Use of watch winders

[bubu]

I keep several of my good watches, reps and gens on watch winders. This means the movement is always totally wound if the watch has not been worn or allowed to unwind. Is this accelerating its wear? And should they be given time off the winder to rest the movement?

[teddy boy]

The Zigmeister could answer this question better than anyone, but I'll take a stab. My understanding is that not running the watch at all for months on end is bad for the movement. Other than that, it doesn't matter whether they're run a little or a lot.

[hambone]

Watch winders are a good thing for many reasons. They keep the gears running and alleviate wear and tear on the movement when you are constantly re-setting the time and the date. I keep all my automatics on winders, and they are good to go any time at all.

Try to avoid watch winders that spin at more than 5000 rotations per minute as this can cause the hands to fly off and become pressed against the outer edges of the watch crystal.

[freddy333]

I keep several of my good watches, reps and gens on watch winders. This means the movement is always totally wound if the watch has not been worn or allowed to unwind. Is this accelerating its wear? And should they be given time off the winder to rest the movement?

Unless your winder is 1 of the cheap types that spin the watch constantly 24/7 (or you keep your winder set for 1,000+ turns/day), the answers are no & no. But I would follow your winder's recommended settings for your watch model (different movements require different numbers of turns/day to keep the mainspring charged).

[fakemaster]

Watch winders will not totally wind a movement.

[freddy333]

I believe a winder can totally wind a movement (assuming it delivers a sufficient number of turns/day), but modern mainsprings are designed to 'slip' when the spring is fully wound. This keeps the spring from overwinding. The only potential issue I know of is the possibility of accelerating wear of the auto-wind gears if the watch is wound constantly (some cheap winders simply spin the watch 24/7 without pauses) or the auto-wind components are not in proper condition to begin with.

[Shundi]

I know if you purchase a high quality brand like Orbita you can set the TPD (turns per day). If you go to their website, they have a great table that shows watch manufacturer, movement, TPD, and turn direction (Clockwise, CCW, or CW/CCW)... My Rolexes (Two datejusts and a submariner are CW/CCW and I use the 650 TPD setting.. I've never had an issue. If you're looking for ETA settings, I've always used the rec. settings for Rado since they seem to use the ETA 2824 for many of their movements.