I recently managed to acquire one of these very hard to find watches and even today three minutes of winding provides three days of accurate running.
Once the required power reserve was met, an overcharge protection circuit kicks in and an LED light located at the 6 o’clock position flashes twice to indicate full charge. Three days of running is not bad from a mechanically wound watch, however, three minutes of brisk winding can feel like a very long time for those used to winding their trusty old mechanical watch for just 20 seconds. The system was set up to provide three days of running from about three minutes of winding.
On the upside, the crown could be wound in both directions and was larger and textured to ease grip. The crown had to be wound fairly briskly as even with a 300:1 gear ration a slowly moving magnet does not produce much of a current. Unfortunately there were several drawbacks with the 8t23 movement.
Logic tells us that this is a pretty good idea and one that should resonate with traditional watch users who are used to winding a manual watch regularly. The principle was pretty simple: a highly geared and oversized crown spun a magnet past a coil, inducing a current that then charged a small capacitor, thus doing away with the traditional battery. In 1986, Seiko debuted their manually winding quartz watch, a world first. Citizen beat Seiko by a year with their first solar-powered analogue watch launched in 1976, however Seiko had not only solar power in mind but was considering how else a quartz watch could be powered. Seiko has never seen a watch reliant on a battery that will someday need replacing, as the best and only solution. Presently, the power-hungry and button-activated LEDs were replaced by constantly on LCDs. The initial analogue quartz watch featuring traditional hands to indicate the time, was soon surpassed by the first fully digital watch in the early 70s.
But other manufacturers soon adopted this new technology and the prices dropped as production of parts ramped up. The result delivered accuracy far outstripping even the best mechanical watches, albeit for a watch that initially exceeded the purchase price of a new car. Seiko introduced the world to battery-powered quartz wristwatches on Christmas Day 1969. But what about their Kinetic range that was a mainstay offering not so long ago? Seiko’s current range seems to be dominated by a renewed passion for automatic movements, along with a strong solar offering and of course traditional battery powered. I/trending 58154 The rise and apparent fall of the Seiko Kinetic range Jason Marsden