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Accuracy of Orient Star movements

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31K views 41 replies 25 participants last post by  Andy CB  
#1 ·
So, finally I thought to myself that I was ready for an automatic (I own several quartz watches) and really liked the look of the Orient Star WZ0031JC (World Time).



After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the rated accuracy seems to be +25 / -15 s a day.

I am aware that automatics won't normally approach the accuracy of quartz watches, but this rating has made me reluctant to buy. In a worst case scenario I would be ahead almost a minute in just two days.
Is this accuracy range normal for watches of the Orient Star brand (I thought the Orient Star was the mid-level and the Royal Orient the high-end)? It seems to be the standard rating for the Orient Star movements, not just the World Time.

What are your personal experiences with accuracy, how well do your watches perform?

I guess moving from quartz to automatics is a mental barrier to overcome. :think:
 
#3 ·
OK, thanks.

Less than +/- 10 Seconds would be acceptable I guess, though still quite a lot more than I am used to.
This would be an interesting acquaintance to make since I am used to just setting my watches and forget about it (one is radio-controlled and another bluetooth-enabled so they synch with either radio signals or the phone's GPS), whereas this would have to be cared for and wound every other day.
 
#4 ·
"this would have to be cared for and wound every other day" this to me is part of the appeal and charm of mechanical watches, you have to physically interact with them. The Orient watches I own have proved to be surprising accurate, some are almost spot on like my GMT which only gains about 1 second every 2-3 days, but I would say the average I have experienced is +/- 5 seconds a day.
 
#13 ·
Exactly, I've always considered this a feature, not a bug. I LIKE messing with my watches, plus I rotate watches everyday anyway, so I'm always setting them. My Speedmaster is one of my few manual wind watches, and I wind it every morning, regardless of if I'm going to wear it that day or not.

But, to each his own. If this bugs the OP, then there are lots of great "set and forget" quartz watches out there.
 
#5 ·
Mine have all (3 of them, standard Orient) been either a minute fast (2 of them) or minute slow (the other one) per week. A minute off is about my personal limit for watch accuracy tolerance, so setting them once a week was good for me. (That's ~8-9 seconds per day).

My watches now outnumber my ability to keep them all wound so it's become a bit of a moot point...
 
#34 ·
My 2 month old Orient Star 1964 2nd edition diver runs +14spd unfortunately. I notice that if I run it 7 hours past the 0 on the power reserve indicator it slows the watch down to +9spd. My much cheaper citizen with the basic miyota 8200 runs within COSC. I think automatic watches are a lottery when it comes to accuracy. Unless you spend more and get an officially certified COSC watch. Otherwise you can be lucky or unlucky with accuracy.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I have had and still have a few Orient Star pieces including a WZ0021JC.

All of them have been better than +10/-5 per day, with some veering towards the ridiculous side, like WZ0081EL that was about 10 seconds fast....per month. No special positions or treatment either, just worn anything between 9 and 16 hrs per day and let it rest crystal-up on my desk at night. And no, it has not been "hacked" with a quartz movt. inside, has the simple, usual, run of the mill Orient "stuffing" inside :-s

The last thing I would worry on an Orient Star is accuracy.

P.S. My WZ0021JC runs a very consistent +6s per day, so around 3 minutes per month, which is acceptable for me, especially since I usually rotate pieces weekly at most.
 
#8 ·
Thank you everybody for your feedback, it is appreciated.

I guess I can live with the accuracy you have experienced, or thereabouts.

As often happens, the more I visit the Orient website the more watches I grow fond of. I'm only looking to buy one currently, so I will continue the hunt (the GMT also looks nice).

I will then have Seiko, Citizen, Casio and Orient represented, are there any other asian brands worth looking into (I really like the level of craftmanship put into some watches from the before mentioned brands).
 
#9 ·
Interestingly, I have the very same watch. It's gained about 3-4 seconds per day, although I haven't worn it every day--Orient movements tend to become somewhat twitchy when they drop below half-wind.

I plan to do one of my tiresome reviews of this watch pretty soon. It's very fine indeed, although the strap sucks. Other than that, it's superb.
 
#11 ·
mcfrede:
I own 4 Orients of varying styles. Divers, Dress, and Aviators
Not one of them runs in the range of accuracy of your Orient.
IMO Orient regulates their watches to run + from their factory.
Most accurate of the 4? The Mako +6 to 9 secs pd. Then the
Flight 8 to 10 Sec + per day.
Accuracy is important as you make it.

Lou Snutt
 
#15 ·
My Orient Star was losing about 10s on the wrist when new, but then it settled very nicely. Last year I spent several weeks timing it, and arrived at this after averaging:

Position
s/12h
spd
On the wrist-2.7-5.4
Dial up3.36.6
Dial Down0.91.8
Crown up-8.2-16.4
Crown down-5.6-11.2
I am providing both spd (per 24h) and s/12h - IMO the latter is more useful as usually you'll be wearing the watch for ~12h and then resting it for 12h.
 
#20 ·
As an owner of multiple automatics, I swap watches 1-2 times a week from the watch case to wear so I never wear them long enough to time and I have to wind them when I start using them. This is why I never cared about accuracy since I could always use my atomic Protrek if needed. HOWEVER, in order to help future buyers out there, I'll keep the Orient King Master 2015 and this Orient Star WZ0351EL running for a week and try to note the results.
 

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#21 ·
When I bought my first Orients there were lots of posts that they could keep time nearly perfectly. Now I have 2 Orients, one at -8 SPD and the other worse then that. Since my purchases I've seen a lot more candid posts about Orients being close (+/-10 SPD), but not perfect. If better then that, then luck of the draw. If worse then that, unfortunate.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I'm back to post the results of the 7-day accuracy test on both my Orient Star WZ0351EL and Orient King Master (2015 release) which I said I would do in the previous thread page. For the conditions, I left both watches inside my watch case stored upright for seven days and ONLY taking them out daily to wind them. I set both watches to sync with time.gov to the second and compared the results with the same website. In the most stable condition here are the results:

Orient Star WZ0351EL: + 1 min, 29 seconds (averaged 12.7 seconds per day)
Orient King Master: - 1 min, 3 seconds (averaged 9 seconds per day)

I'm okay with the standard Orient brand watch getting -9 per day, but should the $360 Orient Star's accuracy be like this or should I expect better results?
 
#24 ·
That's very much.
My worst OS runs about 10s fast a day.



My first series Orient Star Somes WZ0041FR can be easily adjusted by positioning face up (faster) or crown up (slower), nearly all the others are similar.



Michael
 
#26 · (Edited)
One thing I've noticed and after 4, 5 newer OS if I count the departed GMT, I guess I could call it a pattern, is that the newer OS are worse in accuracy than the older models, but on the positive side, they all seem to be adjusted to run faster because I've had maybe 20 different Orient Star pieces and all that were/are super accurate are models older than 2011 or so (launch date I mean), so maybe they changed something in the way they adjust them. After all, it does make more sense for a watch to be sligthly fast than to be slow. And still, none of the OS pieces I had were ever more than 15s off, whereas I've had many other watches from other brands and similar price range and overall OS is still the best, this including their "cousin", Seiko.

So, if you go out to buy an Orient, pay 2-500$ and expect +/- 1 second per day, then due yourself a favor and buy a quartz. Or add at least one zero to the purchase price and then you'll be able to get a chronometer grade piece and have an average of -4/+6s per day. But that same money could buy you a helluva nice Orients :-d
 
#29 · (Edited)
One thing I've noticed and after 4, 5 newer OS if I count the departed GMT, I guess I could call it a pattern, is that the newer OS are worse in accuracy than the older models, but on the positive side, they all seem to be adjusted to run faster because I've had maybe 20 different Orient Star pieces and all that were/are super accurate are models older than 2011 or so (launch date I mean), so maybe they changed something in the way they adjust them. After all, it does make more sense for a watch to be sligthly fast than to be slow. And still, none of the OS pieces I had were ever more than 15s off, whereas I've had many other watches from other brands and similar price range and overall OS is still the best, this including their "cousin", Seiko.

So, if you go out to buy an Orient, pay 2

I agree that the finishing on higher end Orients is very good.
 
#28 ·
Well, that might be very true, since Orient uses very similar movements across it's ranges, with the more expensive ones having added hacking/hand-winding or better regulation, but often it's the exact same base movement, which is often touted as a reason by some why Royal Orient is not such a great value range, since, with a few exceptions (the Cal. 88700 & 88A00 hi-beat), the rest are 3HZ and besides a better finish and regulation, the same you would find in an Orient Star or even "regular" Orient at 10x less. In my opinion, their finish alone still constitutes enough reasoning to buy if money is no object, since they are pretty much on par with Grand Seiko when it comes to fit, finish, quality of bracelet thus still a good price, since a Royal Orient is usually the same price as a quartz GS.

To each his own I guess...
 
#31 ·
Wondering if you ever bought an Orient and if so how it is behaving? After reading all your replies I was persuaded to buy an Orient Star Classic but so far accuracy is disappointing - a consistent +18 to +19 secs per day and unable to stop it gaining less than 6 secs when resting crown up. I missed one of your replies which said the newer versions tend to run faster than the older ones. Hoping mine might improve as it’s only a couple of weeks old.
 
#33 ·
So, finally I thought to myself that I was ready for an automatic (I own several quartz watches) and really liked the look of the Orient Star WZ0031JC (World Time).

View attachment 5444186

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the rated accuracy seems to be +25 / -15 s a day.

I am aware that automatics won't normally approach the accuracy of quartz watches, but this rating has made me reluctant to buy. In a worst case scenario I would be ahead almost a minute in just two days.
Is this accuracy range normal for watches of the Orient Star brand (I thought the Orient Star was the mid-level and the Royal Orient the high-end)? It seems to be the standard rating for the Orient Star movements, not just the World Time.

What are your personal experiences with accuracy, how well do your watches perform?

I guess moving from quartz to automatics is a mental barrier to overcome. :think:
This is an old post...but I pain stakenly adjusted my Orient Ray II. My watch currently gains about 1 second a day. This is not a fib. I LOVE that watch. I have had it in a watch winder for x1 week and still stays 1+ seconds a day. I'm super impressed. I gently tapped the micro regulator and kept checking it. I used silicone grease ---small amount to minimize any torsion damage to the O-ring.
 
#35 ·
My luck ran out with the RK-AU0006S Contemporary Standard. Runs +15 daily fairly consistently no matter the day.
 
#36 ·
Your watch has a power reserve indicator I think. If you let it run a few hours before running out of power you might find it slows down enough to average out the gains in time. I use my power reserve indicator to do this once a week and although when I'm wearing the watch it's +14spd, when I let it run down once a week the monthly average is around +8-+9spd.