I'm new to luxury watches, and the Apollo 8 is my first and only one so far. This forum has been very helpful for educating me . My brother, who is a confirmed WIS, sent me his Lepsi watch analyzer, so I've been playing with it. I've found a quiet, non-magnetized area for it, calibrated it, and set the lift angle to 50 degrees.

My methodology is to attach the watch to the holder, position the holder in the desired orientation, let the watch sit for at least 10 minutes, then run the test for approximately 10 minutes. I've been doing just the Dial on Top tests for several days with repeatable results.

Yesterday I did the first all-position tests, with these results:




My concern is the significant beat error for Dial on Top and Crown on Left.

In general, the watch runs about 2 sec/day fast, sitting dial up for about 10 hours/day and on my wrist the rest of the time.

Is the large Beat Error a problem that I should have looked at? My forum searches haven't uncovered what the beat error limits are, but everything shows errors in the 0-0.4ms range. The Amplitude also shows a large variation between positions. Is this normal?

Thanks for any advice!

Peter

 

The technical stuff is over my head, but if your Speedmaster is within 2 seconds a day, I'd be very happy. That's great for a mechanical watch and certainly within specs. What's the power reserve, which I believe is supposed to be 48 hours?

 

Not the only one...

 

Are you performing the tests at full wind?

 

In this case it was about 6 hours after winding. Other tests showing the large error in the Dial on Top position had been done with full winding and roughly 10 hours after winding.

 

I've retested the watch, starting 25 hours after winding it. The Amplitude and Beat Error have smaller variances now, although the rate still varies considerably between positions.

 

I can't address why the positional variance occurs but would offer that in both cases you've shown the averaged rate variance meets the COSC tolerances (and the 186X movements aren't claimed to be COSC certified).

You certainly could bring the watch to your OB or AD to send in for evaluation, but you'll likely lose the watch for 6-10 weeks. Only you can decide if it's worth doing that.

 

Most likely, the Lepsi's pick-up is getting background noise/vibration which is not associated with the watch.

 

Other than the beat error, none of the numbers you are showing are of concern for this watch. You say that the rate "varies considerably between positions" but it's actually very good for this watch.

I suspect the beat error is related more to the timing machine than the watch. It would be highly unusual to have a beat error vary from 0.4 to 8.2 in different positions, in particular when all the other numbers are fine.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks, Al. My watch knowledge is definitely at the "knows enough to be dangerous" level . Your postings on OF have been very helpful so far!

I'll experiment with the Lepsi location and setup and keep testing the dial up position, and see what I get.

Peter

 

Looks great regardless. This watch keeps growing on me and now I want it more than the 50th anniversary piece.

 

That's exactly how I ended up with it. I started looking at Omega's site when the 50th watches were announced, but when I saw Apollo 8, I knew I had to have that instead . Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman may be having a mail-in signing event this fall, so I'm hoping to get the box autographed.

Peter