# Elite Calibre 679 - In depth info?



## raja_3012

While researching Pilot watches, I stumbled upon the Pilot Type 20 Extra Special in bronze. It comes with the Elite Calibre 679. I tried to find some literature on that movement but was unable to find any. I did find some basic information like it beats at 28800 and has a 50/55 hour PR. That said, I am interested in knowing more about the accuracy and anti magnetic properties of the movement.

1) Does anyone here know what is the balance spring in calibre 679 made of?
2) Is there any magnetically permeable inner cage to encapsulate the movement?
3) How accurate the movement is?

Thanks in advance!


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## WTSP

I recommend this page, with the help of Google Translate if necessary. 
https://sites.google.com/site/zenithistoric/le-calibre-elite


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## Hartmut Richter

To answer your three questions:

1. Don't know for certain, but no special alloy or material (similar to Parachrome or silicon). As far as I know, LVMH are still not making their own balance springs (the main supplier for Swatch still being Nivarox, for Richemont originally being Lange & Söhne, now being Valfleurier) but get them externally. However, LVMH are currently striving to set up their own production

2. Probably not, or it would be heavily advertised

3. Easily within chronometric accuracy. Capable of maximum deviations in daily rates of 5 seconds or even less. When Zenith still had a reasonable number of movements tested, this movement appeared in certified chronometres, nowadays, Zenith don't really offer any such watches

Hartmut Richter


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## raja_3012

Update from Zenith customer service... The spiral in the balance spring in the Elite 679 caliber is made of *Invar* (iron-nickel-carbon-chromium alloy). The Zenith watch maker who responded to my query also mentioned that invar alloy makes the watch almost anti magnetic and hence maintain high accuracy.


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## probep

Hartmut Richter said:


> As far as I know, LVMH are still not making their own balance springs (the main supplier for Swatch still being Nivarox, for Richemont originally being Lange & Söhne, now being Valfleurier) but get them externally. However, LVMH are currently striving to set up their own production


Nevertheless Zenith declares in new "El Primero 21 User Guide" (page 3):


> From the very moment you invest in a Zenith watch, you can be absolutely certain that you are in possession of a watch that has been produced from start to finish at the Le Locle Manufacture.


Source: http://www.zenith-watches.com/media/services/mode-demploi/zenith_mode-emploi_el-primero-21_INT.pdf


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## raja_3012

That is weird. I have email from "[email protected]" stating that the mainspring & balance spring is supplied to Zenith by Nivarox and the alloy "Invar" is particular to them.



probep said:


> Nevertheless Zenith declares in new "El Primero 21 User Guide" (page 3):
> 
> Source: http://www.zenith-watches.com/media/services/mode-demploi/zenith_mode-emploi_el-primero-21_INT.pdf


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## Hartmut Richter

That's crazy! No Zenith is or has ever been made absolutely 100% in house. Cases, dials, hands and crowns are all outsourced.

But then, practically no company ever made 100% of their watches in house (by that definition). Rolex now make everything themselves (and it only pays to do so anyway when making close to a million watches per annum) but they also used to get Nivarox hairsprings. And most of the others outsource some parts. Seiko are large enough for 100% in house production, Rolex are but I can't think of any others offhand. It just doesn't pay.

In any case, what is definitely in house is the design of Zenith movements, plus the production of the main parts. That is to me, what sets a movement apart from the rest. And that's what I would interpret into a statement such as the one made by Zenith.

Hartmut Richter


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## TheGiant

Just received the bronze Pilot with the Elite 679 movement. Had it five days now and losing about 8 seconds a day or 40 seconds since I measured it. Like to be in +/- 3 seconds a day. Should I send it back to Zenith for calibration or have a good local watch shop calibrate it for me?


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## Hartmut Richter

Thanks for the update. Interesting to know.....

Hartmut Richter


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## joc3721

My new Pilot Bronze also runs slow. At least 8 seconds a day, if not more. I'm not going to worry about it unless it gets much worse. When its time for maintenance it can be dealt with. It's a mechanical watch, I don't expect high accuracy from a mechanical watch and I didn't buy it for accuracy. I also have a Japan only Citizen Chronomaster. It's accurate to 6 seconds a year. A different proposition entirely.


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## richterto

Sorry to revive a dead thread but this seemed like a relevant thread to build off of. I just purchased a Zenith Pilot Type 20 Extra Special 40mm in blue. I love the design of the watch. It's my first Zenith and I'm really surprised at the sounds my watch is making when the rotor is moving and when I wind the watch. The only way I could describe it is sounds like a high-pitched metallic tink - almost music-box like. I've owned Omega, Rolex, IWC, etc. and I've never come across anything like this before. Is this normal? I was able to set the time properly but it's too soon to tell if it's keeping good time yet since I just got it today.


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## raja_3012

First off.. congratulations on your Zenith. Coincidentally I tried the 40mm Pilot in Blue dial and bronze case couple days back and really really liked the watch. It wears just perfect. However, for the lack of much info on the movement I stayed away. But I loved the design of the watch.

That said, the rotor movement noise seems to be similar to the Valjoux 7750 or the 7753 movements. I have a Panerai PAM00168 with the Valjoux 7753 and it makes the same sound. It is perhaps because of a heavy rotor.

I would love to hear more about the watch accuracy and its ability to shield from magnetism.



richterto said:


> Sorry to revive a dead thread but this seemed like a relevant thread to build off of. I just purchased a Zenith Pilot Type 20 Extra Special 40mm in blue. I love the design of the watch. It's my first Zenith and I'm really surprised at the sounds my watch is making when the rotor is moving and when I wind the watch. The only way I could describe it is sounds like a high-pitched metallic tink - almost music-box like. I've owned Omega, Rolex, IWC, etc. and I've never come across anything like this before. Is this normal? I was able to set the time properly but it's too soon to tell if it's keeping good time yet since I just got it today.


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## PedroC60

I also have purchased the 40mm Pilot in blue / bronze case and have found the accuracy to be superb. Only had it for five days but it has yet to lose or gain any time. Long may it continue.

This was my first foray with Zenith, although I was aware of the brand, and I am not disappointed. The bronze case gives it a great "instrumentation" look - kind of like a compass. So far very happy 



raja_3012 said:


> First off.. congratulations on your Zenith. Coincidentally I tried the 40mm Pilot in Blue dial and bronze case couple days back and really really liked the watch. It wears just perfect. However, for the lack of much info on the movement I stayed away. But I loved the design of the watch.
> 
> That said, the rotor movement noise seems to be similar to the Valjoux 7750 or the 7753 movements. I have a Panerai PAM00168 with the Valjoux 7753 and it makes the same sound. It is perhaps because of a heavy rotor.
> 
> I would love to hear more about the watch accuracy and its ability to shield from magnetism.


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## PedroC60

I hope you returned it to Zenith. At the price point you should expect 4 seconds a day at worst. I had to return a new Heuer Heritage Autavia because it was over 7s per day out. Came back at less than four and TAG were happy to do it.



raja_3012 said:


> First off.. congratulations on your Zenith. Coincidentally I tried the 40mm Pilot in Blue dial and bronze case couple days back and really really liked the watch. It wears just perfect. However, for the lack of much info on the movement I stayed away. But I loved the design of the watch.
> 
> That said, the rotor movement noise seems to be similar to the Valjoux 7750 or the 7753 movements. I have a Panerai PAM00168 with the Valjoux 7753 and it makes the same sound. It is perhaps because of a heavy rotor.
> 
> I would love to hear more about the watch accuracy and its ability to shield from magnetism.





TheGiant said:


> Just received the bronze Pilot with the Elite 679 movement. Had it five days now and losing about 8 seconds a day or 40 seconds since I measured it. Like to be in +/- 3 seconds a day. Should I send it back to Zenith for calibration or have a good local watch shop calibrate it for me?


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## leteu

This thread is made to be continued from time to time, I guess...
My first Zenith, also the 40 mm Pilot Extra Special. 4 days of wearing. Non stop (except in the shower), I mean I even slept with it. 3 days, 1 sec faster. That's like the best Spring Drive I said!
But in the morning of a 4th day... a little under 1 hour behind!
I think the rotor needs lot of movement, even slow walking is not moving it. So despite the 50 secs PR, if you aren't in serious motion over the day (I was definitely not) the rotor didn't "charge" the watch. I winded manually, after few hours, spot on again!
Did you guys had a similar experience?


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## heb

I was wondering the same today (Feb 10, 22). Their Elite movements have been around for over 25 years. I don't think Zenith has made many, if any, improvements to them, like silicon components. From what I've just read here, their precision is all over the place. Omega need not fear.


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## leteu

heb said:


> I was wondering the same today (Feb 10, 22). Their Elite movements have been around for over 25 years. I don't think Zenith has made many, if any, improvements to them, like silicon components. From what I've just read here, their precision is all over the place. Omega need not fear.


As I said, the precision is spot on, why silicon or anything else if your movement is like a quartz? If it works, don't fix it!
My concerns were about the rotor capacity to wind up the watch. Now I use to manually wind the watch in every morning and all is perfect.


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## heb

leteu said:


> As I said, the precision is spot on, why silicon or anything else if your movement is like a quartz? If it works, don't fix it!
> My concerns were about the rotor capacity to wind up the watch. Now I use to manually wind the watch in every morning and all is perfect.


I too must do manual winding to keep my ETA/Selita movements fully charged. For some reason, I can keep my manual chronographs fully wound.


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## One-Seventy

heb said:


> I was wondering the same today (Feb 10, 22). Their Elite movements have been around for over 25 years. I don't think Zenith has made many, if any, improvements to them, like silicon components. From what I've just read here, their precision is all over the place. Omega need not fear.


On the basis of a single thread on only one page of a particular English-speaking forum containing about four data points since 2018, I doubt you could turn this into strategic advice for a company that turning over nearly two billion...  Not least because it would ignore all those who've owned one or more watches with the Elite movement and despite not having posted about their experiences have been extremely happy with their accuracy and consistency (I have both a Pilot and a Captain, +/- 2-5 sec a day, mostly depending on mainspring state). In any event, Omega is a big-volume monster making 600,000 watches a year; it's not Zenith's natural competitor (15,000).

I did however find it strange that in the ten years or so that Zenith has been making big pilot watches, that they didn't upsize the movement to suit the cases. Most of the watches Zenith still sells with the Elite movement are a great deal bigger than the movement. Further, a watch running at -8 sec/day from new will easily be checked and regulated by Zenith's service agent, even if it comes from old stock, which I bet a lot of them still do.


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## Longjean

I bought an Elite 682 as new old stock in 2013. It did nor wind while on the wrist even after a 4 mile walk. I had it serviced locally but it still did not wind so I took it back. The shop said that it wound on their watch winder so there was nothing wrong with it.

I decided to hand wind it and it has been running at +5 s/d until very recently so it going some where else for a service. 
I enquired here about non-winding Elites but no one knew that there was a problem. I found a reference somewhere that there was a "Zenith Fix " for the problem but not what the fix was but now I cannot find it.
One point I would like to make is that the keyless works must be robust since I have been hand winding it one week in four for eight years without an issue.


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## Hartmut Richter

One-Seventy said:


> I did however find it strange that in the ten years or so that Zenith has been making big pilot watches, that they didn't upsize the movement to suit the cases. Most of the watches Zenith still sells with the Elite movement are a great deal bigger than the movement.


This is a general problem. There isn't a single company that I can think of that "upscales" its movements. Some have bigger ones in their portfolio but not bigger versions of the old movements. Even the 13''' Valjoux 7750 (brought out in a 16''' version by ETA as the Valgranges A07.211 calibre isn't really any bigger: they simply added some dead material around the edges by making the plates bigger.

But this is not a new trick. All of the old movements in their larger versions just had more metal around the outside. E..g. ETA Cal. 1080 and 1081, Adolf Schild Cals. AS 1158/1187 vs. AS 1194. I presume that you can't simply upscale movements like that since increasing dimensions by x2 increases e.g. mainspring length by x4 so that the power goes up disproportionately and you might knock the banking. Or perhaps the opposite effect (power goes up by x4 but required power - depends on balance weight - goes up by x8). Or whatever other factor that prevents a direct upscaling. Movements are optimised the way they are and if you want something bigger, then go back to the drawing board. 

Hartmut Richter


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## One-Seventy

Hartmut Richter said:


> This is a general problem. There isn't a single company that I can think of that "upscales" its movements. Some have bigger ones in their portfolio but not bigger versions of the old movements. Even the 13''' Valjoux 7750 (brought out in a 16''' version by ETA as the Valgranges A07.211 calibre isn't really any bigger: they simply added some dead material around the edges by making the plates bigger.
> 
> But this is not a new trick. All of the old movements in their larger versions just had more metal around the outside. E..g. ETA Cal. 1080 and 1081, Adolf Schild Cals. AS 1158/1187 vs. AS 1194. I presume that you can't simply upscale movements like that since increasing dimensions by x2 increases e.g. mainspring length by x4 so that the power goes up disproportionately and you might knock the banking. Or perhaps the opposite effect (power goes up by x4 but required power - depends on balance weight - goes up by x8). Or whatever other factor that prevents a direct upscaling. Movements are optimised the way they are and if you want something bigger, then go back to the drawing board.
> 
> Hartmut Richter


That would still have been better than nothing I get that Zenith isn't falling over investment capital and perhaps coudn't afford to develop a new, larger movement from the ground up. But at least a bigger baseplate, Valgranges-style, would have placed the date window closer to the edge of the dial (which was a Zenith design cue for many years) and possibly allowed the subdial to be placed further out with a couple of intermediate wheels. One thing that can be said for using a 26mm movement in a 48mm case is that at least the small-seconds subdial doesn't trouble the indexes


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## WTSP

Zenith did produce a larger Elite caliber, the 6150. It also had a 100 hour power reserve. Unfortunately they seem to have discontinued it after only two years and a single line of models (Elite Classic I think).










I’m guessing that there wasn’t anything very wrong with the movement since it was created using the standard Elite escapement and wasn’t particularly complicated. Zenith probably decided that they preferred to invest in fancy chronographs.

As for reliability of the 679 and the automatic winding issue, this thread offers some interesting perspective.








Zenith pilot gmt type 20 not winding on winder


Has anyone encountered any issues with winding this 48mm watch with the in house elite 693? It stays wound when worn and has a great reserve but when I place it on my almost vertical winder (versa) it stops winding after the reserve runs out. I used setting for 650tpd and just upped it to...




www.watchuseek.com





I’m happy to own a hand wound 650. However, after about ten years of ownership the mainspring seems to have broken. I was winding it normally one day and felt a snap. After that the power reserve was less than half of what it used to be and instead of stopping when fully wound it just keeps slipping with little clicks after winding less than ten turns. It’s definitely due for a service.


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## Hartmut Richter

WTSP said:


> Zenith did produce a larger Elite caliber, the 6150. It also had a 100 hour power reserve. Unfortunately they seem to have discontinued it after only two years and a single line of models (Elite Classic I think).
> 
> View attachment 16434684


I'm sorry but there is hardly any similarity between the Cal. 670/680 and the Cal. 6150. The two basically prove my point: you can't just upscale a movement, you've got to completely redesign it - or design a new one.

The most obvious difference between the two calibres is the position of the balance: at 10:30 in the Cal. 670/680 but at 7:30 in the 6150. Furthermore, the transmission of the automatic winding to the mainspring in the older movements goes right past the balance cock (just as in the "El Primero") but further away from it in the 6150. And I will probably find other differences if I take a closer look. So: apart from the designation "Elite", there isn't much similarity between the two.

I would join WTSP, though, in my surprise that this movement was discontinued so quickly. They must have spent quite some time designing it and on the surface of it, it should have been a winner (larger movement, longer power reserve, etc.). Furthermore, there were no reports (at least here) of any problems with it.

Hartmut Richter


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## WTSP

Sure, the caliber 6150 was certainly more than a caliber 680 with a larger mainplate. The configuration of the plates and bridges is different, but that made it all that much better!

I do think that the similarities go beyond just the name though. I'm assuming that the balance, pallet fork, escape wheel and at least one if not two of the mainsprings were shared between the 600 series and 6150. The whole gear train may be the same. The winding rotor pivot assembly appears to be the same as well.


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## One-Seventy

WTSP said:


> Zenith did produce a larger Elite caliber, the 6150. It also had a 100 hour power reserve. Unfortunately they seem to have discontinued it after only two years and a single line of models (Elite Classic I think).


I did not know the 6150 was larger, that's interesting - and don't understand either why they binned it. Two years is not a long time to recoup the design investment. 55 hr PR is no slouch, but 100 is highly competitive. Still, as far I can see, it ended up in just one model. 

Zenith, why do you tease us like this? Imagine a 42mm Type 20 Pilot with 100 hr PR and that nuclear lume. Available in bronze for the hip. I know it'll never be :/


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## WTSP

Nice lume shot. The caliber 6150 could certainly have been highly competitive. I think of the Frederic Piguet 1150 which forms the base of the Blancpain and Jacquet Droz catalogue. I think the Elite 6150 was supposed to celebrate Zenith’s 150th anniversary, but they may have well have also been signaling their aim at the 1150 given the similarity in the caliber number. Both are thin twin barrel movements, though the Elite had 100 hours vs 70, and 28k vph vs 21k.

It’s possible that Zenith felt it represented too strong an asset in the three hand category when they wanted to invest more in chronographs. They would also have had to reinvent all their complications which fit the smaller 600 series Elite. Adapting all the modules for power reserve, moon phase, GMT, etc. would not have been economical. I’m just speculating of course…


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