From Fast to Slow

[Jedi]

Hey folks,

My 16610 (SS Sub Date, just in case) was consistently at +1/day after service and regulation for about a month.

Now, it's decided to do the following: It suddenly ran -1/day for a few days, so I re-set it just to see. After re-set, it lost 2 seconds within about 3 hours, then went on about 4 days now without further loss.

I've even kept it overnight in the dial up position with no change in terms of speeding it up.

Gonna try it dial down tonight just to see. I seem to remember my watchmaker telling me that this 16610 speeds up crown up, so will try that tomorrow. He deduced that from checking it out on a vibrograph.

Any ideas why this has happened??

I'm asking this not because I'm worried or annoyed, as the watch is PRECISE, I mean, more precise than it's ever been since service and regulation. I'm just curious

Anyhow, thanks for reading.

[Erix]

Hi...maybe the watch is just settling in after the service.
I have a 16610 and the way I set it at nigth has almost no impact at all.
I have tried all positions just to check out the difference ( 10 nigths each position)
The difference between fastest and slowest was about 0.3s/day.

[Jedi]

Merci monsieur!

Here's a little more info.

About 2 weeks after service, it was running +3/day, and when I set it crown down after checking it on a vibrograph, it would lose 2 secs overnight, giving me a nett gain of +1/day. This was consistent behaviour until it decided to now run -2 straight after setting and pretty much deviating at the most -1/day.

I'm almost tempted to regulate it again, just to see!

[SPACE-DWELLER]

Hi Lee,

as suggested, give it some more time to settle in.

[Jedi]

The personal amazement and satisfaction factor just keeps on going.

I think it's settled now. Hanging steady at +/-0 for a week now, while remaining at -2sec from UTC. I'm actually afraid to re-set it, due to a superstitious streak in me that suggests maybe re-setting the watch may throw it onto another tangent!!

I'm going to shift my attention from the 16610 to the 116520 next week!!

[Jedi]

Okay, quick update...

I was thinking about power reserves and it's implications on performance and accuracy and what not, and also happened to be reading an article in Revolution magazine on the Seiko Spring Drive mechanism...

So I wound up the 16610 manually and placed it dial up overnight.

Now, about 10 hours later, without re-setting, she's synched with GMT, picked up the 3 seconds somewhere along the line.

This is proving to be totally fascinating.