Will Someone Please Explain Watch Motions?

"Tim (Fractal Footwork)" (fractalfootwork) 01/14/2015 at 20:34 • Filed to: Watchlopnik, Watch

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What's the difference? What's the big deal? Which is better? How do they work?

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 20:37

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Decay buys too many beaters > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 20:38

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You are opening a can of worms. Basically this is the horological equivalent of "what's the difference between car engines"

OkCars- 22k Crossroads > Decay buys too many beaters 01/14/2015 at 20:42

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I own dead car brands only > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 20:42

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simply put, witchcraft.

theKingiSdEad > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 20:46

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Quartz: very cheap to produce, very accurate. a battery powers the watch.

Automatic: a mechanical device powered by a spring, which is wound by either manually or by a self-winding mechanism. cheap ones are not that accurate. accurate ones are not that cheap. more expensive to produce compared to quartz.

Then there are hybridized machines, like the Seiko's spring drive. In Spring Drive, a self-winding mechanism generates electricity and also winds a spring. The loaded spring power the watch but the timing is controlled by an electronic circuit which is powered by electricity.

The big deal is preference. If you want a very cheap and very accurate watch buy a quartz. I personally cannot really justify buying a quartz watch that costs more than $50. But then it is my personal use use cases. I prefer automatic watches. I don't care about millisecond accuracy. The most expensive auto on the other hand is about $1000.

deekster_caddy > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 21:00

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Like this, but smaller:

theandysho - drives a SHO > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 21:10

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If you're of the means a Tag Monaco is pretty much sex with Sophie Howard on your wrist.

Frank Grimes > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 21:15

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I wont buy a quartz after owning a automatic for a while. I love the noise of the ticking the mechanical stuff. I swear I actually sometimes just put it to my ear to listen to it. Also for some reason the more ticks per second just looks way better than a quartz and its jerky sloppy tick each second.

witchdoctor11 > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 21:34

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think ad a mechanical watch like you would a boutique car manufacturer and your most of the way there. Basically, the mechanism in the watch is a way to show off the technical expertise of the watch maker. Many if not most mechanical watches use Swiss movements made in large numbers by the swatch group, called ETA movements. Think a crate engine that can be had in many states of tune. Additionally many manufacturers will customize these already good movements.

Truly great watch makers will do everything in house including the movement. Incredibly difficult and time consuming, meaning expensive. Start adding in complications such as date, moon phase, calendars, tourbillons and so on and you skyrocket in price.

JR1 > Frank Grimes 01/14/2015 at 21:56

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You're not the only one who ours a mechanical watch to the ear on occasions. Love the ticking sound.

crown victor victoria > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 21:59

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My advice on this topic, as someone who was at this same stage several years ago - buy a Seiko diver's watch that's an auto movement. Something with a 7S26 movement in it, a classic like the SKX007.

These are rated to 200m so you really can dive with them, they're built like tanks and the 7SXX series movement is inexpensive, durable and acceptably accurate.

You can pick these up for under $200 all over the place. I have modified mine a bit, probably have another $100 in it but I'll never get rid of it. It's no Rolex but I love it.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 01/14/2015 at 22:36

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hey what am I doing in here already...

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > crown victor victoria 01/14/2015 at 22:44

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My dad gave me his just before i shipped off to Iraq, he had also worn it there and in Libya and Lebanon. I went on to wear that trusty diver for 6 years until after some serious ops in afghanistan the old girl needed maintenance bad, she would lose almost 30 minutes in a day. I had her professionally serviced twice to almost no avail, the old girl truly needed to be retired.

Now that I am done going to the middle east for the forseeable future, and also because i converted to a Suunto after my diver passed, I want to have a master watch craftsman repair or rebuild the mechanism of the watch, mount it on a plaque with a high res photo of my father and I in country getting to see each other after some ops.

Pics or didn't happen

http://www.grunt.com/corps/scuttleb…

I also met our recently resigned Secretary of Defense and then Senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel that day.

MysticStick > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/14/2015 at 22:45

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Here is a good faq . Someone mentioned the swatch group, they own a lot of brands and the ETA movements go into just about everything else save very high-end stuff (Rolex and above).

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > theKingiSdEad 01/14/2015 at 22:47

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Another disqualifier for quartz movement is body chemistry. Certain physical skin types/physiologies will wear a battery operated watch only for it to die in an unreasonable amount of time, thus necessitating a mechanical or kinetic watch.

crown victor victoria > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 01/14/2015 at 23:13

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Great story and awesome idea with the old movement. They're fairly humble pieces but I think that's a huge part of their charm. I am not active in Watchuseek forums any longer, but I used to see people say that they'd come across old Seiko diver watches at swap meets - dinged cases, crystals scratched to all hell, but give 'em a shake and they come right to life.

Mine's been fairly pampered (more of a desk diver but I hike and stuff with it) but after a drop to a tile floor when it fell right on its face it's never run right. I lose maybe...5 min a week? Which is like 40 sec. per day, but I never notice it until several days have passed, and even then it's usually because I end up being late getting somewhere. I tried to regulate it myself once and it only made it worse. Someday I'll have to send it to someone, unless I can find someone locally who knows what they're doing.

It's my daily though. Changed the hands. Here's an older pic of it on a 3-ring NATO.

(also, thank you for your service)

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > crown victor victoria 01/14/2015 at 23:20

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Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to live up to my life's calling. I will post a pic of mine tomorrow (nighttime wife is asleep, won't take kindly to a blinding flash at night, plus kinja mobile sucks ball-tits)

Funny thing about my Suunto, she has survived 3 years of service on my arm including AFG x 2 and running a relief team in Sendai and the surrounding area after the tsunami and subsequent earthquakes and reactor meltdown, I lost two of my horizontal pixels and have knocked my compass off zero by 4°. I do plan on replacing her soon (1-2 years) but all in all she still works ok.

theKingiSdEad > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 01/14/2015 at 23:43

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very interesting. can you elaborate on that? also Kinetic watches store the energy in a power cell and use a quartz movement as far as I know. How is that different from a completely electronic watch?

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > crown victor victoria 01/15/2015 at 10:52

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As promised. My Dad and my "war-watch". Only this one never went up anyone's bum.

crown victor victoria > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 01/15/2015 at 13:41

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Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Tim (Fractal Footwork) 01/15/2015 at 13:47

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This one all day.