Owning a watch winder is a great investment for your automatic timepieces. They help prolong the life of the watch while keeping it accurately telling time. If you seldom wear your watch, this makes life easier as you can immediately use it whenever the need arises without having to wind it up manually.
Before getting too excited about getting one, you should first know how to use a watch winder. There are a lot of brands that make this equipment, but the core functions and programming is essentially similar, making it easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Things to know using a watch winder
1. Know your watch’s recommended TPD.
TPD, or Turns Per Day, is a setting that regulates the number of rotations the watch winder will give your automatic timepiece to completely wound it up. This is an important piece of information that you should have since setting the watch winder with less than the recommended TPD of your timepiece means that it won’t be wound up fully and will eventually be off the time. Too much of the recommended TPD, on the other hand, might wear down the watch faster in the long run.
It is important to conduct some research first on your automatic timepiece. What is the recommended TPD in order to keep your watch fully wound up? You need this information in order to ascertain what type of watch winder you’ll need to get. Matching the recommended TPD and the actual winder’s settings will immensely help keep your timepiece properly wound and in optimal condition, all without the negative effects from too much or too less Turns Per Day.
2. Know how your watch is powered up.
As automatic watches require your arm movement for power, one would assume that it becomes weak when unused for quite some time. However, automatic timepieces are usually powered up with an extra battery reserve so that temporary non-use of the watch won’t affect the overall performance of the timepiece when you get to use it again. Do take note of the power reserve so that you know how long it can last without being used.
This information is vital when using a watch winder. As automatic watches still have some power reserve left after short periods of non-use, it won’t absorb power quite as efficiently as compared to having its battery nearly dried out. This is where the delay function of watch winders comes in. The purpose of this is to provide some waiting time to let the reserve power run low. After the set time, the winder will begin movement and power up the watch normally.
3. Know the step-by-step procedure of using watch winders.
Besides knowing the important information provided above, you have to know how to actually use the watch winder. Based on a few simple steps, these are the usual guidelines used when using the winder:
- If the watch is not working anymore, manually wind it up a few times up to about 40 turns to prep it up for the watch winder.
- Making sure you know the recommended TPD of the automatic watch, adjust the settings to provide the perfect amount that will give the most energy in the timepiece without doing it any harm.
- Also make sure you know which direction your watch gathers energy efficiently. It can be clockwise, counter-clockwise, or bi-directional if it can be powered in both directions. You can then set your watch winder to turn in such direction.
- In case you’re not sure of the recommended TPD and direction, periodically check your timepiece after about 2 days. If it is keeping proper time, then it is working perfectly. If not, you can adjust either the TPD setting or the direction and wait for another 2 days per trial until you find out the correct adjustments to your watch winder.
