Introduction

The Panerai Replica Laboratorio di Idee is the brand’s intention to be the “think tank” of cutting-edge watches. Panerai has demonstrated this over the years, continuing to develop special projects, as demonstrated by the launch last June of the Submersible Elux LAB-ID PAM01800. In our opinion, the “LAB-ID” suffix reached its peak with the ambitious project of creating a mechanical movement without lubrication and with a 50-year guarantee.

It happened seven years ago, a sidereal distance at the current pace of development in watchmaking, even more so if we consider how much Panerai has changed its skin and strategic direction in this period.

The Elux project was given the green light eight years ago; although it was, as we presume, developed in parallel with other projects, its overall duration quantifies the technological effort and resources that the Laboratorio di Idee conducted to arrive at the final product.

Elux as a source of inspiration

The name is first and foremost a powerful marketing message. Panerai has revived a patent developed by the Officine Panerai company after it had stopped producing watches for military purposes, during the period in which it supplied the Italian Navy with devices for military use, including a patent for luminescence for various applications.

Luminescence is a pillar of the brand’s mission; it has continued to be so since Panerai became a luxury consumer watch brand, preserving (and commercially renewing) the exclusive relationship with the illustrious Italian military body.

A debut that has caused discussion

The operating logic and construction are conceptually simple; manufacturing and long-term reliability are another thing and understandably justify such long development times. We are not faced with a luxury G-Shock, as many on social media have been quick to comment.

However, Panerai has not been very good at communicating and conveying the details of the project, so a general audience with little familiarity with technical topics has struggled to grasp the characteristics of a project that requires technical training in electrical engineering and micro-engineering.

Submersible Elux LAB-ID PAM01800: how does it work?

The Panerai Submersible Elux LAB-ID PAM01800 is an entirely mechanical watch and mechanics is the primary energy accumulated and used to illuminate the dial, on request. The calibre has six barrels, two dedicated to measuring time (three days of power reserve) and four to accumulate a quantity of mechanical energy sufficient to illuminate, once converted into continuous electrical energy, the watch for thirty uninterrupted minutes through LED tracks arranged on the dial, hands and rotating bezel.

The mechanical energy accumulated by the barrels is supplied to the micro-generator, multiplied up to 80 revolutions per second in the rotor part. An alternating current of 240 Hz frequency is generated at the output, “rectified” by the LEDs which, as diodes, initially perform this function.

Although we do not have sufficient information and drawings to delve into the construction of the micro-generator, we can say that the high operating frequency helps to reduce the size of the components (as the frequency of an alternating current increases, the size of the components of a circuit is reduced).