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Mr Auto

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
Thinking out loud here...

I have 2 autos with dates and the change always happens at 5 minutes to or past 12, never on the dot. Similar story with all the others that have come and gone some as far as 15 minutes to and past 12 (Seikos and quartz aside)

I know its perfectly normal and I'm not bothered by it, just curious if anyone has watches where the date change happens exactly at the 12am mark every day. Is it more accurate with in house movements or more higher end watches? does the accuracy of the change depend on how wound the watch is or is it all purely luck of the draw?

Cheers.

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#2 ·
Nothing to do with the quality of the movement.

It's all to do with how precise they were when installing the hands.

Broadly, you would pull the crown out and turn it slowly until the date wheel clicks over. Without advancing any further you would install the hour hand pointing straight up to 12.
Then turn the crown to move the hour hand down to 6 oclock (or any o'clock really) and when it is exactly on the hour, install the minute hand pointing straight up to 12.

If insufficient care is taken, the hands won't be at precisely midnight when the date changes.
 
#3 ·
If it's taking 15 minutes past the hour, then it's not your watch hand alignment. It's the movement and most likely to be normal. There are few watches I've encountered that snap to the next date at midnight. My Tudor Pelagos LHD is one of them. In fact, the Pelagos manufacture movement, MT5612-LHD, is the most rock solid, tight, buttoned-down movement I've ever felt and I'd be surprised if it didn't flip over right on target.
 
#4 ·
I suspect that even it you set the minute hand perfectly over time the watch will slowly walk out of alignment. Gears and cogs aren't "perfect" and over months and years I think it will advance or fall back if given enough time.

Quality of the movement will probably dictate how long it takes for the thing to drift.
 
#9 ·
John MS said:
Some of mine are within a minute and others take longer. No surprise the only watches that change right at midnight are quartz digital.
Click to expand...
Also the Citizen Chronomaster is engineered to change right at midnight. I'm not exactly sure how they do it, but from my understanding it does it on the second. Still quartz of course, but analog quartz.

Here is a video of it happening way slowed down. The actual date change happens at around the 1:30 mark:

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#13 ·
My Oceanus and MR-G change within the five to thirty seconds after midnight (depending how many days must be skipped), but my Explorer changes dates between mu and null, and it drives me nuts. :-d

On a serious note, a mechanical watch with a fast change that misses midnight is annoying but only needs its hands set. Some movements though take hours to change the date.
 
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