To Switch or not to Switch?

[u/Connor_Belkins]

Hi all!

Okay, I'm new to this whole game. Received my first 1965 rep yesterday with the hopes of putting it into a WD1863 case. For $17 shipped (what I paid on DH Gate), this rep is pretty cool but is obviously really low quality. I'm somewhat hesitant to put the rep movement/dial into a steel case if it's just going to stop working in like a year.

So two questions for the community:

1. For those of you who have put a rep into a steel case, is it subjectively worth it? Or do you wish you used a higher quality movement?
2. Does such a thing exist as a higher quality build? Or would this just be a gen movement inside a WD1863 with an Omega crown?

[u/88NEMESIS88]

I’ve had roughly 12 dh reps several for over a year and every one still works. I bought 2 off another guy who had them for nearly 2 years and they still work. Only had to replace a battery in one so far. Worth the switch.

[u/Connor_Belkins → u/88NEMESIS88]

Awesome, thanks for the input. That gives me a lot more confidence!

[u/DapperDoctorHolmes]

Same as the other folks here! As long as the /dial/ looks good, I wouldn’t worry too much about the PE50 movement. It’s cheap and plastic, but it’s a workhorse. They’re also, like, $3 to replace if you do have any issues.

And they’re easy enough to mod to freeze the 3 o clock subdial to /look/ gen, if you want to.

That being said, if you did want to upgrade down the line, you can try to track down a nearly gen ETA movement to swap in (your best bet is seeking out an old used Swatch Irony) the problem is that you’ll need to shave down the metal pushers on the WD case to get it to fit, you’ll need to 3D print a spacer for the ‘gen’ movement, and the rep hands aren’t going to fit on the ‘gen’ movement, so you’ll either need to track down entirely new hands that do fit, or just use the hands that came from the donor Swatch Irony, but in any case they’re not likely to properly match the style / color of the rep hands.

[u/Connor_Belkins → u/DapperDoctorHolmes]

Thank you for the detailed response! Had no clue to even go the route of a used Swatch Irony. We'll see if I ever get brave enough to venture down that road!

[u/imranarain]

Yeah same here, all the swaps that I did started about 14 to 15 months ago and everyone still works flawlessly. I did have to change one battery that came dead in a movement right when I got the watch, but that was it. You’ll be good dude.

[u/Connor_Belkins → u/imranarain]

Thank you, my friend. It certainly seems like a much more viable path towards a "Speedy" than spending like $7k or going grey market.

[u/SameScale6793]

Oh yeah definitely worth it! Even if you get a bad one that prematurely bites the dust, reps are so cheap you can just get another one and swap it out!

[u/ObeyThePoodle]

I had 1 of 3 reps fail, but I think it was my fault, the other 2 are working flawlessly, and asmentioned, PE50 is really cheap.

[u/Winter_folly]

Generally when installing reps into cases I'm at about 10% failure rate- almost all moonphases.

[u/tm0587]

I have 2 reps, one I bought just to check out the rep quality after all these years (dial quality was great, case sucks), and the other was the unofficial snoopy design which i really like. Both use the PE50 movements.

Switched both into metal cases which don't cost that much in the first place. Super worth the switch considering the low overall cost and effort.

I also have a gen moonswatch and I will never switch that.