A. Lange & Söhne

In the middle of mourning the loss of hard earned money on a watch I didn't realize was fake, I noticed something was very wrong with my Lange 1815 Chrono. The first thing I noticed was that it was running at lightning speed, as in, it gained almost 5 minutes in an hour, which is ridiculously off. So I flipped the watch over to have a look at what was going on, and I noticed that the balance wheel was beating very weakly for some reason, like there wasn't enough inertia in the springs or something. This was extremely worrying as it was fine the day before, and all of a sudden it was malfunctioning to this extent, it was keeping time of +8 a day which is decent, in comparison to a sudden change to 5 minutes an hour.

I couldn't think of anything that I did wrong; I never dropped it, I never banged it, so it didn't make sense. However, there is one thing that I think may be the causation of this, I went to visit an embassy today, and I had to put all my stuff, including my watch into the X-Ray machine, along with my iPad. Now, my iPad screen protector has a small magnet near the edge to hold it in place, and it is possible that the watch may have come in contact with it.

My question, is it possible that my watch has been magnetized by this? Seeing the significant decrease in accuracy in such a short period of time? Or is there really just something wrong with the watch and needs to be sent into the service center to be investigated?


Please advise, I've been having a lousy week

Not the best,

Enrique

Try to align the centre of the compass to the centre of the balance cock...if the needle starts to jump erratically, then your watch is magnetized. To be frank, I would be surprised that it's due to your iPad over such a short time.

Sorry to hear about your 1815. Send back to demagnetize. Don't worry, it's not the end of the world(or the watch...pun intended)

And what's the story about a fake watch?

Best,

Horo

Hopefully it is merely that, I'm praying that it isn't some major underlying problem that's only rearing it's ugly head now Anyways I'm going to have the watch brought to the Hong Kong boutique to inquire for service, as the local AD in the Philippines is rather inefficient and will takes months to even get the ball moving. With regards to the fake watch, I recently dabbled in vintage Rolex, however don't know nearly enough for my own good, long story short, I bought a fake piece unknowingly You can have a look in the Rolex sub forum, my posts is just there.

Best,

Enrique

Lange has a great servicing team in Hong Kong, if it actually needs to get that far. Do try to demagnetize your watch first, and observe before sending in.

Good luck

Horo

I have the same diagnostic than Horo. But you don't have to worry, this can be fixed easily.

Fx

I shall send the watch over for service. Would you know how the process works by any chance? Do I have to bring my watch to an AD, or can I go straight to the nearest service center, which for me is in HK.

Thanks,

Enrique

If it is a magnetization issue and only a magnetization issue, the problem can be remedied quickly.  What the service center might be willing to do (and they are usually always equipped to do this but may not offer this) is to pass your watch through a de-magnetizer.  Basically the watch is put on an electric brick that is able to de-magnetize the watch within a few seconds simply by pushing a button on the device.  This electric brick is a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment, usually costs less than $300 USD and most (if not all) service centers have one.  The question is, if they will offer such a service.  

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... these days, cell phone or smart phone is a very likely source of the magnetization.  Be careful.  It may be a good idea to have demagnetizer at home.  It's the sign of times now

Ken

Hi Enrique.