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• Will manually winding an automatic mechanical watch cause damage to the mechanical components of the center?

Now basically most of the models of watches of various brands are self-winding cores, but no matter whether it is a manually wound or self-winding cores, it will face a problem: the phenomenon of stealing stops or the increase of precision error when the amount of movement is insufficient, especially at night when the watch stops after walking for a few hours. What's more,TUDOR Black Bay M7941A1A0RU-0003 nowadays many urban people work, wrist on the computer desk and the amount of movement is very little, the effect of its automatic winding did not play a big role, the watch is very easy to stop walking. Automatic winding watch can rely on the winding system in the wearing condition when the active drive barrel winding, then the watch once stopped, we will be on the automatic winding watch manual winding. Is this action a burden on the internal parts of the movement?

It is not difficult to guess the answer to these concerns, which watchmakers have already taken into account at the design stage. In some watches, when the watch is wound manually, almost all the gears in the movement turn,TUDOR Ranger M79950-0001 including the rotor, so you can almost feel them as you wind the watch.

But many of the automatic watches on the market today have been set up with a reversing wheel, which acts to keep all the other parts of the heart stationary while the wearer is manually winding the watch, in order to prevent excessive wear on the heart. So in fact, you can manually wind your automatic watch every day without worrying too much about it, even if you occasionally forget to wind it, the automatic winding mechanism will carry out the winding work on its own with ease as you move your hand.

It is worth mentioning that some watches are even more progressive, when encountering a full chain situation, the automatic disk or winding mechanism will stop operating, so that the design can better protect the precision of the core will not be over-winding and lead to damage to the parts (such as hairspring breakage), reducing the degree of wear and tear.

The structure of manual winding is not complicated. Basically, the crown rotates to drive the vertical wheel on the crown, which drives the small steel wheel and the large steel wheel, and then drives the barrel below the large steel wheel to wind the watch. Of course, with the different design of the movement and the evolution of history, there will be a slight variation, and even develop into a rather avant-garde manual winding mode, but the basic principle is the same.

From a practical point of view, the winding process should be smooth and labor-saving, and the parts should be durable. Therefore, some high-end movements make the teeth of the vertical wheel beveled, so that the small steel wheel can be driven more smoothly, for example, Patek Philippe's 215 movement and the following Zenith vintage movement belong to this kind of movement. Some other centers will make the teeth of the vertical wheel and the small and large steel wheels more robust, and even make beautiful and unbreakable wolf's teeth in high-grade antique pocket watches, but unfortunately, they are seldom used in modern watches.

An automatic watch does not need to be wound every day like a bracelet watch, and if the watch is already on a full chain, there are two things that will happen when you wear it:

If the watch is already on a full chain, there are two situations that will occur when the watch is worn. If the watch is wound only automatically every day, and the winding is tightened to a degree greater than that released during the day's walking, the watch is basically in and kept on a full chain (or close to it), which is also normal;

Every day only rely on automatic winding, the degree of winding is coiled tightly less than the degree of release of the day's walk, to be so, there will be more than enough to make ends meet, sitting on a mountain of empty. For example, a watch on average every day by automatic winding, can only give the watch winding to run 20 hours of stored energy, then it will be consumed every day the original full chain and the storage of 4 hours of stored energy, and so on and so forth, estimated that there is almost a week, the watch will be all kinds of timing problems, including the error becomes large and easy to stop the watch at night. All in all, the watch must not work in the state of "half-starved and half-full", it is the same as our people, how also have to be in the "bank" a little bit of savings before the collapse.

Automatic mechanical watches and manual mechanical mechanical dynamic watch heart structure is different, not only lies in more than one automatic tourbillon. The three most common automatic watch winding mechanisms are the double reversing wheel design, the magic lever design, and the woodpecker design. But the mechanical automatic winding system operating principle is only one, is the use of the wearer's arm movement, due to the gravity of the earth's core to make the automatic system of the weight (metal oscillating weight) swinging, the metal oscillating weight of the continuous rotation and thus promote the system of levers and gears for the mainspring winding.

And the structure of the spring is also different. The common mechanical watch spring is made up of two segments of the spring articulated together, divided into the mainspring and the secondary spring. The mainspring is used to store energy, and the vice-spring is used to fix the mainspring. When the mainspring saves too much energy, it will transfer energy to the secondary winding, at this time, the secondary winding will contract, sliding in the inner wall of the barrel, and then drive the mainspring to release the excess energy. It is just like when there is too much water inside the reservoir, exceeding the warning line of the dam, the reservoir will open the gate to release the water. Therefore, the winding of an automatic watch is designed in such a way that it is impossible to break because of too much winding force, and there is an overload protection device inside that allows it to be wound up all the time (manually and automatically at the same time).

Therefore, it is necessary to wind an automatic watch by hand to replenish the winding energy from time to time, especially if the above situation already occurs frequently. Another point is that the more fully wound the watch is, the higher the balance will oscillate and the better the timekeeping performance will be. To summarize, a self-winding watch is designed to ensure that your watch stays close to a full bar every day you wear it, ensuring that the accuracy of the movement's timekeeping is optimal. Not many people literally understand that automatic watches do not need to be wound manually.

But that doesn't mean that the winding and winding parts of a watch automatic watch won't be damaged if someone violently swings the watch in an attempt to speed up the winding process. Then it is possible to exert excessive force on the gears, shaft falcons and clockwork in a short period of time, accelerating their wear and tear, or even making them break directly.

Of course, except for a small number of specially designed automatic watches that cannot be wound manually, the vast majority of automatic mechanical watches can be wound both manually and automatically.

However, no matter how big or small the movement is, the crown must be pulled out every once in a while for dialing action and winding. For one thing, the oil lubrication of each part of the dialing wheel system can be grounded, and for the crown of the threaded locking handle in particular, if it does not move for a long time, it will easily grow together for a long time because of sweat and other reasons, and then you want to screw it all unscrewed. I believe that many watchmakers have encountered this problem.

Therefore, if an automatic mechanical watch stops running, our suggestion is to manually wind the watch so that the center of the mechanism can resume normal operation. Then wear it again, relying on the automatic winding mechanism to replenish energy and keep the winding in the best condition.