pre-2021). I believe you can retrofit the 300-1s with the newer barrel.

I think it holds true for the seriously crazy PRs like 5 days etc. The SH21 adds a second barrel to get the PR.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by monkeymax »

Is it possible - and I think it might be considering the mechanics behind these movements - that a magnetised movement (or specifically mainspring) would not only run on bad time but also, as you potentially have coils stuck together through magnetic forces, you lose some PR as well? This may also explain why Omega are happy to fail their movements if they don't pass a high threshold for power reserve as they're also fairly anti-magnetic so would indicate a more serious problem than 'just' a magnetised spring.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by rkovars »

monkeymax wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:46 pm Is it possible - and I think it might be considering the mechanics behind these movements - that a magnetised movement (or specifically mainspring) would not only run on bad time but also, as you potentially have coils stuck together through magnetic forces, you lose some PR as well? This may also explain why Omega are happy to fail their movements if they don't pass a high threshold for power reserve as they're also fairly anti-magnetic so would indicate a more serious problem than 'just' a magnetised spring.
Most mainsprings today are non-magnetic (alloys of mostly cobalt and nickel). Hodinkee Mainspring Deep Dive

Omega has a non-magnetic silicon hairspring too. The hairspring is the most likely culprit when a watch is magnetized.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by monkeymax »

rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:01 pmMost mainsprings today are non-magnetic (alloys of mostly cobalt and nickel). Hodinkee Mainspring Deep Dive

Omega has a non-magnetic silicon hairspring too. The hairspring is the most likely culprit when a watch is magnetized.
Thanks. I knew that Omega and others use silicon hairsprings (e.g. Tissot and the family of movements similar to the PowerMatic 80) but I wasn't sure whether that applied to ETA and Sellita movements too. If their movements are also mostly nickel and cobalt as the article says, then yes, it won't be that.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by rkovars »

monkeymax wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:27 pm
rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 4:01 pmMost mainsprings today are non-magnetic (alloys of mostly cobalt and nickel). Hodinkee Mainspring Deep Dive

Omega has a non-magnetic silicon hairspring too. The hairspring is the most likely culprit when a watch is magnetized.
Thanks. I knew that Omega and others use silicon hairsprings (e.g. Tissot and the family of movements similar to the PowerMatic 80) but I wasn't sure whether that applied to ETA and Sellita movements too. If their movements are also mostly nickel and cobalt as the article says, then yes, it won't be that.
ETA and Sellita use Nivarox hairsprings which are ferromagnetic.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by Internaut »

Mine neither. One and only time I did anything a bit scientific, I got around 52 hours. It's one of those things I'll probably get around to testing agin when I send it in for its first service.

As for 56 hours? For me, not really enough of a stretch over 38-42 to be any more useful than bog standard.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by thomcat00 »

ajax87 wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:54 pm
jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:47 pm
rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:44 pm I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
Mostly, yes. But I think a higher PR is also a sign of higher quality materials and better engineering used in the design and build of the movement, indicating better reliability and longevity.
A higher PR can also be achieved by reducing the movement frequency, without impacting accuracy of a basic three-hander. Affecting the movement to drop it from 4Hz to 3Hz is easier than engineering to add another barrel, for example.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by rkovars »

thomcat00 wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 5:56 pm
ajax87 wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:54 pm
jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:47 pm

Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
Mostly, yes. But I think a higher PR is also a sign of higher quality materials and better engineering used in the design and build of the movement, indicating better reliability and longevity.
A higher PR can also be achieved by reducing the movement frequency, without impacting accuracy of a basic three-hander. Affecting the movement to drop it from 4Hz to 3Hz is easier than engineering to add another barrel, for example.
Another Hodinkee Deep Dive on frequency. Definitely worth the time to read.
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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by nbg »

jkbarnes wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:47 pm
rkovars wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:44 pm I was curious about this too. I checked the datasheet when this thread was originally posted and it is a minimum. There was a pretty good discussion I heard recently about PR and whether or not 56 is useful. Pretty much anything over 24 gets the job done for a daily and 56 might not get you through a weekend. An interesting discussion to be sure.
Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense in terms of the practicality of a power reserve. I wonder if it’s become a marketing thing then, kinda like the pixel wars with camera sensors? Bigger number for the sake of bigger number.
The power reserve of a watch is important to me. Yes I have a few that only have a PR of 38hrs, but they were bought knowing they would only be worn occasionally.

I tend to have 3 watches set and running at any given time. These will be the main watches that I wear during a week, maybe longer. Yes I may pick up another watch in that period and wear it for a day, before letting it run down, as I know I won’t pick it up again for another month or so.

It’s easy enough to keep three set and running, if they have a decent power reserve. I think I have probably worn seven watches over the past couple of weeks. The three main ones have PR of 58, 60 and 72 hours. Easy enough to pick up, put down as I wish, without any stopping and whilst keeping a good level of accuracy (I don’t use watch winders). The three are all still running and when I checked this morning the timing ranged from +1s-+8s cumulative over the past weeks.

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Re: Not getting 56 hours with C63 GMT

Post by ajax87 »

2nd attempt for me got 50 hours. Maybe I didn’t wind it fully, it is difficult to tell. But that’s fine with me, plus I’m sick of not wearing it :lol:
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