# Reliablity of a DG2813 auto movement?



## usc1

Been searching through this forum attempting to become familiar with the DG2813.

I have no experience with this movement. Can someone clue me in?

Thank you.


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## Chascomm

usc1 said:


> Been searching through this forum attempting to become familiar with the DG2813.
> 
> I have no experience with this movement. Can someone clue me in?
> 
> Thank you.


The DG28 has a growing reputation for reliability and accuracy. It's a simple design and often roughly finished, but it gets the job done. Problems have been seen, mostly due to this movement being a cheap drop-in replacement for a Miyota and therefore turning up in some very cheap watches. Lately it seems to have become the default choice for fake Rolexes, too :rodekaart In a reputable brand, cased up in clean conditions, it should have accuracy and reliability on par with a Japanese Miyota.

Power-reserve should be at least 40 hours. The uni-directional winding gives a bit of ratchet noise but it does its job very effectively. Hand-winding feels like you're doing something wrong, but it should start with a shake anyway.

In spite of an identically designed indirectly-driven second hand, this movement is less often reported suffering 'stutter' than the Sea-Gull ST16 or Claro-Semag CL888.

Date change is fairly gradual, but the quick-change should have a nice positive feel.

The hack function is the least satisfactory aspect. In some instances it can delay up to a second and you need a bit of winding on it before you hack if you want to be sure it will work.


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## gigfy

It is a very nice hacking/handwinding movement. But any movement will give you trouble if not cased properly. ;-)

Here is my DG28 in my Timex auto.










cheers,
gigfy


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## usc1

thanks guys.:-!


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## TakesALickin

I wasn't sure whether to post here or under the "Chinese watch accuracy" thread. I finally decided to go with this thread, since it more specifically deals with the DG2813.

I have a DG2813 I've been trying to get dialed in for several weeks. After moving the regulator back and forth about a dozen times during that two week period - and observing that the very slightest movement of the regulator arm produced wild jumps in timekeeping - I finally gave up. I could move the arm ever so very, very slightly and the watch would go from (as an example) losing 36 seconds per day to gaining 24 sec/day.

At the point where I decided to stop trying to get it more closely adjusted, I knew it was gaining. The question was how much? I had been wearing it for several days at that point and knew that it had a pretty good power reserve built up. Here are my results. 

From 11AM of the first day through 7:30AM two days later (a total of 44.5 hrs), it gained 98 seconds. This is a gain of roughly 53 sec/day. That result doesn't sound good, but what's interesting is that the watch appears to be running better than that initially.

Looking at a more complete breakdown, it ran like this:

Wearing the watch
11AM to 6PM (+5 sec, or +17 sec/day)
6PM to midnight (+5 sec, or +20 sec/day)

Sleeping
Midnight to 6AM (+15 sec, or +60 sec/day)

Removed watch from wrist, watch at rest, crown up
6AM to 11PM (+47 sec, or +66 sec/day)
11PM to 7:30AM (+26 sec, or +73 sec/day)

My most active period of wear was when I initially began testing, followed by periods of increasing inactivity - watching TV in the evening, then sleeping, then removing the watch altogether.

As the motion of my wrist decreased and the winding action of the rotor decreased as a result, the power reserve of the watch began to run down. The watch's accuracy suffered a great deal as a consequence, gaining at an ever increasing rate as it neared the end of its power reserve.

I have the watch back on my wrist now and am continuing to observe and document its changes in daily rate to see if building the power reserve back up will result in the watch returning to a more acceptable gain in the daily rate. If it does, then I'll conclude that the movement can at least be consistent, even if it's doggedly difficult to regulate. If it doesn't, then I'll conclude that there is something fundamentally flawed with this particular movement, and I'll consider ordering a $19 replacement from Ofrei.


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## TakesALickin

The followup:

I put the watch back on my wrist at 7:30AM and began wearing it in an effort to get the power reserve back up. I had a fairly active day - walked the dog for an hour, went grocery shopping, did the dishes, not much desk time. From 7:30AM to noon, it gained 15 seconds (+72 sec/day). From noon to 3:30PM, it gained another 11 seconds (+88 sec/day). Clearly, if it was going to wind up by the action of the rotor, it wasn't doing it very efficiently. 

At 4PM, I took the watch off, unscrewed the crown and gave it 40 turns. From 4PM to 10PM, the watch gained 6 seconds (+24 sec/day), with only one second gained from 8PM to 10PM - indicating that the power reserve was getting better, and the movement's timekeeping was improving, but only after the substantial kick in the ass that handwinding gave it.

Conclusion: the automatic winding of the watch cannot be relied on to get the watch from a dead stop to fully wound very effectively. Once wound by hand the movement appears capable of fairly consistent timekeeping.


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## usc1

interesting perspective. thanks for the update. 

regulating any movement can be a pain in the butt. it really does take a tremendous amount of patience.


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## serdal22

Dear Friends,

I am an accuracy crazy person and I would like my automatic watches to gain (Or loose) 1 sec a week, and my quartz watch (Vintage Seiko Diver-I have one only since I love automatics) +1 sec a month. 

To be able to get most accuracy from my watches, I wear them (Generally in 14 day rotation to settle the movement well) 24/7 and I can say through my observation that I get very good accuracies. 

I am planning to get the accuracy machine to check and if necessary regulate my watches. I believe the price of these regulators/machines vary. 

Thanks for reading my short story, and enjoy your beautiful watches in good health . . .

Serdal


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## Dabon

I'm coming in late on this one but I'm considering a watch and was told it had the DG2813 movement in it. 
My question is - does that tell me who the manufacturer is? are all DG2813's the same? or like many things in China is that a model that 10 factories make and although the same design 1 is cheap junk and another is well made and on par with Miyota? 

with this being so old, I might need to start a new thread to get an answer.


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## Chascomm

The 'DG' designation indicates that the movement was manufactured by Dixmont Guangzhou, however the virtually identical movement is also manufactured by the Nanning Watch Factory with calibre prefix 'NN' which has been reputed to be slightly higher quality (but given the recent significant investment in DG, that hierarchy might no longer hold). The prestigious Beijing Watch Factory have also made movements on this pattern which are of a much higher standard of finish. There may be other factories producing movements on this same pattern, or at least assembling ebauches from one of the others. 

I suspect that there may be more than one grade of DG2813, depending on what the client pays. And you also need to consider the circumstances in which the watch was assembled. Some of the 'mushroom' brand watches can be a lot dirtier inside with evidence of rough handling.

Another thing to consider is that you may occasionally encounter a watch with a movement incorrectly attributed to DG, just because it is well-known (similar to all those 'Miyota' movements that turn out to be Sea-Gull or DG, or 'Sea-Gull' movements that are something else).


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## Dabon

thanks,

so no matter how similar, anything not made by Dixmont Guangzhou can't claim the title DG 2813, right?


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## fliegher

The DG2813 is tricky to regulate, takes several tries and using an eye loupe really helps; a good solid whack against a stone wall with enough force will sometimes vibrate the regulating lever off a few sec/day, several and you go out of COSC limits. I have once had as good as +4sec/week, but being around stone and cast iron I usually knock it out of regulation at least once every three months. I had a DG3804(DG2813 with GMT) drop 3m hard enough to dent a machined solid stainless case and I only had to reset the balance wheel, regulate, and re-attach some pips on the watch dial, this later was the 4sec/week movement.


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