The Breitling Watch Source Forums

i can only wear one watch at a time, i'm finding out quickly i need a winder.
can somebody point me in the right direction.
especially dealing with the weight, size and movement of the avenger skyland.

Do a search for watch winder and you will get A LOT OF post regarding this topic.

The more popular winders are Orbita, Official Time, Wolfe and a lot more where that came from. Most people here will tell you to stay away from the $100 eBay winders because they either dont allow the watches to wind down (no rest period) or are very noisy or are just junk and break. You get what you pay for, but there are bargains out there.

I am looking into a dual (or maybe quad) from my AD. Its a KC local company that makes them and they are called something like Revolution or something. The dual is around $650 and the quad is like $1150, but the cool thing is solid wood case with locking glass door and watch drawer, PC programable rotation times and directions, and locking cups. I looked at them and they seem to be real nice. Only down side is the cost and no real world field test of longevity.

The wolfe 1.0 I have works great....except for the watch pillow/cup isnt really designed for a heavy watch. I had to get creative to make sure my EVO wouldnt fall out of the winder ...again! For a lighter watch they are a decent deal at under $200.

Hope this helps

Scott

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Breitling Steelfish(black)
Breitling Steelfish(silver)
Panerai PAM 312
Bell & Ross BR03-92 Phantom
Steinhart BreitlingSource LE #5/15

BroncoSport, can you elaborate on how much wind down time a winder should allow a watch? like are these cheap ebay ones you reference running constantly? i have one i think is pretty decent. it runs 650, 750, 850, or 1000 turns per day, in either direction or alternating both. on 650 turns/day it rests about 12 mins then turns for 1. every other setting turns 1 minute and rests a proportionately smaller amount of time. should it ideally pause for a couple of hours at some point during the day? My Chron Evo stays wound at the minimum setting (clockwise ony), same with the B2 (winds in both directions). Should i just shut it off every other day or something to allow more wind down time?

Thanks for any advice.

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Super Avenger
Chronomat Evolution
B2

With most of the automatic watches out there, they have a 42 hour min reserve power when fully wound. I am not expert but I would think that a "rest" period of 8-20 hours would be ideal. That way the watch would wind down to half capacity or more. I would check your winders documentation. If your winder allows for a certain number of turns a day and then rest in between turn cycles.. you should be ok, that would definitely be better than constant rotation. I would say keep it on the lower setting for number of turns. I would think that if you have it set for 650 turns then eventually during the 24 hour period it will be done for the day and may shut off (pause) until the start of the next days program. My Wolfe single watch winder, rotates for a program cycle and rest for a bit then repeats and eventually rest for 12 hours.

The cheat winders not only dont rest at all, but a lot of them turn way to fast. They also use cheaper parts and will get noisier as the time goes on or just flat out quit. What brand is your winder and where did you get it?

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Breitling Steelfish(black)
Breitling Steelfish(silver)
Panerai PAM 312
Bell & Ross BR03-92 Phantom
Steinhart BreitlingSource LE #5/15

Thanks for the response. I'll check tonight the winder brand. i bought it on ebay, but it wasn't the cheapest one. I can say for sure that 650 turns per day (my minimum setting) keeps all 3 of my watches wound completely. I guess that's obvious if they are found running every day with no time lost. anyway, i turned it off for the last 36 hours and they were all still running. Here is what i have decided to do. I buy into your 'let it rest' idea, allowing the main spring to relax 50-80% once in a while. So i grabbed a digital timer i had from something else, and plugged the winder into the AC timer. The i programmed the timer to cycle on for 24hrs off for 24 hours. So my watches now will rest for 24 hours every other day, and if this doesnt keep them wound, i'll reduce the rest period. anyway, maybe the cheaper winders could be 'enhanced' with this 15$ home depot timer... fyi, my winder doesnt turn very fast, it eyeballs at 1 revolution every 3 seconds when it's on (which is not continuously). I'll post the winder details, because i'm pretty happy with it, and it holds heavy watches no prob.

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Super Avenger
Chronomat Evolution
B2