ETA Caliber 2834-2

Manufacturer	ETA
Caliber Number	2834-2
Movement Type	Automatic, self-winding mechanical
Lignes	11.5”’
Overall Diameter	29mm
Height	5.05mm thick
Jewels	25
Power Reserve	~38 hours
Vibrations Per Hour	28,800, 4Hz
Lift Angle	50 degrees
Shock System	Novodiac or Incabloc
Regulator System	Etachron with fine timing device
Materials	Brass (main plate and bridges)
Rotor	Ball bearing
Hairspring	Nivarox 2
Hacking Seconds?	Yes
Hand-Windable?	Yes
Rotor Winding Direction	Bi-directional
Features	Central hours; central minutes; central sweeping seconds; full day of the week at 12:00; date at 3:00 or 6:00
Country of Manufacture	Switzerland, Swiss made
Known Models	Tudor Prince Date+Day (ref: 76200, 76213, 76214) (Too many to list. Add your watch in comments below…)

The ETA caliber 2834-2 is a Swiss made automatic movement with a day-date complication. The calendar display on this movement is similar to the Rolex President Day-Date, with a full day of the week indicator at 12:00 and a date at 3:00 (also possible at 6:00 depending on the dial design).

The 2834-2 is part of ETA’s Mecaline collection. Official documentation was found dated as far back as 2009, with updates as recently as 2018.

2834-2 VS 2836-2:

There is also a similar caliber 2836-2. The main difference here is that the 2836-2 features an inner day of the week calendar wheel, placing the day indicator left of the date at 3:00 on the dial (with abbreviated spelling). The 2834-2 being discussed here has an outer day wheel, placing a panoramic style day of the week indicator at 12:00 (with the full spelling).

Because of the different calendar display, the 2834-2 has a larger overall diameter of 29mm (13”’), compared to the regular 28XX size of 25.6mm (11.5”’). For this reason, the 2834-2 and 2836-2 are not interchangeable and cannot be directly swapped.

Setting the 2834-2:

• Position 0 – Crown in hand-winding position (running position). This can be against the watch case in watches without a screw-down crown, or in unscrewed position on watches with a screw-down crown.
• Position 1 (one click) – Quickset adjustment of the day and date. Turning the crown clockwise will advance the date. Turning the crown counterclockwise will advance the day of the week.
• Position 2 (two clicks) – Time setting position with hacking seconds.

Note: To avoid damaging the movement, do not attempt to set the date when the hands are between the hours of 9pm and 3am.

Power Reserve:

According to ETA, it takes a minimum of 27 winds of the crown to fully wind the movement. The watch community seems to agree on 30-40 turns being sufficient to reach full power reserve. In contrast, when depending primarily on the rotor (oscillating weight) to wind the movement, it can take up to 1,250 turns or 1 hour and 30 minutes of the movement in motion.

Although the power reserve of the 2824-2 based movements, including this 2824-2, is widely known to be around 38 hours (for example, as listed in ETA tech sheets dated 2018), the official ETA website claims this caliber has a “typical power reserve” of 42 hours (as of 2021). Please comment below as to the power reserve you have experienced with your 2834-2 powered timepieces.

Drawings Front and Back:

Replacement Prices:

As with most ETA movements, although the 2834-2 is unavailable from ETA, replacement movements and parts can still be found online.

Examples of watches with this movement:

Below is an example of an ETA 2834-2 found in this Tudor Prince day/date watch. Notice that instead of Incabloc or Novodiac for the anti-shock device, Tudor (Rolex) used a Kif shock absorber (as they did with all of their other movements at the time as well, before switching everything over to paraflex).

Additional Resources:

• Official ETA 2834-2 tech docs/oil charts (pdf)
• ETA Grades and the differences
• More ETA watch movements