zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: ..a quartz and an automatic? I know a quartz is
: battery driven and the automatic is self
: winding. What does the battery drive in the
: quartz? They both use tiny cogs etc to
: advance the hands?

An automatic is an *entirely* mechanical watch. Just like the old manual-wind watches. They both use energy stored in a tightened spring to run a mechanical series of gears and such to tick out the time. The only difference between the automatic and a hand wind watch is that hte automatic adds a metal weight that moves around as you move wearing the watch and its movement 'winds' the watch for you.

A quartz on the other hand is a mostly electronic device. It uses a battery operated circuit to measure the time--exactly like a digital watch. Here the difference is a quartz watch with hands uses a small electrical actuator to move the small number of gears that operate the hands.

: Also mentioned in an earlier post someone got
: sand under the bezel of their SMP while

Not heard of that problem before--but sand and coral are the two main diving risks to watches I've heard of. Especially in scratching the finish of the watch.

: Is this a common problem?

Actually, well over 99% of diving watch owners don't go diving. (Same with most owners of pilot's watches not flying a plane or virtually any owners of astronaut watches ever reaching sub-orbital altitude.)

Even those that do dive often switch to a cheap Casio or such for the actual dive rather than risking an expensive luxury watch. Sure, it can be fun to have the bravado of saying 'I paid a lot for this watch, so it damn well better do what it is designed for.' But the reality is that when you are on a 'if you damage it you gotta pay to repair it' basis, most people choose to risk a disposable $50 watch instead of one that could incur a $250+ repair if something did happen.