Seems like unnecessary wear and tear to me. I’ve accidentally left the chronograph running occasionally, but it’s not something I’d want to do regularly.

 

I had the same model Tudor and loved it. Great watch. I did trade it, as I missed the large second hand running full time, as with a 3 hander. There are some Chrono watches that you can run full time. Hope someone with more knowledge on the subject will chime in? Vance.

 

Does not lower the power reserve; that's a myth. Think about it: the escapement is what regulates the unwinding of the mainspring, whereas the chronograph merely is extra gears being turned by engaging a gear in the going train; the mainspring continues to unwind at the same pace - those extra gears are not causing it to unwind faster...how could they? - but the amount of force being applied to the escapement is just a wee bit less because of the extra gears that have to be turned. That results in the amplitude of the escapement being lessened. Long story short: power reserve remains the same, but you might lose an extra second per day by running the chronograph all the time due to the lessened amplitude.

As for whether you should do it or not, you should absolutely *NOT* do it for anything with a horizontal coupling engagement, notably the Valjoux 775X and Zenith movements. Why? The way the gears engage in this arrangement means one of the gears has needle-fine teeth that will wear down very quickly if run constantly and can even break, creating little bits of metal floating around inside the case. Not good. Vertical coupling? Knock yourself out. Yes, those gears will experience additional wear versus not running the chronograph, but that's a couple extra bucks at service time. In short, if you have a vertical coupling chronograph, run it if you really want.

Regards,
Alysandir

 

That is amazing information. Where can one lookup the kind of chrono one one's watch?

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1956 Omega Seamaster 2848
Omega Speedmaster 3510.50
Breitling Transocean Chronograph
Panerai Luminor Marina PAM 631
IWC Pilot Mark XVIII
Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical
Bedat & Co No. 7

 

Awesome information! Thanks.

 

Not sure about the Heritage Chrono, but in the video manual for my Speedmaster '57 it actually suggests keeping the chronograph running and using the subdial to track an extra time zone (by starting the chrono at 12:00 in the time zone you wish to track). I have never done it though, and typically don't leave my chronographs running.

 

I don't run the chronograph function when wearing of my watches. If you service your watches regularly I don't think it is anything to worry about though.

 

Okay, I got it backwards regarding the effect of reducing the amplitude. Mea culpa. Thank you for the correction.

But I still don't buy the whole "running the chrono drains the power reserve" argument, however. That's a gross oversimplification of what's really happening, that avoids the greater and more noticeable issue, the impact on accuracy. While it may be technically true, it just feels oily.

Regards,
Alysandir

 

And generally Tudor don’t actually service non COSC movements - they’re just replaced. It’s more cost effective and quicker to do that. Obviously the in house COSC movts all have serial numbers so that will have altered Tudors way of doing things.

 

I never use it unless timing something

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sorry to revive this old thread but I must add some watch have a different "rule"