Hello OF!

I just bought this Omega Speedmaster Professional (31130423001005) on eBay. I’m beginning to think that was a bad idea but I went ahead because I got a killer deal.

I received the watch today and immediately put it on. After about five minutes, condensation started forming on the inside of the crystal:

Obviously, I would think this is not normal. I messaged the seller and he confirmed to me that the day before it was shipped he pressure tested and made sure the gaskets were intact. From our interactions I don't think it will be a problem to get the watch repaired / changed out on his dime, but we'll see. The seller is a well-known eBayer from Miami (I'm going to withhold his name at this time until I run into serious issues with getting this fixed).

Anyways, my question is: Although it's not normal, what is the cause of this, and what is the fix? I don't want to open the watch just yet to check the movement, but would this amount of condensation degrade it in any way?

Thanks,

Radiozoop

 

Is the condensation on the outside or inside of the crystal? Inside is worse as you generally don't want any water risking damage to the metal parts or lubricants.

Probably need a bit more info like where are you located and also if the watch has experienced rapid temp change, also if this watch came from Miami there could very well be that the gaskets held up in the pressure test but the naturally more humid air still got inside the watch naturally over time.

If the seller is worth their salt then they'll get it fixed stat or offer a replacement if indeed the condensation is on the inside of the case.

 

This means moist is in the case and that’s bad. Have it fixed on his dime. Ask for a receipt that states what’s been done, where and by whom. Good luck!

 

Thank you kind sir! The seller told me to open the crown, stick a bag of dessicant and the watch in a ziploc for few hours. This is fine, but I’m concerned about this reoccurring. Should I send it to him regardless?

Thanks,

Radiozoop

 

That will fix it. But don’t trust the water proofing.

 

yes, get the seller to fix it while you still can.

 

Er, just wondering: How would condensation on the OUTSIDE of a watch even be something of concern let alone related to the watch? LOL
If you walk outside in certain extremely humid climates, condensation forms on things like glasses, camera lenses, people, cars, watches ... that's not the fault of the item the condensation forms on.

 

never under estimate users.... There are no stupid questions in tech support.

If it is in fact on the outside... then... its not an issue.

 

Nothing on snopes about this. That is my go to source to validate, and also Face Book.

I think the rice thing is an urban myth when it comes to watches.

When a watch is pressure tested, do they check for moisture inside the watch?

How did the moisture get inside if it was tested?

 

Since the condensation subject keeps coming up, I made a little spreadsheet to roughly estimate water vapor diffusion through a seal into a watch. The interesting result (to me, at least) is that watches are kind of on the edge of developing condensation issues after a few years, even if none of the seals fail catastrophically, just from diffusion through the crown gasket. I'm assuming the crown gasket still seals with the crown pulled out, which has to be true at least for dive watches, otherwise condensation issues in cool water would develop immediately, since the air in the watch volume would be at the relative humidity of the surroundings after a short time (I'm guessing minutes) with the crown pulled.

You are excused from further reading if you have a number allergy....

Assumptions:

permeation coefficient for water vapor through Viton: K= 100x10^-15 m^2s^-1hPa^-1 (I picked a value that seems to be mid-range)
crown gasket area A: 10 mm^2 (3mm diameter o-ring, pushed into a square cross section of 1mm by 1mm)
crown gasket thickness d: 1mm
water vapor saturation pressure at 25C: 20 hPa (from this follows that 50% relative humidity at 25C corresponds to 10 hPa)
water vapor saturation pressure at 10C: 8.2 hPa
watch volume: 5 cm^3 (watch is 1cm high, 2cm radius; 50% of volume taken by movement)

Results:
Starting with a completely dry watch, and storing it at 50% relative humidity at 25C,
after one year you have 6% relative humidity at 25C in the watch (and 15% at 10C), and after
eight years you are at 40% RH @25C and 100% RH (=condensation) at 10C.
If you start with 25% RH at 25C in the watch (still a relatively dry assembly area), then it takes less than four years to reach the 100% RH @10C point.

Conclusion:
If you assume a larger seal area, or a smaller watch volume, or a higher storage humidity, or a lower water (=crystal) temperature,
condensation will appear earlier.
So, there does not seem to be a lot of margin, and having the watch assembled with dry gas inside could double your time until condensation can become an issue.

 

Get it opened up, dried out and assessed (on the seller's dime) as quickly as you can. You don't know with 100% certainty the water was from the test the day before, do you? Maybe it has been wet in there a while and parts are corroding.

 

This seems to be based on the assumption the watch cases are closed/ sealed in a zero RH environment. I do not think that is the, uh, case. It is definitely not the case at your local watchmaker's shop. It seems to me that the rate of diffusion simply dictates how long it takes the air inside the watch to equalize to the RH, temp and pressure of whatever environment the watch is currently exposed to.

 

If I read this right you are only calculating for the crown? Case backseal +pusher seals+crystal adds considerably to the potential areas of ingress.

 

Send it back, or tell him you will take it to a watch maker to get it serviced and he pays.

 

Forget telling the seller to get it fixed. Demand a full refund including return shipping. Why mess with the watch?

 

Would this be our favourite Miami based, paperclip wielding seller?

 

I agree send it back.

 

It's on the inside. Top of the crystal. It is from Miami but I'm also in Florida so the temperature change shouldn't be that drastic.

 

It's on the inside of the watch. It may not be the watches fault, but certainly the seller should not have sold me a watch with condensation in it. Especially if it's advertised as being pressure tested and gaskets changed.

Haha, as an IT/enginerd this couldn't be more true (just not with this user)

I'm not drying with rice, as you're correct that it's an old wives' tale. I'm using desiccant which is designed for exactly these purposes.

No number fear here. As I said above I'm an engineer and thinking through something just like you posted has crossed my mind. Thanks for the information!

I'm not too sure if the water test had anything to do with it. Do they actually use water to test for that? I thought it was strictly a pressure test to make sure the gaskets were not leaking. Thanks for your suggestion!

I'm definitely leaning towards something like this no matter if my desiccant dries it or not. I don't want a reoccurrence of this issue.

I'll release the information to warn everyone if this goes south (no pun intended). So far he hasn't been a pain but we will see

 

If you can’t trust the seller to properly test the watch before you bought it, you won’t be able to trust his service of the watch. Get your money back!