ODM & OEM watch manufacturer - Custom your own design for quartz watch and mechanical watch.
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ODM & OEM watch manufacturer - Custom your own design for quartz watch and mechanical watch.
A movement (calibre or movement) is the operating mechanism of a timekeeping device such as a watch, pocket watch or clock. However, in many articles about watches, there are usually default types: manual (winding) mechanical, automatic (winding) mechanical, and quartz.
How A Mechanical Watch Movement Work？
The main components of a mechanical movement are the barrel, gear train, escapement and balance spring. The gear train is driven by the elastic force released by the spring. The escapement and balance spring are used as speed regulating devices to carefully divide the transmitted energy so that the gear train can rotate stably, thereby achieving the function of accurate timing. Because this structure is convenient and easy to use, it was the most widely used timer before the release of quartz movement.
Now that mechanical watches have returned to the mainstream market, the research and development and improvement of mechanical movements are still ongoing. Currently, watch factories focus on the improvement of escapements and various materials to improve the accuracy and durability of mechanical watches. Mechanical movements can be simply divided into two categories, namely manual winding movements and automatic winding movements:
A. Manual winding movement
Using fingers to turn the faucet to provide energy for the barrel is the most traditional winding mode, but because the general public has a low acceptance of manual winding watches, they are now mainly purchased by watch players. In order to improve user acceptance, the current trend is to develop multi-day chains or add power reserve display functions.
B. Automatic winding movement
The automatic disk and winding system are installed on the hand-winding movement, and the automatic disk is displaced by the wrist swing to provide the energy for winding. Since the automatic winding movement can provide energy at all times, it is free from the need for regular winding, so it is widely popular. Now the first priority of the automatic winding movement is to improve or develop a new winding system.
Quartz movement
In 1969, Seiko applied quartz movement to watches and made it practical, which set off a quartz watch revolution. The structure of the pointer quartz movement can be mainly divided into battery, quartz oscillator, IC integrated circuit board, stepper motor (composed of coil and magnetic car) and gear train. Its working principle is: the battery provides power to the quartz crystal, which then generates a stable oscillation signal, which is transmitted to the IC integrated circuit board. Then the IC integrated circuit board converts the oscillation signal into a signal of 1Hz per second, and then the stepper motor receives this signal, drives the gear system, and completes the operation.
The main reason why quartz movement is popular is accuracy, because the error of mechanical movement can be from one or two seconds to one minute per day, but the quartz oscillator oscillates the signal up to 32768Hz per second, so the accuracy is naturally improved a lot. Generally speaking, the accuracy of quartz movement can be controlled at 15 to 25 seconds per month. Now there are quite a lot of types of quartz movement derivatives. The following is a brief introduction:
A. Digital quartz movement
After the launch of quartz watch, quartz watch with LCD digital display also began to be launched. Because it displays more information than pointer quartz movement, it has also become another mainstream of quartz watch. Compared with the traditional pointer quartz movement, the digital quartz movement lacks the stepper motor and gear train, and is directly connected to the LCD screen by the line to display the time.
B. Solar quartz movement
The basic structure is the same as the quartz movement, but the battery energy comes from the light source. The principle is to install a solar panel under the watch dial, which can store electricity in the rechargeable battery as the power to drive the movement; and it has the function of preventing overcharging to avoid overcharging and causing battery damage. The products currently launched on the market can be used continuously for up to one year after being fully charged.
C. Kinetic quartz watch
The concept is similar to the solar quartz movement, and it also uses rechargeable batteries, but the energy source is the same as the automatic winding movement. The automatic disk is displaced by the swing of the wrist, and the built-in micro-generator motor is driven to generate electricity and store it in the rechargeable battery to provide the power source for the movement. At present, a fully charged battery can operate continuously for up to 6 months.
D. Radio-controlled quartz movement
Although it is very accurate, it will still cause some errors after long-term use. In order to pursue better accuracy, radio-controlled timepieces (generally operating in quartz watch mode) were developed. It has a radio receiver hidden inside, which can receive the standard time radio waves emitted by the base station every night and automatically calibrate the time. Since the base station uses a precise atomic clock, the error is only one second every 100,000 years, so it is more accurate than a quartz watch. Currently, there are base stations in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and China, and signals can be received within the effective range.
Spring Drive movement
In 1998, Seiko released the hand-wound Spring Drive movement, officially making this work that has been developed for more than 20 years public. Seiko launched a new Spring Drive automatic winding movement at the Basel Watch Fair in Switzerland in 2004. For ordinary people, automatic winding is indeed more practical. The operating principle is that the mainspring barrel drives the gear train, and the end of the gear train is connected to the magnetic coil, generating electricity to the quartz oscillator and IC integrated circuit board, while transmitting precise signals, and controlling the flywheel speed through the IC integrated circuit board with electromagnetic brakes to achieve the same speed as the quartz signal, so that the gear train operates accurately and stably.
Spring Drive, which is classified as the third type of movement, solves the problems faced by mechanical watches and quartz watches, that is, accuracy and power problems. In the past, mechanical watches were difficult to obtain excellent accuracy due to the limitations of the balance wheel and escapement system, but Spring Drive uses a quartz oscillator, which can effectively control the speed of the gear train rotation, so the accuracy can be maintained within plus or minus one second per day. On the other hand, the use of the mainspring barrel device can replenish energy through natural swing or hand winding, and will not stop working at important moments. In addition, it can also reduce the disposal of waste batteries, which is a very environmentally friendly design.
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