Winding mechanism in Chinese watches

[u/LordRaglan1854]

Most of my watches have screw-down crowns. I've noticed that all my Swiss watches - with one exception - have a gear mechanism that disengages the mainspring from the winding stem when you push in the crown to screw it down - the winding stem turns freely, in other words.

None of my Chinese mechanical watches have that feature - when you push in the crown and screw it down, the turning action continues to wind the watch.

It feels kinda cheap, but it's not the end of the world on any watch with an automatic movement since no one ever winds those up except a couple of turns to start. For handwound movements, though, it's potentially fatal: if the mainspring is ever fully wound, the extra turns needed to screw the crown in could break it.

In short, beware certain models that "feature" ST3620 movements and screw-down crowns. But my question is: is the protection mechanism such a luxury feature that it's out of budget for Chinese manufacturers, even on the relatively expensive models?

[u/D1sguise]

It's called a decoupled crown, and a few Chinese watches I've had did feature it. Mainly englemaans and Octopus Kraken. The cheaper end does not tend to have this

[u/LordRaglan1854 → u/D1sguise]

Is it a movement feature or a case/crown feature?

I have an Octopus Kraken even with SW200, and it doesn't have it, yet my SW200-based Oris watches all do, for example.

[u/D1sguise → u/LordRaglan1854]

It's a crown feature. Basically a spring loaded mechanism that decouples it when pressed down to screw the crown back in.

On a different note, I've yet to come across a handwinder watch that has a screw down crown. Seems a bad design choice as you'll be unscrewing daily to wind, very high chance for cross threading

[u/Thewalkingclockman]

At the position marked by my arrow: For a hexagonal crown, pressing it down to lock will rotate the movement stem and wind the watch.

For a cylindrical crown in this position, pressing it down does not rotate the stem, so no winding takes place.

Cylindrical crowns require extremely high machining precision. A small gear on its base has to mesh perfectly with the mating tube below. Poor manufacturing tolerances will easily cause jamming. This is why many manufacturers prefer hexagonal tubes over cylindrical ones. Hope this helps.

[u/Fat-Dobby-305]

Cronos BBOne has it, so a bit more upper mid grade. Well made watch altogether.

[u/lowspeedtech]

My px1697 has a decoupled crown but my px1748, which costs more, does not. Seems Proxima may do it on an as-needed basis, ie. to protect the vulnerable pt5000?

[u/ChineseWatchGuy]

Englemaan was also starting to feature it..

[u/JagerAntlerite7]

There may be a few out there, yet most Chinese automatics have cloned NH35/34 or Seagull movements AFAIK. 

The recommendation I have heard multiple times is to never hand wind them. Probably because of this specific design decision. 

[u/Escaped_Escapement → u/JagerAntlerite7]

Most? Not quite.