Hello, two and a half month owner of a new Seamaster Professional 300m with caliber 8800. Recently, I went to go wind up my Semester and set the date and time. I totally forgot about the so called forbidden zone and advanced the date wheel 3 days ahead with the hour and minute hands at 12:40am, I'm assuming it was am and not pm, however, I am not certain.

My Seamaster's date function works just fine and instantly advances about 32 seconds before midnight. If I have made any damage to the date function will it be obvious by now? Can there be loosen or broken parts? I am not familiar with the mechanics of a date wheel so any enlightenment is welcome. Would also welcome details about the caliber 8800, such as if it has safeties built in to prevent damage when it comes to the forbidden zone. Also, Omega's wording in the owners manual for 8800 says they "would not recommend" changing the date between 8pm and 2am; what do the words would not recommend exactly mean? I will remember from now on not to change the date in the forbidden zone. This was a one time mistake.

 

Simply reading between the lines of the manual i would be inclined to think there are no dedicated safety measures built into the movement, or it may be the case there is very limited protection against it.
As a one time occurrence I should image everything is OK

Just make sure you keep it in mind going forward

 

If it's still working fine, you are good. There is little risk of damage on this particular movement.

 

Still working just fine! Glad to see no obvious damage and that there is low risk of harming the movement.

 

Just keep an eye on this. On my cal. 9300 the problem would only show once a month, on the day I messed up the movement, and it would only happen when the movement itself moved the date, not when I set the time. If you see that the date doesn't advance properly or is misaligned, take it to the OB or AD and get it fixed, it should be covered by warranty. (Just tell them there's some problem and you don't know where it comes from)

 

What was the problem on your 8300? Would the date on that particular day be misaligned?

 

yes, the date wouldn't fully advance from the 23rd to 24th, it would be stuck in the middle or 2/3. but only on that day, the rest of the month would work fine. so it took me two months to realize that the movement was damaged.

 

Ohh I see, would it be necessary to witness the actual date change or just check the day in the morning if it is aligned properly?

 

the 8300 date changes slowly, so watching it takes too long, you'd see the next morning, it was quite obvious

but I wouldn't worry too much, I think the 8800 is a way more advanced movement and even if you would have an issue, they will fix it for you under warranty

 

So what exactly is the forbidden zone, does it apply on the 8900 movement?

 

Most movements with date complication have it. You're not supposed to use the quickset date function (for 8900 the hour hand function) between 9pm and 3 am as that is when the gears of the movement are changing the date wheel, else there is a chance you damage the movement. It's in every Omega manual, but nobody reads that anyhow...

 

But it does not apply to movements such as the 8900 that have the quick set hour hand that you also use to change the date.

 

you're right, the manual doesn't have a warning for the 8900, but it also doesn't have one for the 9300, the one I had...

 

Well the 9300 also has the quick set hour hand right? You can use it to change the date any time you want and even move it backwards (though my OCD doesn't allow me to do that).

 

Yes, it does have the hour adjustment, which I used a lot when I was still travelling… after this incident my OCD went into overdrive about the danger zone