Hi, my Dynamic is a manual wind with the Caliber 601. It is fairly resistant to winding (especially compared to my mid 60s Seiko). I can wind it maybe 25 times before it stops. It runs for about a day and a half before stopping (but in a few cases sooner).

Any reactions? How long does a newly serviced 601 run on a full wind? Should it be easy to wind or a bit tight?

 

Power reserve should be 48 hours for a serviced watch in good condition with a new mainspring.
The mainspring will require 6 to 7 turns from full slack to full wind (lots of turns on the crown).
If the crown is hard to turn it may be lack of lubricant, a problem with the split stem, or any other reason.

Maybe a visit to a watchmaker is in order.

 

Thanks for the helpful responses. Have people found that watches that have been sitting for a while start to run longer with use?

 

Find freshly serviced watches a touch harder to wind than before a service. A new main spring and unworn seals on stems might add to the resistance but will wear down over a few weeks
A new speedmaster takes a few to 6 weeks to get easier to wind, new ST is like I remember the moonwatch I wear most days was when I first got it.( a lot harder to wind with a bit of push back at the end of winding )

 

I'll say it one more time - please take the information on that site with a very large grain of salt - the information is often quite wrong, as in this case. Omega lists the power reserve of the 601 as 38 hours, not 48.

It's not uncommon for watches to run longer than the stated reserve by a few hours, but the reserve on this one is listed as 38.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks everyone for the help.

As if in response to this thread, the Omega is still running strong at 58 hours! I'm not sure why so much more than previous winds. It is possible that I was being overly cautious previously and not giving it a full wind given the resistance.

 

In my experience they run longer than 38h, maybe it is a conservative minimum

 

Yes, of course it is - pretty much all companies understate the power reserve by a few hours. I've seen how easily people on forums are "impressed" with a power reserve that goes beyond the rated reserve, so it's something the brands do a lot. 42 hours is not uncommon with these and if it's in exceptional shape, maybe a bit longer, but not 20 hours.

If you have that watch still running at 58 hours, I suspect that whoever did the last service has installed a generic mainspring that is longer than what should be in there. Given the restrictions now in place with original parts, and that fact that the mainspring is probably the most easily substituted part in the movement (you can get away with quite a few differences when selecting mainspring size and still get a functional watch) I expect that getting very unusual reserves from watches will be more common as the supply of original parts dries up on the open market.

Cheers, Al

 

Interesting thread as I have a 601 being serviced at the moment

 

Sorry I hit reply too soon. I know my watchmaker has found an Omega crystal and crown for my Seamaster 120 and also needs to replace the mainspring. But not certain if mainspring is OEM.

 

Apologies for the thread drift, but do vintage movements have huge differencee in power reserves between say the 1930s and the 1960s?
I know a WWII 30T2SC movement should be about 36 hours as I seem to recall it was the required spec for the British military.
My watchmaker says a movement running for 30 hours or more on a single wind should usually be deemed in good health.
He wasn’t talking about Omega specifically, does this apply to all vintage generations though?

 

For the 30 mm movements Omega made, they are rated by Omega at 32 hours of power reserve.

Regarding the idea that any watch that runs more than 30 hours on a single wind is in good health, well that's one opinion certainly. It's one I don't share, and it's sort of like saying scoring 90 on a test is good...until you realize the test is scored out of 1000 and not 100. Omega's power reserve hours are the minimum the watch should run after being fully wound, so right away even on a watch with only a 32 hour reserve, Omega would say a watch that only runs 30 would have failed a quality check.

Power reserve can vary quite a lot between different movement makers, and between different movements. It is a function of gearing ratios and the length of the mainspring.

***Generalization warning***

In many cases it simply comes down to real estate available in the movement, and since vintage watches on average tend to have larger balances than modern watches, there was less real estate available for a larger barrel and longer mainspring. I also believe that since people were used to manually winding a watch every day, and many people would have had and worn only one watch every day, there wasn't the "need" for longer power reserves.

Cheers, Al

 

He was talking about a watch found in the wild which has not been serviced, as a preliminary symptom of whether the movement suffered impediments or internal issues prior to a formal inspection.
And he may have been talking about the 1930s -1940s which are my era of predilection, I just don’t know.

 

Okay, but I'm still not sure how useful a measurement it is even to make a preliminary judgement on a watch, let alone to say it is in "good health" although I'm not sure what that really means in this context.

For example some of the best condition vintage pocket watch movements I've purchased were fully wound and not running. They had been bought new, worn until they gummed up and stopped sometime back in the 40's or 50's, then thrown in a drawer until some ancestor listed them on eBay decades later. They had not been abused by hack watchmakers over the years, or run to the point where they were all worn out inside. So by the 30 hour test I probably should pass on those, and if I did I would have missed out on some great condition movements - virtually brand new and running great after a routine service with only a new mainspring required.

Power reserve can be a useful measurement for understanding if a service has been done correctly, or if a watch you have owned for a while might be in need of service (often the reserve will drop off and the watch will stop earlier as it needs servicing) but for determining the condition of a movement inside a watch in the wild, I'm not sure it's of much use.

Cheers, Al

 

Ok, well it hasn’t stopped me from buying non runners. Thanks for your input.

 

I have a manual 601 Seamaster. It lasts 42 hours on a full wind.......also gains 3 minutes so time for a service!

 

OK...I realized that my magical 58 hour reserve happened because I absentmindedly wound the watch a couple times...

It is actually doing 45-47 hours per full wind, and loses about one minute over that time -

Is that accuracy decent? Based on this performance would a service be indicated?