Power reserve

[Nycprincess]

I recently bought my first watch, a Lady Datejust 28. My understanding is that the power reserve for the 2236 movement is 55 hours. But if I don't wear it over the weekend, by Monday it isn't keeping time. It will say Saturday's date. I even picked it up this past Sat morning to move it. And this morning, it has Sunday's date. It seems to suggest that it is only keeping one day's power reserve.

Is it atypical to be so much lower than the listed power reserve?

[ImSorryBut...]

Time for service

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by ImSorryBut...

Time for service

Yea I was thinking to bring it in but wanted to sanity check first that this isn’t normal

[Snow-Dweller]

Are you fully winding the watch?

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by Snow-Dweller

Are you fully winding the watch?

What does that mean? This is my first automatic movement watch. I just reset the time if it stops. Is there something else I have to do?

[Snow-Dweller]

Originally Posted by Nycprincess

What does that mean? This is my first automatic movement watch. I just reset the time if it stops. Is there something else I have to do?

Unscrew the crown and wind it 40 or 50 times. Then set the time. I believe you can read the full instructions on the Rolex website

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by Snow-Dweller

Unscrew the crown and wind it 40 or 50 times. Then set the time. I believe you can read the full instructions on the Rolex website

Thank you

[extra260]

Its possible that your daily activity level isn't sufficient enough to keep the watch fully wound. If this is the case you may need to hand wind every other day to top it off or put it in a winder when you go to bed.

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by extra260

Its possible that your daily activity level isn't sufficient enough to keep the watch fully wound. If this is the case you may need to hand wind every other day to top it off or put it in a winder when you go to bed.

But it’s ok when I wear it during the week. I haven’t experienced it so far other than when I don’t wear it on the weekend. If that were so, wouldn’t it not keep time during the week as well?

[extra260]

Originally Posted by Nycprincess

But it’s ok when I wear it during the week. I haven’t experienced it so far other than when I don’t wear it on the weekend. If that were so, wouldn’t it not keep time during the week as well?

If you are wearing it every day during the week then you would never know if it is fully wound or not. You would only be relying on the power reserve to get you thru the night.

[pickettt]

I’ve never found any of my Rolex to hold the advertised reserve. I have no problem while wearing them, they just don’t like to be set down for much more than a day.

[Rick_Nashville]

A small tip for the manual winding of your watch. Before attempting to manually wind it, get to know the three positions of the crown. First, unscrew the crown. The innermost 'unscrewed' position is for manual winding. Gently pull out the crown to the 2nd position. This is for changing the date. Gently pull out the crown to the 3rd position. This is for adjusting the minute hand, i.e. setting the time. My advice is that sometimes when you unscrew & pull out the crown to the 1st position, you're often *not* fully 'in' the 1st position for manual winding. It helps to do one of two things here. With the crown unscrewed and in the 1st position, gently wind the crown backwards (counterclockwise) a half a turn and you will feel it engage into the manual winding position. The other option is to simply pull out the crown to either the 2nd or 3rd position and then gently push it back to the 1st position. This also assists in getting the crown fully engaged and into the manual winding position. (if you are not fully engaged in the winding position, you will notice absolutely no winding resistance, and you're not actually winding the watch). This all sounds a lot more difficult than it really is. If you practice it a few times, it will become 'second nature'. As others have stated, even with the 55 hr power reserve, the reserve will eventually be used up and the watch will stop without occasional manual winding and/or lots of daily wearing with physical movement and activity.

Enjoy your watch. There's nothing wrong with it.

Kind regards, -Rick.

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by Rick_Nashville

A small tip for the manual winding of your watch. Before attempting to manually wind it, get to know the three positions of the crown. First, unscrew the crown. The innermost 'unscrewed' position is for manual winding. Gently pull out the crown to the 2nd position. This is for changing the date. Gently pull out the crown to the 3rd position. This is for adjusting the minute hand, i.e. setting the time. My advice is that sometimes when you unscrew & pull out the crown to the 1st position, you're often *not* fully 'in' the 1st position for manual winding. It helps to do one of two things here. With the crown unscrewed and in the 1st position, gently wind the crown backwards (counterclockwise) a half a turn and you will feel it engage into the manual winding position. The other option is to simply pull out the crown to either the 2nd or 3rd position and then gently push it back to the 1st position. This also assists in getting the crown fully engaged and into the manual winding position. (if you are not fully engaged in the winding position, you will notice absolutely no winding resistance, and you're not actually winding the watch). This all sounds a lot more difficult than it really is. If you practice it a few times, it will become 'second nature'. As others have stated, even with the 55 hr power reserve, the reserve will eventually be used up and the watch will stop without occasional manual winding and/or lots of daily wearing with physical movement and activity.

Enjoy your watch. There's nothing wrong with it.

Kind regards, -Rick.

Haha I will reread this properly when I can sit down with it. Thank you for sharing.

[Rolexoman]

Originally Posted by pickettt

I’ve never found any of my Rolex to hold the advertised reserve. I have no problem while wearing them, they just don’t like to be set down for much more than a day.

I fully wound my DJII 3136 two days ago and it stopped this a.m at 06:30 so that’s 47 hrs and I believe it’s rated for 48 but it’s only an hour off.

[Rolexoman]

Give that crown about 30 turns or so and wear everyday.

[af_schulten]

I manually wind my BLNR 40-45 turns every Monday to keep the internals in good working order...cannot remember where I read that to be a good idea, but sounded logical and shouldn't come close to hurting the watch. I'm guessing that if you did this on Friday when you took it off for the weekend that you should find the watch fully functioning on Monday.

Maybe a wild guess, but saying you take it off Friday at 5pm (after work-ish)...
Fri 1700hrs to Sat 1700hrs = 24hrs
Sat 1700hrs to Sun 1700hrs = 48hrs
Sun 1700hrs to Mon 0500hrs = 60hrs

Makes sense to me that if you take off your watch sometime shortly after work or whatever on Friday, without giving a full wind at that time, that it would have stopped by Monday or sometime on Sunday.

[Nycprincess]

Originally Posted by af_schulten

I manually wind my BLNR 40-45 turns every Monday to keep the internals in good working order...cannot remember where I read that to be a good idea, but sounded logical and shouldn't come close to hurting the watch. I'm guessing that if you did this on Friday when you took it off for the weekend that you should find the watch fully functioning on Monday.

Maybe a wild guess, but saying you take it off Friday at 5pm (after work-ish)...
Fri 1700hrs to Sat 1700hrs = 24hrs
Sat 1700hrs to Sun 1700hrs = 48hrs
Sun 1700hrs to Mon 0500hrs = 60hrs

Makes sense to me that if you take off your watch sometime shortly after work or whatever on Friday, without giving a full wind at that time, that it would have stopped by Monday or sometime on Sunday.

If I take it off on Friday at like 6pm tho, I find the date set to Saturday when I pick it up on Monday morning. Wouldn’t that suggest only a day?

[Tools]

Originally Posted by Nycprincess

If I take it off on Friday at like 6pm tho, I find the date set to Saturday when I pick it up on Monday morning. Wouldn’t that suggest only a day?

This is not an indication of the power reserve, this is an indication of how much power that you are putting into it with your activity. It is almost never the actual power reserve capability of the movement.

As mentioned, you would need to fully wind the watch, then walk away until it stops to determine "power reserve" capacity.

[Rolexoman]

Originally Posted by Tools

This is not an indication of the power reserve, this is an indication of how much power that you are putting into it with your activity. It is almost never the actual power reserve capability of the movement.

As mentioned, you would need to fully wind the watch, then walk away until it stops to determine "power reserve" capacity.

Very sound advice sir...this is what I did and it came very close to the advertised reserve

[timvbs]

Generally most people are not active enough during the day for the watch to be fully wound via your body's movement alone. As others have suggested I would manually wind the watch after you take it off on Friday and see how it goes.

[Nycprincess]

Thanks everyone! I’ll try to find a YouTube video or something to figure out how to manually wind it.

[Likestheshiny]

Thanks everyone! I’ll try to find a YouTube video or something to figure out how to manually wind it.

It doesn't take a video. You know when you unscrew the crown to set the time? That's how you wind the watch. Instead of pulling the crown out to the time-setting position, just leave it where it is when you unscrew it, and turn it.

[padi56]

Originally Posted by Nycprincess

I recently bought my first watch, a Lady Datejust 28. My understanding is that the power reserve for the 2236 movement is 55 hours. But if I don't wear it over the weekend, by Monday it isn't keeping time. It will say Saturday's date. I even picked it up this past Sat morning to move it. And this morning, it has Sunday's date. It seems to suggest that it is only keeping one day's power reserve.

Is it atypical to be so much lower than the listed power reserve?

Its approximately 55 hours but that would be on a full manual wind thats 40-50 full crown turns clockwise only.After full manual wind movement should run between 48-55 hours give or take a hour or so off wrist.And just because you are wearing the watch dont mean your winding the movement its wrist movement thats winds the watch.

[Rolexoman]

Padi56 you are correct, I found that after doing a full wind of my DJII I would wear it for several days at the office and on late at the end of the 2 day and early into the third that the time would not be correct so I did some unofficial testing and at the end of the day I would give the crown 5-10 turns and all started working out so now I give the crown a good 40 turns every week and it’s keeping pretty good time.

I kinda figure sitting at a desk does not keep the watch wound enough so I’m trying to figure out a work around but for now a good 40+ turns at the beginning of the week seems to be working

[RtTime]

For me this is a very interesting thread with some insightful responses. Recently I have been rotating my Explorer and on several occasions I noticed that the Explorer had stopped when I had not worn it for less than 30 hours.

I was going to write a post but first I did a little search and discovered this thread. My thanks to NYCPrincess for posting her inquiry.

[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Nycprincess

I recently bought my first watch, a Lady Datejust 28. My understanding is that the power reserve for the 2236 movement is 55 hours. But if I don't wear it over the weekend, by Monday it isn't keeping time. It will say Saturday's date. I even picked it up this past Sat morning to move it. And this morning, it has Sunday's date. It seems to suggest that it is only keeping one day's power reserve.

Is it atypical to be so much lower than the listed power reserve?

55 hours power reserve seems rather excessive but I haven't checked the specs for that movement

Anyway if it is indeed 55 hours, you need to be less sedentary or give it a manual wind to bring the power in the Mainspring up to full capacity before you set the watch aside.

[Jaff03]

Wind fully or time for services.