How watch winders work.

This has been a hot topic on forums since the beginning of watch forums.Why is it a hot topic? because the laws of gravity aren't debatable but since its the internet theres always going to be people who will argue even though they are truely wrong.Two sides to this.Those that say that a watch winder only keeps the watch at its current state of reserve without adding to it and those who say that a winder will put a watch to its full reserve regardless of how low the reserve was when the watch was placed on the winder.

I'll play both parts here.1st part is that it doesn't add to the reserve.The reasons given.on another forum, a member made this statement.when a watch is on the winder and rotating,the rotor doesn't move.The watch itself is rotating while the rotor doesn't move, therefore the reserve is maintained but not added to.
Thats the explanation.But does it make sense? the illustration used was a glass filled with water.if you rotated the glass,the water doesn't move.Well that would certainly be correct but water doesn't have a autowinding system now does it?

The 2nd theory to dissprove the 1st theory.
all automatic watches have a rotor.This is part of the autowind system.its actually a two part system on most watches.other than some seiko and orient movements that don't direct wind at the crown, theres little difference.So lets focus 1st on the direct wind found on the 2824.it takes about forty winds to give the watch its full reserve.the overwind limiter will kick in when its fully wound.so it stays fully wound,you wear the watch all day.The autowind system,the rotor will continue to add reserve as you wear the watch.All watches are most accurate at full wind.on a seiko 7s26/36, its a non crown winding movement.so it relies soley on the autowinding system to get the watch to full reserve.everyone owns a monster so you are familiar with swirling the watch for afew minutes to give it reserve then wear it.While wearing it the rotor keeps moving and adds to the reserve.at the end of the day,you take your watch off and place it on the night stand.in the morning you put the watch back on.Its still running and you wear it for another day.this is repeated throughout the life of the watch is its the only one you wear
every day.Theres never a need to wind it.

Enter the watch winder.The sole purpose of a winder is to keep the watch wound when not wearing it.This is only done when you have a number of automatics in your weekly rotation.If I have 3 autos and 4 quartz watches in rotation, some of the autos would wind down and stop before I would get to them during the week so this is where the winder comes in.To keep these wound during rotation.winders have different settings from 500 tpd to 1100 tpd.why so many revolutions per 24 hours? while the direct wind of the crown goes directly to the main spring and only takes about 40 winds, the autowinding system takes about 800 tpd to accomplish the same thing which is a full reserve.It needs to be full because thats where its most accurate.

one rotation of the rotor will turn the mainspring one click, or one tooth on the main spring barrel.when your watch is in the winder and rotating,the watch is revolving while the rotor doesn't move.but the watch is turning so the autowind system is working.if you held the rotor in your hand and spun the watch, thats the same as holding the watch and spinning the rotor.So 800 tpd keeps it at full reserve.to test this,take a watch thats not running,give it afew swirls to get the second hand moving and put it on the winder.after 24 hours take it off the winder and put it in a display box.it will run for at least 38 to 42 hours.if a winder only maintained the reserve and didn't add to it then since you only had afew seconds of reserve on it when it was placed in the winder, it should have died within minutes of taking it off the winder.

If this still doesn't make sense,I'll shoot another video doing this test using 4 different types of winders.

Very nice walk through on the winder issue. Of course the angle of the winder head, its # of turns, the direction of the turns, etc. all are factors in whether it works for a specific model of watch. There are some winders that have the heads flat and for some watches this does not work at all in EITHER adding to or maintaining their power reserve.

VERY COOL...

The guy could have used a better angle and lighting though!

What a great video ! Extremely informative ! It was
very MacGyver-like using that green mark like that !
Thanks for finding this !!!

Anomaly wrote:

VERY COOL...

The guy could have used a better angle and lighting though!

Send me your pam.I've got a new meet the microwave video to shoot.

Great video and lesson Sean!!

While its informative,does it explain why a winder adds to the main spring reserve or do I need to add something more to it so the opinion crowd can't deny what I've stated?

yamahaki wrote:

Anomaly wrote:

VERY COOL...

The guy could have used a better angle and lighting though!

Send me your pam.I've got a new meet the microwave video to shoot.

YIKES!