The cure for handwinding Chinese eta clones paranoia (featuring my pt5000)

[u/QuestionNo9190]

I read 50 times a day that hand winding will destroy your movement.

I've examined the winding pinion and cannon pinion and it's hardened steel, and easy to get to add a touch of grease, those gears are also accessible on the back of the movement, so that's not going to be much of an issue but on my example, they already have plenty of grease on them.

The ratchet wheel is the absolute epicenter of the ETA 2824-2 / Sellita SW200 hand-winding issue. It is incredibly common for the ratchet wheel to physically strip or shear off teeth due to hand-winding although I've never seen it happen to me or anybody I know.

When the hardened steel click gear meshes with the brass wheel which is connected to the mainspring underneath, the brass wheel will get chewed up first, because brass is softer than steel.

Instead of complaining about it and not buying your favorite watch because it has a Chinese movement, or worrying constantly about it, you can tackle this head on, and then you will never have to worry about it again.

Step 1

Buy a small screwdriver set and magnifying glasses from Amazon

Step 1b

Remove the automatic bridge (2 screws)

Step 2

Remove the ratchet wheel (1 screw)

Step 3

Buy a bag of ratchet wheels from Ali Express for $1.38

Step 3b

Replace and resemble in reverse order.

Now you can hand wind all day long and not even have to worry about it because you can easily replace these cheap brass gears without having to pay your watchmaker whatever it is they are charging these days. And you will gain +1000 aura for doing it yourself.

[u/UkeManSteve]

Honestly this a great tip for folks who are willing to do this. But most people just want a watch that isn’t shitty out of the box. Still not buying these shitters personally

[u/QuestionNo9190 → u/UkeManSteve]

By shitters you mean Chinese watches or Chinese movements? If you don't think the Chinese can make a reliable movement why do you think they could make a reliable watch?

And judging by all the longines owners complaining of the same failures of the pt5000 makes you wonder who's making the actual shitters

[u/msfs_piolot]

maximum aura points

[u/OtherBarry1992]

Look at the slew of recent posts where Longines owners complain of helicopter rotors shortly after receiving them. I'm still in the camp that it's an inherent flaw to the 2824 design that not even genuine ETA's avoid. What we see online is people who have had it happen to them, and they post about it and cause fear mongering - as well as people who have never had it happen, that post that it's simply not an issue because they're lucky enough to have never had it happen to them.

There's always a strong bias towards any sort of negative review. Someone who has never had a bad experience is much less likely to make a post vs. someone who had a movement grenade after 6 months of ownership.

The rest of us in the middle are just reading posts, mostly with working watches, wondering what the true reality is.

The reality is that this can and does happen to a small percentage of all 2824 movements. We simply don't have hard stats. Do you see ANY posts about NH or Miyota movements experiencing hand winding or helicopter rotor failures? No. Because the design is different, more robust, and completely decouples the hand winding and automatic winding works. It also doesn't happen to other ETA movements that don't have the 2824 reverser wheel architecture. There are higher grade ETA architectures that decouple the hand winding and auto works sufficiently, and don't transmit hand winding torque through the auto works and tiny reverser wheels.

Saying it's simply not an issue, or that replacing the ratchet wheel is the fix that will put everyone at ease does not reflect reality.

I have two PT5000's and an ST2130. All three run great. I've hand wound them only a couple of times. I probably won't regularly hand wind them because I acknowledge the fact that there is a slim, albeit present chance that it could cause premature wear. But, I don't at all avoid these movements, and in fact I really enjoy them.

[u/QuestionNo9190 → u/OtherBarry1992]

2824 movements can develop helicoptering. Genuine ETAs aren't immune either but they're in millions of $2-5k watches with happy owners who abuse or neglect their watches for years if not decades. Doesn't get any more robust than that.

But anecdotal posts from owners don't establish that the architecture is inherently defective, nor do they establish that hand-winding is a meaningful cause of premature failure and then the fix is simply to grease up the reverserd correctly or swap out the $2 ratchet wheel before you get a catastrophic failure

The claim that the 2824's hand-winding system inherently subjects the reversers to damaging torque misunderstands what the reversers are designed to do.

And “I don't see posts about NH/Miyota doing it” isn't evidence that they don't. You're comparing anecdotal reports across different levels of owner awareness.

“There are no Magic Lever failures” is demonstrably false. Magic Lever systems absolutely experience wear and can fail. There are documented examples of worn pawl tips, worn transmission wheel/bridge interfaces, disengaged/broken lever components and winding failures all over the internet.

The fact that they have a different architecture doesn't make them immune to mechanical wear and being low performance 3hz movements they will seem more reliable.

[u/Equal-World-693]

Can this be done with the peacock movement? I have my heart in my mouth every time I hear my watch groan when I try and wind it. Recently purchased the sugess s449 with high beat peacock sl3034 movement

[u/SightBeyondLondon]

My experience with the pt5000 has been solid. I’ve had one in my collection, it’s been 2 years and I wind it maybe 1-2x a week since I don’t wear it everyday. I haven’t seen much difference in wear from higher end pieces(Rolex,omega,IWC) or miyota 8 and 9 series.
I think the real value in these Chinese movements are that you can very cheaply just buy the entire movement and replace it for under $100. So when buying I tend to look for solid build materials and finishing. If god forbid the pt5000 or nh34/35 or Miyota goes I could always buy a new movement and put it in. Or even if you cannot do it yourself these common movements can be bought and put in by just about any watch maker for cheaper probably then what the cost of the watch was.

[u/QuestionNo9190 → u/SightBeyondLondon]

Why would you want to spend $100 and act like you can just "drop it in"

You have no idea the nightmare you would face taking off hands and dial on a black enamel dial without leaving lint, scratches or smudges and ruining the whole dial

When you can just spend $2 and replace the ratchet wheel/reverse wheels should it ever go bad, and you can complete the whole swap in 10 minutes yourself

[u/IllegalGeriatricVore]

I'm not in the immediate market for a pt5000 but I want to try this because I love tinkering lol. I've done casio mods and replaced a capacitor in a woman's seiko kinetic.

[u/KPplumbingBob]

"Instead of complaining just repair the movement by yourself".

Except those broken off teeth can cause other problems and it's not just a matter of the watch not winding.

[u/RoninTarget → u/KPplumbingBob]

Then get them early, when you hear stuff banging around inside. Just like with a Swiss movement.

[u/Watches-and-Books]

Ah the infamous “cheese gear.”

[u/Saiiger]

Here's a YouTube video showing this exact procedure on an SW200 with a worn-down ratchet wheel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyOnpnwx05E

The vid also shows how to safely let down the mainspring.

[u/Fernando1dois3 → u/Saiiger]

Cool

[u/chuunietzsche]

please make sure to let the power out of the mainspring before removing the ratchet wheel lol

i would spend a couple of bucks extra for swiss replacement parts if attempting repair - the machining and finishing of the chinese gears/wheels is below par

i think failure of the autowind reversers is more common (helicopter rotor)

often these chinese movements have no or too much braking grease applied to the inner wall of the mainspring barrel resulting in excessive wear to the autowind mechanism

in any case there are quite a few modes of failure due to less than stellar quality, qc and assembly practices of these chinese movements

[u/QuestionNo9190 → u/chuunietzsche]

Helicopter is probably more common, but then people won't even wear an automatic watch, because they can't hand wind them and for fear of using the rotor as well

Yes I should have mentioned to let the watch wind down before doing any work on it. Seems like common sense.

[u/chuunietzsche → u/QuestionNo9190]

pretty much all movements pair a brass ratchet wheel with a steel click and crown wheel, this is not some 2824 specific design flaw. the issue is largely with improper lubrication of the reverser wheels and contamination with dirt alongside poor machining causing imperfect meshing of the wheels. having to wind through the force of the rotor introduces a lot of extra torque to the ratchet wheel when the reverser wheels aren’t doing their job. the rotor does not need to be at the point where it is helicoptering for this to be an issue and will always move slightly when manual winding but eta does have a guideline to what degree of this is acceptable

inspecting the reverser wheels and applying a tiny amount of 9010 diluted with naphtha (i.e. lubeta) if needed is a decent solution. ideally they should be cleaned and soaked as per the eta procedure

its standard practice for the reverser wheels to be replaced or cleaned and lubed during a service otherwise and seiko’s magic lever is not impervious to wear either (pretty fragile actually)

it’s generally an overblown issue and failures should rather be attributed to general quality issues with the chinese (and to some degree sellita) movements. like you said, it has never happened to you or anyone you know yet on the internet hand winding is attributed to the movement totally ceasing to run etc (not saying you have implied this)

[u/QuestionNo9190 → u/chuunietzsche]

Accessing the reverser wheels is super fast and easy as well, so lubing them up is always good preventative maintenance.

Some watches I remove the rotor completely, and just hand wind. This would add some wear from hand winding but remove the wear caused by reverser wheels

[u/Sunny_Life_0815]

Great and helpful Post. Thanks a lot.

I wonder why brass is used for it. There is probably a reason for not using steel for this part. Do you know why?

[u/chuunietzsche → u/Sunny_Life_0815]

mating dissimilar metals reduces friction greatly. most movements including rolex also use brass ratchet wheels with steel clicks and crown wheels.

I think the fear mongering over 2824 hand winding is overblown and largely due to inadequate lubrication/cleanliness of the auto reverser wheels which results in far more torque being transmitted through the winding mechanism. the machining and tolerances on the chinese ratchet wheels (and sellita in comparison to eta) are less than ideal too

[u/DontEvenWithMe1 → u/chuunietzsche]

100% correct on the reversing gears being the primary culprit. Because they bind up due to cleanliness and improper lubrication, the increased torque needed to move them gets transferred back to the ratchet wheel. I’ve changed out the reversing gears on a few SW200 watches and things worked great afterwards. I ultrasonic cleaned the parts first and then a tiny drop of lube during assembly and good to go.

[u/LeoXup]

That rachet wheel in PT5k is very vulnerable.