OMEGA SEAMASTER CHRONOMETER SLOW
Rabbann
I have owned an Omega Seamater Pro since December 2002.
The watch runs consistently 2 seconds slow per day, every day.
I wear it 24hrs a day so it should get plenty of movement to keep it wound
up.
I know that the COSC certification allows -4 +6 per day, but I have read
about many Seamasters running truer than mine.
Is this something that can be easily fixed by a qualified Omega repair agent
, or am I being a bit pedantic about a watch that I spent $3000 on ?
Regards
Tony
Thore B. Karlsen
wrote:
You are being pedantic. It can be regulated since it's consistently
slow, but it may end up being more inaccurate.
You spent $3000 on it? Even if that's Australian dollars, I hope that
Seamaster is pure gold or something.
--
Be seeing you.
Jack Forster
>From: Thore B. Karlsen s...@6581.com
>Date: 5/6/2003 9:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <4lefbvk4k6d6u88p8...@4ax.com>
-2 sec/day is excellent performance for a wristwatch; it might be possible to
get it to run more accurately but it would hardly be worth the expense and
effort, in all likelihood.
To get an idea of what's involved in improving the accuracy of a watch with
very good factory performance, you might want to look at Walt Odet's excellent
article, "Tweaking the Mark XII," on timezone.com. Go to www.timezone.com, to
the menu bar, and click on "The Horologium" to find the article archived. It's
a very nicely written piece by a non-professional but very skilled amateur
horologist, and may be of interest.
Usually folks with performance better than yours are just lucky, in the sense
that the personal error they introduce happens to almost exactly cancel out the
rate error and difference in rate over positions of the timepiece. -2 sec/day
is about as good as it gets without a lot of very expensive labor, or a very
inexpensive quartz watch.
Hope this helps,
Jack Forster
NYS Licensed Acupuncturist
Amateur Horology, Feng Shui
Martial Arts & other Obsolete Technologies
Jack Denver
what the Odets article about, is indeed labor intensive. However, a watch
that has a constant error in one direction in normal use, as Rabbann
reports, probably does not need further adjustment for position (and an
Omega chronometer has already been adjusted for position at the factory).
All it needs is simple regulation, which is very inexpensive. Anyone (good)
who works on mechanical watches, not just an "Omega agent" should be able to
do this. The hard part is being able to move the regulator only enough to
effect a 2 second change, but the etachron regulator which I believe this
watch has (eccentric screw type regulator) can resolve this fine a change.
But there is still a distinct chance that the 1st try at regulation will
overcompensate in the other direction and send the watch fast - it may take
2 or 3 tries to improve the performance instead of making it worse, even on
a timing machine.
But, if I owned this watch, what I woud do first is experiment with night
storage postions. First of all, you should be taking the watch off at
night.... you don't need to tell the time when you are sleeping and wearing
the watch in bed (which is a surprisingly dusty place) is that much more
opportunity to contaminate your watch. Likewise, you should take the watch
off when you shower or bathe - the soap and shampoo are not good for the
seals and you are just asking for unneccessary trouble.
All mechanical watches, no matter how well adjusted, run at slightly
different rates in different postions. Your 2 second error is really an
average based on the different positions you assume during the day - maybe
the watch runs faster when it is crown down as you walk, slower crystal up
when you sit at a desk, etc. You should be able to elimate even your very
minor 2 second error just by finding a storage position for your watch in
which it runs a little faster - try them all for a night or two each (6
possible positions) until you find the right one that eliminates the error.
If you really get to know your watch (and if it is already regulated to
within the range of its positional errors, as this watch almost surely is)
you can play it like a piano and send it fast or slow at night by storing in
the right position and thus keep it in almost perfect time without
disturbing the regulator.
"Jack Forster" <tcm...@aol.comblabla> wrote in message
news:20030506095036...@mb-m24.aol.com...
Jack Forster
performance is already good a simple regulation is not a complex or labor
intensive matter.
Still, I think you'll agree -2 sec/day is pretty good- and the Odets article
still makes for interesting reading, inasmuch as it clarifies the difference
between regulation and adjusting for positions, which I seem to have
forgotten!
Regards,
Jack Forster
"Jack Denver" <nunu...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:wpacnWXLV93...@comcast.com...
Jack Denver
alternative is to do nothing and just reset the watch once a month when the
watch is a minute off..many months you have to open the crown anyway to set
the calendar and its no big deal to tweak the hands a minute. Anyone who has
a true need to resolve time to within less than 1 minute shouldn't be
wearing a mechanical.
"Jack Forster" <tcm...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:6ZQta.329$h42...@twister.nyc.rr.com...
Rabbann
Thank you very much for the advice. I will reset the time and
experiment with different watch positions.
Regards
Tony