SA3135 Power Reserve Extremely Poor

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I just received a Yachtmaster from a m2m sale with a SA3135 movement in it which I know is not the best movement but the deal was good. It’s been having a power reserve of about 14 and a half hours. Is there anything I can do or does that indicate a service or movement replacement? If there’s any info somewhere else point me to it and I’ll read up I’m just having trouble locating a lot of info on this movement other than it’s not a very good one. Thanks for the help in advance.

[Daffy 105]

There is a possibility that the mainspring is magnetized.  (I'm not sure if the spring in the 3135 is ferrous?)

 

Anyway, I bought a cheap de-magnetizer off of eBay that worked on one of my watches, it would be worth a shot.  It was less than $20.

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I have one of those cheapies, little blue box thing, came dirty, I’ll have to try it out, sure can’t hurt

[Nikosaldente 630]

2 minutes ago, Daffy said:

There is a possibility that the mainspring is magnetized.  (I'm not sure if the spring in the 3135 is ferrous?)

 

Anyway, I bought a cheap de-magnetizer off of eBay that worked on one of my watches, it would be worth a shot.  It was less than $20.

If the watch is magnetized, it more often goes very fast than expected; 10-20 minutes....

OP's claim raises a lot of questions.......

How many times did he wind the watch before putting it on his wrist.....

What is his line of work? Does he spend all day sitting on a desk without moving his wrist, thus turning the oscillating weight, thus auto winding the movement?

In order to check the PR, he should manually wind it in a gentle manner by turning the crown clockwise 35-40 times....Then leave it on a table and check out how many hours it should take it to stop....

35-40 hours if not more should be fine!

[BlockSize 0]

I was suspicious of the power reserve before so I wound it 50 times then left it in the watch box until it died set 3:11pm 2/6/18 died 5:38am 2/7/18

 

Also rewound and reset at 11:12am 2/7/18 after demagnetization so will report back if anything changes.

[Nikosaldente 630]

Hmmmmm,

How's the time keeping/accuracy?

[BlockSize 0]

Timekeeping is +10-15s every 24 hours if I’m keeping it alive, also likes to fall between indices throughout the day even it set perfectly on one, not sure if that’s normal on Reps

[Nikosaldente 630]

You might a screw loose ( in the watch movement I mean)! 

The ratchet gear screw might be loose, the auto wind bridge screws, or the mainspring might be spinning freely inside the Barrel....

Either way, sounds like it needs to be opened up and checked!

Cheers!

[BlockSize 0]

Welp guess I’ll be looking around for someone on that, good thing it’s refund season 

[GenTLe 1,490]

Probably it is in need of a service AND a good check of the mainspring. Maybe the mainspring is set and needs to be replaced. There are generic ones that can fit (CousinsUK sells them). The need is to _precisely_ measure lenght, thickness and height of the current one.

 

[Joyjoyk 0]

Sorry to hijack this thread but didnt manage to find a similar enough topic.. echoing OPs finding that most SA3135 threads mention it is crappy but not really how so.

Just got my ARF dj 36mm yesterday.. on setting the time, it doesnt feel smooth like my other reps/watches. Not sure if im feeling the gears or if this is normal in a SA3135?

Best way to describe it is that it feels like winding up one of those music boxes albeit with less resistance.

Power reserve seems to be ok.. i wore it around swinging my arm like a mad man for a day.. seems to be still going strong after 24hrs..

Sorry for tacking on to this.. hesitant to make a new post!

[BlockSize 0]

 

4 minutes ago, Joyjoyk said:

Sorry to hijack this thread but didnt manage to find a similar enough topic.. echoing OPs finding that most SA3135 threads mention it is crappy but not really how so.

Just got my ARF dj 36mm yesterday.. on setting the time, it doesnt feel smooth like my other reps/watches. Not sure if im feeling the gears or if this is normal in a SA3135?

Best way to describe it is that it feels like winding up one of those music boxes albeit with less resistance.

Power reserve seems to be ok.. i wore it around swinging my arm like a mad man for a day.. seems to be still going strong after 24hrs..

Sorry for tacking on to this.. hesitant to make a new post!

I can tell you the winding of it once dead feels a little gritty but then transitions into a very smooth movement if that’s at all similar 

[Rx4Time 1,472]

So you are experiencing poor power reserve and date change issues?  The date change is a somewhat common issue with the clone 3135.  Were either of these mentioned in the sale or PMs?  It bothers me if someone sold you a watch with multiple undisclosed issues.  I'm thinking a service will be needed.  Where are you located?  There's a number of good watchsmith in CONUS and EU who can help. 

[Joyjoyk 0]

35 minutes ago, BlockSize said:

 

I can tell you the winding of it once dead feels a little gritty but then transitions into a very smooth movement if that’s at all similar 

Ah.. the winding sounds similar, gritty then smooth..

Setting the time however seems to be gritty the whole way, no matter how many revolutions of the minute hand i make!  Thats a good term.. gritty..

[BlockSize 0]

2 hours ago, teddy875 said:

So you are experiencing poor power reserve and date change issues?  The date change is a somewhat common issue with the clone 3135.  Were either of these mentioned in the sale or PMs?  It bothers me if someone sold you a watch with multiple undisclosed issues.  I'm thinking a service will be needed.  Where are you located?  There's a number of good watchsmith in CONUS and EU who can help. 

Date change is fine depending on how you put it, it changes on time maybe 11:55 but after setting the time, pushing in the crown, the minutes hand likes to jump occasionally and the date will sometimes change and no issues were presented at time of sale I’ll link it Here and CONUS if you have any experience with some ones that are willing to work on it.

[Joyjoyk 0]

I'd screenshot the part  where you asked whether there was any issues with the movement and seller said no

[BlockSize 0]

11 minutes ago, Joyjoyk said:

I'd screenshot the part  where you asked whether there was any issues with the movement and seller said no

Done

[Rx4Time 1,472]

Perhaps you should contact the seller?  If no luck then time to involve a mod. 

[Mary Watch 204]

1 hour ago, teddy875 said:

Perhaps you should contact the seller?  If no luck then time to involve a mod. 

 

his deal is M2M.

11 hours ago, Nikosaldente said:

If the watch is magnetized, it more often goes very fast than expected; 10-20 minutes....

OP's claim raises a lot of questions.......

How many times did he wind the watch before putting it on his wrist.....

What is his line of work? Does he spend all day sitting on a desk without moving his wrist, thus turning the oscillating weight, thus auto winding the movement?

In order to check the PR, he should manually wind it in a gentle manner by turning the crown clockwise 35-40 times....Then leave it on a table and check out how many hours it should take it to stop....

35-40 hours if not more should be fine!

+1

currently the A7750, A2824/2836, 9015, 3135,even 21J movement, after 40 rounds manual winding, they should run more than 30~ 36 hours, this is must.  or the power reserve have problem.  

OP,  did u wound it manual then wear it, and check how long it can last?   or wound it manual and then put it on desk?  both power just can run 15 hours?

 

[BlockSize 0]

1 hour ago, Mary Watch said:

 

currently the A7750, A2824/2836, 9015, 3135,even 21J movement, after 40 rounds manual winding, they should run more than 30~ 36 hours, this is must.  or the power reserve have problem.  

OP,  did u wound it manual then wear it, and check how long it can last?   or wound it manual and then put it on desk?  both power just can run 15 hours?

 

I’m currently waiting out the first manual full wind of about 50 full turns while just sitting in a watch box started about 12 hours ago, but wearing it actively before is enough to keep it going longer

[Cdenim 0]

Ok just seen your post op.. and the hijackers..lol.  Here we go.... Op you are first, its your post. You have an SA3135 and you have just given it a full wind of 50 turns of the crown winder. You should have, everything working properly, about 35 hours (safely) of unworn, unmoved power on the watch... if it doesn't... there are way too many variables for anyone to diagnose this correctly. Its like someone going to a mechanic shop and saying my radio in my car keeps turning off, why? And we are trying not to have it serviced with a watchsmith correct? Hmmmmm, and this agian is pending the outcome of fully winding it, I can't tell you how many watches with a rep 3135 movement in them i get for low power reserve and it turns out the customer thought 10 or 20 turns on the winder was fully charged main spring. Or they were afraid to go past 25 or something like that. Yes between 40 to 50 some more are needed at the crown winder to get that mainspring fully charged giving the watch its true power reserve.  Again not knowing whats what with the movement we'll say 35hours safely. If it isn't by say like half of that, we got us a problem. Next step.. can you get ahold of, or can you get an app for on your smart phone, or have a computer program for... any kind of WATCH TIMEGRAPHER.... If you can send me or post the results... most importantly, very key to this, what is the watches amplitude??? low power reserve with low amplitude= survicing the movement. Something has accurd, either mishandled during shipping after you purchased. the seller may have dropped it, seemed ok bc they never really paid attention to what was going on with the watch, bottom line something is either out of place, broken, came away from but a service is needed to correct. If nothing has happened to the watch and it shows low power reserve and low amplitude and the watch is fairly new (less than say a year) it can be only one problem... the mainspring is sliding in the barrel. Although they look like the 3135 the quality control is nothing like what we see at Rolex. The barrel has to have a certain amount of braking grease applied on the inside walls before insertion of the mainspring. It essentially allows  the mainspring to stop itself against the barrel wall which then allows it to wind fully pushing against this inner wall spinning it away from the arbor giving the movement power. if the mainspring has nothing or not enough braking grease it won't have enough friction to hold it in place for long and it will slowly slip its footing spinning slightly in the barrel losing its wind and causing about half power reserve. again, can be easily fixed by any watch smith with a service. Lets see where this goes after its full wind...... 

 

the hijacker.... You have an Sh3135 which is going to be different than the op sa. N or noob factory uses SA3135 as its theres and J, AR factories use the Y3135 or yuki watch 3135 movement. It is closer to the gen in its parts closely mimic the ones found in  a Gen caliber 3135. The gritty, sandy, chinsy, metal sound you here when winding is coming from the automatic assembly. One of the reversing wheels (one of the two red ones you see strait away under the engraved bridge and rotor) has had its reduction gear wheel ( the unpainted gear that sits on the center pinion on its backside) slip its teeth and is free spinning while the other one is doing the work for both. the gritty sound is the teeth spinning around under there kind of making contact then breaking contact, making it feel like you could snap something in there at any moment. Easy way to test for this, you have to open the caseback, making sure your hands and area your doing this in are free from any loose dirt or dust.  Lets not complicate things. with it open take you finger and very gently spin the rotor clock wise, should be completely free spinning. no kinks, nothing stopping it from freely turning, observer the driving wheel, (brass gear between the red ones) it has 4 holes. make sure as your spinning the rotor it is turning as well. If nothing binds up spinning clockwise (give it 3 full revolutions) stop and again gently spin anti-clockwise and you will at some point on the spin feel it kink or bind up. this would also indicate which wheel..if it catches something clockwise its the left wheel your right side looking at it strait on, if it snags going anti clockwise its the right one. The bridge has to be removed, and turned over, its hard to see but each wheel has 3 small teeth and you will have to line up the reduction wheels gear to fit inside the 3 teeth. snug everything up and enjoy smooth winding from here on out. IF you can spin the rotor freely both ways.... start crying....lol totally kidding.  The problem is either one or both of  the setting wheels have chude up there teeth on the sliding pinion and will have to be replaced, you can get swiss made (but not gen rolex) which is perfectly fine for this movement and 10000000000000 better than the ones it has stock for about $40. These gears are and have been a common problem with these movements since day one. They copy the gen movement almost to a T..problem is Rolex solved the gear teeth issue by making these tiny, tiny gears out of some vibrainium or some exotic alloy of some super metal they just whipped up like parachrom, The Chinese copy of the teeth is done with something like aluminum foil. Just not going to hold up well. So there you go..... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

Edited February 8, 2018 by Cdenim

[BlockSize 0]

 

8 hours ago, Cdenim said:

Ok just seen your post op.. and the hijackers..lol.  Here we go.... Op you are first, its your post. You have an SA3135 and you have just given it a full wind of 50 turns of the crown winder. You should have, everything working properly, about 35 hours (safely) of unworn, unmoved power on the watch... if it doesn't... there are way too many variables for anyone to diagnose this correctly. Its like someone going to a mechanic shop and saying my radio in my car keeps turning off, why? And we are trying not to have it serviced with a watchsmith correct? Hmmmmm, and this agian is pending the outcome of fully winding it, I can't tell you how many watches with a rep 3135 movement in them i get for low power reserve and it turns out the customer thought 10 or 20 turns on the winder was fully charged main spring. Or they were afraid to go past 25 or something like that. Yes between 40 to 50 some more are needed at the crown winder to get that mainspring fully charged giving the watch its true power reserve.  Again not knowing whats what with the movement we'll say 35hours safely. If it isn't by say like half of that, we got us a problem. Next step.. can you get ahold of, or can you get an app for on your smart phone, or have a computer program for... any kind of WATCH TIMEGRAPHER.... If you can send me or post the results... most importantly, very key to this, what is the watches amplitude??? low power reserve with low amplitude= survicing the movement. Something has accurd, either mishandled during shipping after you purchased. the seller may have dropped it, seemed ok bc they never really paid attention to what was going on with the watch, bottom line something is either out of place, broken, came away from but a service is needed to correct. If nothing has happened to the watch and it shows low power reserve and low amplitude and the watch is fairly new (less than say a year) it can be only one problem... the mainspring is sliding in the barrel. Although they look like the 3135 the quality control is nothing like what we see at Rolex. The barrel has to have a certain amount of braking grease applied on the inside walls before insertion of the mainspring. It essentially allows  the mainspring to stop itself against the barrel wall which then allows it to wind fully pushing against this inner wall spinning it away from the arbor giving the movement power. if the mainspring has nothing or not enough braking grease it won't have enough friction to hold it in place for long and it will slowly slip its footing spinning slightly in the barrel losing its wind and causing about half power reserve. again, can be easily fixed by any watch smith with a service. Lets see where this goes after its full wind...... 

t

Appreciate all the information Cdenim, looks like the watch ran out 3:50AM 2/8/18 so starting at 11:12AM 2/7/18 (stated above) gets us a whopping 16 hours and 38 minutes. I’ll see what I can do about a timegrapher and update when possible.

Edit: inserted pictures from phone app "Watch Tuner" amplitude does look low to my understanding but I don't understand as much as I'd like with this so let me know what you think, thanks.

Also first time inserting pictures, if somethings wrong with it let me know I'll take it down.

https://imgur.com/a/lkmPp

[dc2_bb6_cu2 0]

OP, let us know if you find a resolution to the problem. I have had this problem with both SA3135 watches I have owned (D-blue, and 116622), albeit not 16hrs, but I get on average 26-28hrs. The self-wind is what has been faulty on both, doesnt matter if I wear the watch, it always goes dead 26hrs after winding. Keeps great time, so I just make a habit of winding it when I wake up every day..

[Surftime 0]

8 hours ago, Cdenim said:

Ok just seen your post op.. and the hijackers..lol.  Here we go.... Op you are first, its your post. You have an SA3135 and you have just given it a full wind of 50 turns of the crown winder. You should have, everything working properly, about 35 hours (safely) of unworn, unmoved power on the watch... if it doesn't... there are way too many variables for anyone to diagnose this correctly. Its like someone going to a mechanic shop and saying my radio in my car keeps turning off, why? And we are trying not to have it serviced with a watchsmith correct? Hmmmmm, and this agian is pending the outcome of fully winding it, I can't tell you how many watches with a rep 3135 movement in them i get for low power reserve and it turns out the customer thought 10 or 20 turns on the winder was fully charged main spring. Or they were afraid to go past 25 or something like that. Yes between 40 to 50 some more are needed at the crown winder to get that mainspring fully charged giving the watch its true power reserve.  Again not knowing whats what with the movement we'll say 35hours safely. If it isn't by say like half of that, we got us a problem. Next step.. can you get ahold of, or can you get an app for on your smart phone, or have a computer program for... any kind of WATCH TIMEGRAPHER.... If you can send me or post the results... most importantly, very key to this, what is the watches amplitude??? low power reserve with low amplitude= survicing the movement. Something has accurd, either mishandled during shipping after you purchased. the seller may have dropped it, seemed ok bc they never really paid attention to what was going on with the watch, bottom line something is either out of place, broken, came away from but a service is needed to correct. If nothing has happened to the watch and it shows low power reserve and low amplitude and the watch is fairly new (less than say a year) it can be only one problem... the mainspring is sliding in the barrel. Although they look like the 3135 the quality control is nothing like what we see at Rolex. The barrel has to have a certain amount of braking grease applied on the inside walls before insertion of the mainspring. It essentially allows  the mainspring to stop itself against the barrel wall which then allows it to wind fully pushing against this inner wall spinning it away from the arbor giving the movement power. if the mainspring has nothing or not enough braking grease it won't have enough friction to hold it in place for long and it will slowly slip its footing spinning slightly in the barrel losing its wind and causing about half power reserve. again, can be easily fixed by any watch smith with a service. Lets see where this goes after its full wind...... 

 

the hijacker.... You have an Sh3135 which is going to be different than the op sa. N or noob factory uses SA3135 as its theres and J, AR factories use the Y3135 or yuki watch 3135 movement. It is closer to the gen in its parts closely mimic the ones found in  a Gen caliber 3135. The gritty, sandy, chinsy, metal sound you here when winding is coming from the automatic assembly. One of the reversing wheels (one of the two red ones you see strait away under the engraved bridge and rotor) has had its reduction gear wheel ( the unpainted gear that sits on the center pinion on its backside) slip its teeth and is free spinning while the other one is doing the work for both. the gritty sound is the teeth spinning around under there kind of making contact then breaking contact, making it feel like you could snap something in there at any moment. Easy way to test for this, you have to open the caseback, making sure your hands and area your doing this in are free from any loose dirt or dust.  Lets not complicate things. with it open take you finger and very gently spin the rotor clock wise, should be completely free spinning. no kinks, nothing stopping it from freely turning, observer the driving wheel, (brass gear between the red ones) it has 4 holes. make sure as your spinning the rotor it is turning as well. If nothing binds up spinning clockwise (give it 3 full revolutions) stop and again gently spin anti-clockwise and you will at some point on the spin feel it kink or bind up. this would also indicate which wheel..if it catches something clockwise its the left wheel your right side looking at it strait on, if it snags going anti clockwise its the right one. The bridge has to be removed, and turned over, its hard to see but each wheel has 3 small teeth and you will have to line up the reduction wheels gear to fit inside the 3 teeth. snug everything up and enjoy smooth winding from here on out. IF you can spin the rotor freely both ways.... start crying....lol totally kidding.  The problem is either one or both of  the setting wheels have chude up there teeth on the sliding pinion and will have to be replaced, you can get swiss made (but not gen rolex) which is perfectly fine for this movement and 10000000000000 better than the ones it has stock for about $40. These gears are and have been a common problem with these movements since day one. They copy the gen movement almost to a T..problem is Rolex solved the gear teeth issue by making these tiny, tiny gears out of some vibrainium or some exotic alloy of some super metal they just whipped up like parachrom, The Chinese copy of the teeth is done with something like aluminum foil. Just not going to hold up well. So there you go..... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

Sooooo informative! Thx @Cdenim!! We are lucky to have such a high level of expertise coupled with a willingness to share your knowledge. Not to mention the effort to write up everything in detail. 

[BlockSize 0]

4 hours ago, dc2_bb6_cu2 said:

OP, let us know if you find a resolution to the problem. I have had this problem with both SA3135 watches I have owned (D-blue, and 116622), albeit not 16hrs, but I get on average 26-28hrs. The self-wind is what has been faulty on both, doesnt matter if I wear the watch, it always goes dead 26hrs after winding. Keeps great time, so I just make a habit of winding it when I wake up every day..

Will do, I’ll post it here especially since there seems to be a lack of service questions on the SA3135 on here