AP 15500ST rotor does not turn well

[letti001 5]

Greetings,

I have a relatively new AP 15500ST from the APSF and bought from a trusted dealer.

I like the watch and it runs well but I noticed that it would not stay powered more than a day or two.

When looking at the rotor and turning the watch, it does not turn fluidly at all. I suspect it needs a service with lubricant and let my TD know (for advise).

I was told to have it lubricated and then contacted a watch smith with recommendation within this form and the Asian 4302 movement is not a normal one coming across his desk.

This note is being posted for some thoughts and suggestions for the lubrication  of such a watch movement.

Thank you in advance.

[GenTLe 1,501]

Well, to know if it's how you wrote (rotor not turning well), 1st let the watch to discharge completely, and then see if the rotor turns freely in both directions. If it does, there's nothing wrong with the rotor and the autocharge.

To oil the rotor, you just need an oiler and a bit of Moebius HP1300 or 9010: 

1. remove or open the bracelet so that you have access to the caseback without the bracelet in the middle
2. clean the watch with some alcohol
3. put a piece of duct tape on the upper side (where the dial is), covering all the screws on the bezel (they'll fall out otherwise when you remove the "screws" (in reality they are nuts) on the caseback).
4. unscrew the caseback "screws" and put them aside, and do NOT lift the movement or the bezel will separate from the case (the bezel is kept in place by the screws that pass through the middlecase and tighten by caseback nuts)
5. lift the caseback
6. with a watchmaker oiler put a TINY (!!!) amount of oil in the rotor bearing like shown here:

Reverse the process.

Note that I doubt the problem is in the rotor bearing anyway: in general they can be noisy but not dragging around (unless the rotor itself is in contact with something, like the movement or the glass of the caseback). That's a Miyota 9015 based movement, and once I had a similar problem and discovered it was the mainspring barrel that was not set correctly (it was partially open, dragging on the plate of the movement and therefore strongly reducing the power reserve).

If you aren't keen to work on movements or you've never done it, let a watchmaker to look at the watch...