Pretty much the same with my JDM Titaniun Shogun and its 6R35.

Averaging out at minus 2 seconds per day.

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Great photography!!! 👍

 

My alpinist was running within 5spd on wrist then it was running slow after a few months. I decided to regulate it and is now doing 2.5-3spd. It’s not hard to regulate the movement, just time consuming since I don’t have a timegrapher.

 

I've come to appreciate the positional variation of my 6R35. After two weeks of continuous running, my more expensive Swiss and German watches will be fast by 1-2 minutes. Meanwhile, I can keep the Seiko within 10 seconds of true time by changing how I store it at night.

My only gripe with the movement is how slow the date change occurs. By 10:30pm each night, it has already visibly begun moving. I wish it could make the change between 11:30 and 12:30 so I wouldn't have to see it in its in-between state.

 

With the 6R35 being the top end of Seiko's workhorse movements, I expected better. Instead it seems to be all over the place. My SPB117 was losing an average of -20s/d before I had it regulated, but due to positional variance it can be as fast as +20s/d or as slow as +5s/d.

In fact, my Turtle with a lower end 4R35 usually comes in at +2 or -2 s/d, easily outperforming the 6R35.

 

I have an NH35 (so essentially exactly the same movement) that I bought from Aliexpress for 50 bucks and it came so well regulated that it's been doing -0.3s/d for the past 12 weeks. Never more than +7 or -3s/d whether on the wrist or the box. Amazing. It's by far my most accurate mechanical timepiece, and it's nestled between several Swiss movements from ETA, Sellita and Soprod.
I still have to regulate the Soprod which was amazing positional consistency, but -0.3 over three months is going to be hard to beat...

 

The NH35 is the commercial version of the 4R35. Seiko made a commercial version of the 6R15 called the NE15, which was rarely seen as it was priced directly against an SW-200, not hard to see why, especially when 9015s were a lot cheaper. As of now, there is no commercial version of the 6R35.

 

I have a JDM Cocktail time with the 6R15 movement. It's fairly accurate, but I didn't expect that from Seiko. Their 4 and 6 series movements are very reliable, but not the best timekeepers in the world. Regulating every single movement they sell would add cost to the watches that use them. Given they are mostly in the affordables category, I don't think Seiko is much motivated to do so.

 

Mine stays pretty tight, not a lot of drifting, usually 10-15 -/+.

Now if they could just align their bezels correctly.........

 

it seems to just be a fact that they vary a lot by position. And regulating them is fiddly. But I really like them. I like the winding feel, and the crown feel in general, and they seem to be quite stable and durable over time. If you can come up with a rough percentage of time it spends in each position during your day, you can use that to get it close to on time overall.

Call the positions DU (dial up), DD, CU (crown up), CD, CL, CR. Then say your watch is DU 50%, CD 30%, CU 20%. Put it on the timer, and you get DU = 0s, CD = -20s, CU = -30s, then you’d expect a daily rate of
.5*0+ .3*-20 + .2*-30 = -7.5s. So you know you want to adjust it about 7.5 seconds faster. It’s not that precise a process, so maybe shoot for 10-15.

 

All 4R and 6R Seiko movements suffer from position variance and isochronism. In this respect, they are not very precise movements, but could be made to run accurately if one finds a resting position that will compensate the inaccuracy when worn. And no, this is not by design, it is just a result of manufacturing and assembly tolerances. These are mass produced and robot assembled in large batches, God knows where.
While I could accept this for 4R movements, I wish the 6R were overall a step up in this respect. Sadly, they aren't. If you want to get a really high precision Seiko movement, you'll have to go all the way to 8l calibers, which are mounted inside some expensive watches.
Sadly, the 6R35 is not much more than a 4R35 with an upgraded main spring, giving it 70 % longer power reserve.

 

The Seiko 6r movements are notorious for being poor quality, inaccurate, and having huge positional variance.

 

Poor quality? I haven't seen where that's been an issue. Inconsistent timekeeping maybe, but quality implies defects and poor reliability.

 

I am one of the vocal minority to have had a dud 6R (6R15). What I'm hearing is that Seiko's factory lubrication is inconsistent or lacking, and some not insignificant minority end up with poor performance, out of Seiko's already wide tolerances, 6-12 months down the road. In my case, mine kept fantastic time for several months, but kept running slower and slower. I thought the slowing was just the movement "breaking in", but it never stopped getting slower. It started at around +7 spd out of the box, a year on (worn 1-2 days per week) it was losing 15. A year after that it was losing 25. I checked it a couple months ago (3.5 years old) and it was losing around 40 a day, average. I also noted, at 2 years old very low amplitude (215 dial horizontal, less than 200 dial vertical) and positional variance of over 50 spd (which is out of spec). I dropped it off at a local jeweler this weekend for his watchmaker to take a look at it. Hopefully it can be fixed with cleaning and lubrication. Definitely not something that can be addressed with regulation.

Needless to say, my experience with Seiko mechanical movement timekeeping has been less than stellar. I personally steer clear of any of the 7S variants (7S, 4R/NH, 6R) now. YMMV.

 

There was a poll a while back, and more owners reported poor timekeeping than good. You're part of the majority, not minority. My experiences have mirrored yours.

 

This comes up like every week on the Seiko forum.

Seiko markets and prices their 6R powered references as alternatives to ETA/Sellita powered competitors. Unfortunately the 6R movement does not measure up to those. It's really just a slight upgrade to the ubiquitous 4R movement. It's better than the 4R but not as good as Miyota 9000 or entry level Swiss.

 

Seiko has what are essentially clones of the ETA 2892/93 but they are kept for a few Presage modles and JDM only stuff. Those allegedly run very well and I actually have a version of the Seiko 2893-2 that was given to SOPROD in a Lorier that runs very well.

The 8L movements are still reserved for $2k+ watches and sadly spring drive is kept about the $3k+ price range

I hope to see the day when spring drive is in sub $1000 Seikos or at least 8L movements.

 

Whe we talk about problems with these movements we should be aware that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) Seiko watches are working flawlessly around the world. If there were frequent problems, Seiko would have done something about it.

 

Are u sure? Maybe many Seiko owners simply don't bother about a min off a day or what. They know these watches are cheap and don't bother too much about accuracy as long as it run and work.

 

I’ll pipe up; I’m happy.

I also have the SPB191 pictured early in the thread with the 6R35 movement. I wear the watch while working outside and cycling, putting it into service four days per week~.

Wearing the watch for a full 24 hours yields a consistent - 3spd. Storing the watch on a shelf with the strap buckled and resting on the crown for a full 24 yields + 4spd. The watch has exceeded my expectations, to date.

 

I hate regulating Seiko watches.... not because of regulating itself, but because they're the only brand I've opened up where the rubber caseback gasket stretches immediately and needs to be replaced. Even the divers have this problem. Why do they use such thin gaskets? Even Swatch has thicker gaskets.

 

Strange, I've opened up a number of my Seikos and not come across this problem.

 

Actually, after the initial regulation at the local jeweler, I have been able to keep my Alpinist with 6R35 to be within a few seconds of the US atomic clock weeks after weeks. I did that without adjusting the hands at all by noticing how fast or slow the watch is before going to bed and then place it in dial up, at a tilted angle, or crown down positions. to speed it up or slow it down overnight. I am happy that I can keep this 6R35 Alpinist running so accurately. However, I have to admit that checking the time every day to adjust its resting position at night sometimes gets to me. When that happens, I just pick up my solar powered radio-controlled watch. But I do not like solar powered watch very much either when I wear long sleeve shirt/outfit for a long period of time. It looks like a Spring Drive suits me best and I do have one, except it is a little large for my wrist ( SNR025). Nothing is perfect under the sun.

 

All NH-35 movement I got , need to be regulated by myself. They achieved a decent max 8s off a day. Without regulation, they can go up to 20s - 40s off a day.

 

I've bought 3 different NH35 movements from the same AliExpress seller (Swish something or other it's called) and two of them have been amazing and the other was just okay.
The best one was +1s dial up, -1 dial down, 310 amplitude
Second best was 0 dial up, -4 dial down

No more than 10s positional variance between all positions.

The "dud" was doing +12spd and had some positional variance, nothing alarming, but had a low 260º amplitude right out of the box.

I don't know if it's just luck of the draw (which it probably is), that this seller good a specially good batch (which it probably is) or that he is regulating them before sending them out, which I find VERY implausible...

 

Anyone else old enough to remember when you bought a watch and just wore it?
Then, maybe once a week, you'd call the phone number for the correct time and adjust it for another week, never even noticing how far off you were?


Good times.

 

There are a number of sub-$1,000 Swiss watches with silicon hair springs or equivalent anti-magnetic material. Seiko is going to have to offer the same sooner or later.

Also, I don’t have the data to prove it, but it seems like a lot of Seikos get magnetized. Sometimes I wonder if magnetization plays a role in the poor accuracy some Seiko owners experience. An anti-magnetic hair spring would help ameliorate that problem.

 

Probably. Seiko almost certainly won't be putting that technology in a sub..... $700 watch anytime soon.

I believe the 6R series has a small amount of magnetic resistance.

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You may think the 8L35 is a great movement, tell it needs service. That is were the NH 35-36 is good enough for us without lots of money to play with. Vance.

 

I've owned countless watches with the Seiko 7S family of movements (which includes the 6R series). People who describe them as "junk" have a different experience from me. I have found them to be highly reliable and in some ways more so than the Swiss movements I have owned. I tend to be a bit rough with my Seikos and just yesterday I dropped one about 3' on hard concrete and it literally did not miss a beat. I have much less confidence a Swiss movement would have survived after losing one to the same mishap. That being said accuracy isn't their strong suit. It's pretty typical for them to have a decent amount of error when new and this will deteriorate faster than a Swiss movement as time goes by although lower beat movements tend to run longer before gross errors and/or total failure end their service life.

Comparing Seiko 7S family movement to a Swiss movement is just apples and oranges. An ETA 28xx or a Sellita equivalent is going to cost 3 times more which adds at least $100 to the price of the watch. Yes it will probably be more accurate, but at what cost? I'm perfectly fine with one in a watch that costs less than $500.

For the money it's hard to beat the Miyota 9 series. You get a movement that's as accurate as Swiss while costing close to Seiko prices.

 

That’s just the problem for me, I do like accuracy. I bought the SBBN 007 first 300mm Tuna, and did not wear my Rolex Sub or my Omega Proplof, much after that. The Seiko automatic’s did nothing for me. Miyota 9015. and Eco-drive, became my favorites in that price range for my money. I always liked the Seiko 7548 Divers, but never own one tell now. I should write though this was in the late 70s’ for me, and when I started collecting more than one watch. Vance.

 

My 6r15 and 7s26 have been more accurate than my 6r35. The 6r35 in my Alpinist is actually out for warranty at Seikos service center because it was losing over 30 seconds a day. I’m not sure what they are actually doing to it but they did accept the watch as needing warranty service.

 

My new Seiko Alpinist SPB245 ran pretty slow (-14spd) out of the box when new. After one month, it became even slower (-20 spd). So, I brought it to a local watch maker for a time regulation. The jeweler told me he preferred regulating high end Swiss watches with true multiple-position adjustment or a Grand Seiko but was not sure if my Seiko Alpinist would perform any better after adjustment. But I insisted and so he did at a reasonable cost of only $20.00 with a timegrapher. The difference between crown down and face up positions was a whopping 30 spd at best. Despite being disheartened, I told him to adjust the movement such that it was most accurate with the crown down position. Fast forward 30 days, now my Alpinist runs slow by 4-6 spd when I wear it (~ 16 hours per day) and gains 4-7 spd with the face up position overnight (~ 8 hours/day) for an amazing loss or gain of only -2 spd to +3 spd. So, I guess Seiko engineers deliberately design the movement so that the crown down position (heavily affected by gravity) and face up position (least affected by gravity) balance out over a normal wearing habit. However, I wish Seiko regulates their watches with 6R35 movement before selling them. View attachment 16184615

They are regulated and adjusted, but the standards of those processes most probably aren't the same for their common, mass produced, workhorse movements (4R, 6R and so on) compared to their high end (Grand Seiko) units. If they weren't regulated at all, :

• they wouldn't be claimed for -15/+25 factory accuracy
• And their adjustment wouldn't be covered by Seiko's warrantee.

« Specifications​

Cal. 6R35​

1.Features 3 hands (hour, minute, second), date display​

2. Vibrations per hour 21,600 vibrations/hour (6 vibrations/sec)​

3. Loss/gain (daily rate) +25 to -15 seconds at normal temperature range​

Only if worn on the wrist in a temperature range of 5°C to 35°C »​

« During the guarantee period, we guarantee free repair / adjustment service against any defects on the watch head (movement and case) and metallic band, provided that the watch was used as directed in the instruction manual. »

— Seiko's JSY6R351-A1906 (6R35 instruction manual)
— Seiko's Customer service #FAQ

However, if you compare the processes at a Seiko's factory, and then at Grand Seiko's, you will notice that the care put into each step logically isn't the same.

Most of the steps described during the Grand Seiko video are made by hand, or by machine assisted human personel. In the Singapour's regular Seiko factor, you will notice the automation seems far greater, and the workers seem to intervene less often directly, and more often as quality checkers.

And so for Grand Seiko, the balance seems to be adjusted once for the balance wheel alone, and then a second time when assembled, in 6 positions and various temperatures. That's probably done less thoroughly for regular Seiko units (1 or 2 positions ? at +25°C only ? ), and considering the time and cost requirements differences, that's absolutely logical.

Actually, after the initial regulation at the local jeweler, I have been able to keep my Alpinist with 6R35 to be within a few seconds of the US atomic clock weeks after weeks. I did that without adjusting the hands at all by noticing how fast or slow the watch is before going to bed and then place it in dial up, at a tilted angle, or crown down positions. to speed it up or slow it down overnight. I am happy that I can keep this 6R35 Alpinist running so accurately. However, I have to admit that checking the time every day to adjust its resting position at night sometimes gets to me. When that happens, I just pick up my solar powered radio-controlled watch

Learning how your automatic movement behaves depending on the position means you're gaining experience in its use ; and such variations are completely normal for a mid tier mechanical movement, independently of the brand. I was advised so upon acquiring my own by a more experimented user who told me I'd eventually manage to get +0 average at the end of the months, and I'm leaning towards that. Having a reference clock (or wristwatch) is quite useful in the process though, that's where your radio controlled watch could come in handy even if staying in the watch box.

If I may, there's another factor which I noticed, and did not read about in this thread so far, it being the influence of the power reserve : in order for my 6R35 to behave reliably, I have to maintain it in the first half of the reserve, by either rotor winding it, or manual winding it. If I don't, the watch will end up losing time whatever I do. I do remember having seen that mentioned in the official instruction manual as well.

If I get that right however, then I get between -8 and +7 spd, which by playing on resting positions leads me to -2 seconds per week. Which, I believe, is quite good for a mechanical movement. 😊

I am one of the vocal minority to have had a dud 6R (6R15). What I'm hearing is that Seiko's factory lubrication is inconsistent or lacking, and some not insignificant minority end up with poor performance, out of Seiko's already wide tolerances, 6-12 months down the road. In my case, mine kept fantastic time for several months, but kept running slower and slower. I thought the slowing was just the movement "breaking in", but it never stopped getting slower. It started at around +7 spd out of the box, a year on (worn 1-2 days per week) it was losing 15. A year after that it was losing 25. I checked it a couple months ago (3.5 years old) and it was losing around 40 a day, average. I also noted, at 2 years old very low amplitude (215 dial horizontal, less than 200 dial vertical) and positional variance of over 50 spd (which is out of spec). I dropped it off at a local jeweler this weekend for his watchmaker to take a look at it. Hopefully it can be fixed with cleaning and lubrication. Definitely not something that can be addressed with regulation.

Needless to say, my experience with Seiko mechanical movement timekeeping has been less than stellar. I personally steer clear of any of the 7S variants (7S, 4R/NH, 6R) now. YMMV.

Your reports are interesting. However, I believe the progressive loss in accuracy in between services (and lubrication) is completely normal for mechanicals, regardless of the brand. Oils have to be applied eventually. Even if the factory lubrication might be uneven for 6R units, if you had it perform well at the start, that's already something to be satisfied of, wouldn't it ? There are people on WUS who get +-35 spd deviations right off the bat on entry level watchs, regardless of the brand. So if you had ±7 spd for a mid price point watch, that'd seem like rather good to me ?

Maybe. Maybe poor design. A poor design expertly built will perform poorly.

That's most probably the exact contrary. Seiko as a brand is in horology since 1881, and since then made the first industrial version of a quartz wrist watch (≠ the first quartz watch), and even developed a movement technology of its own (the Spring drive). However, the mass production of their units logically led to compromises on quality controls, thus aren't uniformly executed among the units.

But in terms of conception, Seiko is an horological master. I'm not sure what feat from an anonymous poster could be high enough for him to justify looking down on Seiko's own accomplishments.

I wonder why that is.

Was the 6R15 as wildly inconsistent as the 6R35 is alleged to be?

Did adding in a more "powerful" mainspring really screw it up that badly?

A 6R35 is a 6R15 with a different mainspring. Both 6R15 and 6R35 have an accuracy that has been described as "temperamental", meaning that some users will have it perform completely fine, but for some it will fall beyond factory tolerance rather quickly if not right off the bat.

However, since the power reserve possibly has an influence, I'd consider the 6R35 to have the upper hand, even from a strict accuracy point of view. This might also explain why some have more issues than others. Now, even Omega coaxial movements can have more than significant issues. So I fail to see why how Japanese brand mid ranged movements should be required to be always perfect, while $2K-10K units from luxury Swiss brands don't.

 

Your reports are interesting. However, I believe the progressive loss in accuracy in between services (and lubrication) is completely normal for mechanicals, regardless of the brand. Oils have to be applied eventually. Even if the factory lubrication might be uneven for 6R units, if you had it perform well at the start, that's already something to be satisfied of, wouldn't it ? There are people on WUS who get +-35 spd deviations right off the bat on entry level watchs, regardless of the brand. So if you had ±7 spd for a mid price point watch, that'd seem like rather good to me ?

Accuracy shouldn't degrade that much that fast. I have an SW200-1 powered watch that was bought new 6 months before the Seiko and worn a bit more often. Amplitude is still high 200s (300 dial up) and accuracy is the same as when new. The numbers my Seiko were giving me are what I'd expect from a watch that hadn't been serviced in over a decade, not 2-3 years from the factory. Seiko's own recommended service interval is a conservative 3 years (if worn daily). The watch should run within spec for the duration of that. And a watch not worn daily should go longer.

 

My son has an NH35 in his watch and although the time grapher doesn't look amazing, in actual practice it keeps amazing time. Must be the same thing as your 6R.

 

My new Seiko Alpinist SPB245 ran pretty slow (-14spd) out of the box when new. After one month, it became even slower (-20 spd). So, I brought it to a local watch maker for a time regulation. The jeweler told me he preferred regulating high end Swiss watches with true multiple-position adjustment or a Grand Seiko but was not sure if my Seiko Alpinist would perform any better after adjustment. But I insisted and so he did at a reasonable cost of only $20.00 with a timegrapher. The difference between crown down and face up positions was a whopping 30 spd at best. Despite being disheartened, I told him to adjust the movement such that it was most accurate with the crown down position. Fast forward 30 days, now my Alpinist runs slow by 4-6 spd when I wear it (~ 16 hours per day) and gains 4-7 spd with the face up position overnight (~ 8 hours/day) for an amazing loss or gain of only -2 spd to +3 spd. So, I guess Seiko engineers deliberately design the movement so that the crown down position (heavily affected by gravity) and face up position (least affected by gravity) balance out over a normal wearing habit. However, I wish Seiko regulates their watches with 6R35 movement before selling them. View attachment 16184615

My new Seiko Alpinist SPB245 ran pretty slow (-14spd) out of the box when new. After one month, it became even slower (-20 spd). So, I brought it to a local watch maker for a time regulation. The jeweler told me he preferred regulating high end Swiss watches with true multiple-position adjustment or a Grand Seiko but was not sure if my Seiko Alpinist would perform any better after adjustment. But I insisted and so he did at a reasonable cost of only $20.00 with a timegrapher. The difference between crown down and face up positions was a whopping 30 spd at best. Despite being disheartened, I told him to adjust the movement such that it was most accurate with the crown down position. Fast forward 30 days, now my Alpinist runs slow by 4-6 spd when I wear it (~ 16 hours per day) and gains 4-7 spd with the face up position overnight (~ 8 hours/day) for an amazing loss or gain of only -2 spd to +3 spd. So, I guess Seiko engineers deliberately design the movement so that the crown down position (heavily affected by gravity) and face up position (least affected by gravity) balance out over a normal wearing habit. However, I wish Seiko regulates their watches with 6R35 movement before selling them. View attachment 16184615

With the 6R35 being the top end of Seiko's workhorse movements, I expected better. Instead it seems to be all over the place. My SPB117 was losing an average of -20s/d before I had it regulated, but due to positional variance it can be as fast as +20s/d or as slow as +5s/d.

In fact, my Turtle with a lower end 4R35 usually comes in at +2 or -2 s/d, easily outperforming the 6R35.

My SPB245J1 keeps loosing time, no matter the position.
Seiko justifying it's reputation for producing unreliable watches?

 

My SPB245J1 keeps loosing time, no matter the position.
Seiko justifying it's reputation for producing unreliable watches?

If it's losing within spec, not at all.

If you're not getting the accuracy you want, but a watch with an accuracy standard you can accept our of the box.

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