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Seiko SKX007 1st week: Running 100 seconds Slow per day

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17K views 27 replies 13 participants last post by  LightDot  
V
#1 ·
Hey friends,

Love my new SKX007K and am enjoying it with NATO straps!

After wearing it daily for seven days, it's running about 100 seconds slow per day.

This strikes me as unusually slow. I thought up to a 30 second daily divergence is normal.

Do you think this is part of the settling down & break in period. I have an Orient which was much more reliable out of the box. I've poked around for answers online but thought I'd ask here as I'm inexperienced with Seikos.

Thanks!

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
 
#4 · (Edited)
VinnieVegas said:
Hey friends,

Love my new SKX007K and am enjoying it with NATO straps!

After wearing it daily for seven days, it's running about 100 seconds slow per day.

This strikes me as unusually slow. I thought up to a 30 second daily divergence is normal.

Do you think this is part of the settling down & break in period. I have an Orient which was much more reliable out of the box. I've poked around for answers online but thought I'd ask here as I'm inexperienced with Seikos.

Thanks!

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
That's well outside the specs for this movement. "Selling down" is debatable: probably as many who agree what that as disagree. Regardless, at these specs, what most people refer to as "settling down" is usually a handful of seconds per day.

Probably not magnetized: from what I've read on that, a magnetized watch will loose minutes in a few hours.

Here's a thought: is it wound up enough? The 7s26 is a 100% human powered movement. Depending in the engine (that's you), if your activity level is maintaining the spring's "power level" at the low end, the watch may be just about out of gas when resting at night. Even a few hours at that very low reserve could throw off you seconds per day numbers.

When I'm more active over a period of days, and as a result the power level is maintained more at the higher end, there's enough power in the spring to maintain the movement's accuracy overnight while resting. But when I travel, spending most of my days on my backside in airplanes, cars, meetings, late dinners, etc, the reserve can be at the low end over night. After a couple of days of this, especially if the reserve was low going into a period of low activity, these same auto's will tend run slower. i have a Damasko that I can keep pretty much close to spot on during active periods, resting crown up at night but during low activity weeks, it will loose 5 seconds per day.

There are people who will dismissively state as fact that your activity is non-issue with watches based on their own personal experience. "Just a few shakes is all you need". You can safely ignore those comments: they are probably the kind of people who wave their arms around constantly when they talk, walk, eat, rest, etc ;).

We're all different, and auto's require a certain amount of movement to become fully powered up. IMHO, a lot of performance related issues can be attributed to the engine.

That said, is it possible that your new 7s26 has just not had a change to get full charged up, and the overnight reserve is on the low side?

Think about your activity levels since you have had the watch. It takes a fair amount of arm movement over the day to get the reserve up. Unfortunately you can't just hand wind the 7s26. So try wearing it while you do as many physical things as possible. I find a 2 mile watch per day keeps my auto's running well; 4 miles and they are at peak accuracy. That's just to give you some idea of the amount of activity you might need.

Do that for a few days, measuring against the atomic clock: The Official NIST US Time:. If that doesn't improve the situation, then you may need to have it serviced.

What you're describing could and likely is more than just power level, but might as well rule that out.

That said, here's one more suggestion: get it on record now with your AD. Let your AD know about this now, today, so you have the option to push for a replacement. This watch may need to be replaced.
 
#6 ·
@nepatriot - I think you're spot on here. I just got a new SKX013 from my wife and girls for my birthday and took it on a flyfishing trip. I always wanted a nice "beater" watch, and I believe this fits the bill nicely. Anyway, I noticed when I wore the watch during the day (with lots of fly casting), the watch ran at +6 spd give or take. Overnight resting dial up, the watch would slow to -20 spd (again give or take) with an overall average of -11 spd on the trip (four days worth of wearing the watch).

Now, back at work my daily wear is an Omega SMP (which is now running pretty consistently at +1 spd - but this is a COSC certified movement so not really a fair comparison). So for the last week, I've only been wearing my Seiko during the evening for a few hours just to keep it somewhat charged and it is now averaging -23 spd.

So I do think that the more I wear this watch, the faster (and more accurate) it will become. I think this will particularly apply if I'm quite active.

As for the OP's skx performance of -100 spd that is clearly not acceptable. I would look at returning the watch and see if they can regulate it or replace it (if the watch is brand new).
 
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#7 ·
Hi,

Get this on a timegrapher. You will get an instant reading that will tell you what is wrong with the timing of the watch.

I adjusted a few 7s26's and only a tiny nudge on the regulator lever makes the timekeeping swings from +100sec to -100s day easily.

If the watch has nothing broken or wrong inside, it can probably be adjusted to near +-0 s/day.

Cheers,

Seb

Envoyé de mon Nexus 5X en utilisant Tapatalk
 
V
#8 · (Edited)
Thanks friends, something is clearly wrong with it.

I walk to and from work every weekday, about 3 miles total, plus more walking of course. Similar distance on the weekends. At work, I'm at my desk but get up once an hour or so to tend to things, go to a meeting, or take a walk around the block. So I'm moderately active, I'd say, and probably enough to charge up the watch.

It's under warranty so I'm sending it in to get it looked at & fixed, replaced, or refunded.

I'll see what they can do! Thanks!

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
 
#9 ·
Got a sk013 and got -100secs when i first put it on after a few shakes.
Second and third day up to -15secs per day with activity and 2 minutes shaking at start of day 2.

Not great but decent now after initially being worried.
 
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#15 ·
Hey people, out of interest, Should the SKX stop after 16 hours if not worn, and does giving it a shake(for how long) if not worn keep it running for longer or is only wearing it going to do that?

Also, I don't expect pin point accuracy from them, £200 should be half decent, but what's the worst case scenario as acceptable for accuracy on the SKX, in your opinions.
 
L
#16 ·
The power reserve of a fully wound Seiko 7S26 movement is 40+ hours. It's likely more in practice, 44 hours or so is not unheard of. So, if the watch is fully wound, it most certainly shouldn't stop after 16 hours.

The instructions have a nice graphic about how to wind them manually. Not by the crown, naturally, but by holding the watch in your fingers, dial almost level to the ground, and by lightly swinging the wrist left and right. You should hear the rotor start to turn and after getting used to it a bit, achieve a steady 2 rotor turns per second or so. The 7S26 movement needs about 1300 turns of the rotor to go from full depleted to fully wound.

As to accuracy, like I said in the 2nd post of the thread, factory spec for a 7s26C movement is -35s to +45s daily. In practice I commonly see them preforming within -15s to +25s daily, being somewhere within +-10s on average is not uncommon.

The 7S family of movements has bad isochronistic properties, if your watch isn't being fully wound due to your inactivity, the accuracy will be affected and possibly be worse than if it was fully wound during the day.
 
#17 ·
Thanks for your reply. Yeh, I think within first 7 hours it lost about 15 or 20 seconds, and 5 hours after that it stopped, so don't know what it finally lost when it stopped.

So presumably nobody swings that 1300 times to fully charge it... if they don't wear it for a couple of days
 
L
#18 ·
30 seconds or a minute should be enough to get it going and to give it some starting power reserve, after that just put it on, the watch should wind itself fully just by the movements of the wrist, eventually. As long as you're physically active enough, it will stay fully wound during the day. That is, if everything is in order with the movement.

So, I usually get it going a bit, then set the day / date (make sure the hands are outside the 9pm-4am zone) and the time (I usually quickset the day and date to yesterday than advance the hands to the correct day, so I know whether it's set to let's say 8am or 8pm), put it on and leave the rest of the winding to my wrist's usual daily motions...

In any case, when I do have a need to fully wind such a Seiko manually by swinging the wrist left and right, my better half looks at me like I've gone completely bonkers. So I certainly advice against doing it regularly... :-d

But if you do want to be sure that the power reserve is ok on yours, there is no other way but to hand wind it completely and to let it rest someplace until it stops. So... more than one downside to that... first you'll look ridiculous while winding it, then you'll be without your watch for nearly two days... and it doesn't end there. If it turns out that the power reserve is ok, than it's quite possible that you should exercise more during the day, just to keep the watch wound... :)
 
#22 ·
My new skx007 was magnetized out of the box, and after solving that issue it settled at +80s/day. I regulate all my watches, and the regulating mechanism on the 7S26 movement is incredibly sensible. A tiny nudge can take it from -100 to +100. It took a few tries to get it to +2s per day with the dial up position. It can be well out of the specified time, even new, due to the sensibility of the regulating system.
 
#23 ·
Yeh I think it’s going to be a suck it and see job. It’s not a watch I’d rely on for accuracy at this stage, despite the large amount of people who get fantastic results from theirs. It’s a luck of the draw gambit with these models. I don’t think £200 is a complete bargain if it’s that far out, but compared to what I’ve spent on Omegas through the years, it holds its own, has a great look and wears well too.
 
L
#26 ·
Not at a glance, no. What are your concerns? Looks like a genuine SKX007K2 to me ("K" designates that it's an export model coming from a Malaysia factory and the "2" designates that it was fitted with a SS Jubilee bracelet).

I don't know if there were any differences between the 2007 and 2017 casebacks as you mention, the oldest example I have right in front of me is from 2015 and looks like yours in detail. Looking only at the serial number you won't be able to tell if it's from 1997, 2007 or 2017 (unless the production month is in the future, that would rule 2017 out), you'd need to look at the movement to be sure. A 1997 one would have a 7S26A movement, 2007 one would have a 7S26B while a 2017 watch would have a 7S26C. Even so, I'd advice against opening it unless there is some other strong reason for it.

If you do decide to open it, I'd suggest cleaning the case well before doing it (to avoid introducing dirt into an open case) and than inspecting the gasket (or replacing it) and pressure testing the watch afterwards. Come to think of it, if there's a strong possibility that it's a 2007 or even 1997 watch, at least a pressure test is in order anyway. A full blown service would be preferred, actually, if you can justify it monetarily... the truth is, many owners just run these 7S movements until they die, regardless of age.
 
#27 ·
No concerns really, I just see so many variations, caseback, and different colour boxes, packaging, some say 'Scuba', some 'Scuba Diver's' on the caseback, so just thought it may tell you if it's older, newer etc. I'm not after opening it. Just wondered if there were any tell tale signs of age. I don't think there's any chance it's not genuine. I'm not used to watches that lose seconds per hour, as opposed to second per day. Asthetically I don't know why I didn't get one of these a long time ago, great looking watch. I had various Seikos from the 80s but none since. Thanks for your reply
 
L
#28 ·
Quite, and no one should get used to it, IMHO... if it's losing 1 second per hour (or losing up to 1.5s, actually...) it would still be within factory spec, although not many owners would be satisfied and would probably regulate or service it, me included... But anything more is really not ok... Not that practical either, since it wold be minutes off within a day or two. Combined with a screw down crown, that's really not what an owner would want.
 
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