Background

If you happen to have a generic watch winder such as the one below, you might eventually run into the issue where it stops spinning.

The Problem

More often than not, these cheap winders will use a belt driven system such as the one below, and over time, these belts will crack and lose tension.

The Repair

Disassembly

To fix this, first, disassemble the winder. There are several good videos online explaining this, here is the one I used.

Belt Alternative - Use an O-Ring

This is the main point of this post. Instead of having to track down a replacement belt online, I went to my local home improvement store’s plumbing section. There, I found a set of rubber o-rings that seemed to match the original belt perfectly. The replacement o-ring was a #33 (O.D. 1 1/16" x 15/16" I.D. x 1/16") o-ring.

Success

The repair was successful. I will update this post if/when it fails. I’m sure there are reasons not to use an O-Ring, but it seems to work well for now. A pack of 10 of these o-rings was only $2.86, so this repair seems to be very cost effective. Also, I didn’t have to wait on shipping.