
New oscillator system in Zenith mechanical watches - nichodges
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/zenith-defy-lab-oscillator-introducing
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lb1lf
I am a long-time watch nut, and I loved this write-up - it concisely explained
what makes this mechanism unique and was most educational.

Fun to see a departure from the norm - until this, the probably largest
innovation horology over the past couple of hundred years was George Daniels'
coaxial escapement (which basically eliminated friction from the equation,
ensuring all transfer of energy in the escapement took place between
components tangential to each other, allowing for excellent long-term
precision)

The plural of anecdote is not data, but my ten year old Omega with coaxial
escapement (in a c.2500C) is still accurate to within a second a day without
ever having been serviced. That,in my book, is remarkable.

(It is due for a service soon; I do not intend to run it into the ground...)

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sowbug
There's one basic question I couldn't figure out from the article. Where is
the spring that you wind up and that stores the "power reserve of about 60
hours"? Is it part of the silicon? Or is it external? I figured out that the
three crescent-shaped parts are springy ("flex laterally to provide a
restoring force as the oscillator vibrates through six degrees of amplitude"),
but it doesn't look like there's anything else that could stretch/relax over
60 hours. My sense of intuition is useless, of course, at this scale and with
these materials.

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nichodges
This video may help, as you get to see the movement in action:
[https://youtu.be/xWh0p9Irznw](https://youtu.be/xWh0p9Irznw)

It doesn’t clearly show the mainspring, however at around 10:45 you can see
the small gear spinning. That is being driven by the mainspring, and if you
removed the escapement it would spin super quick until the mainspring was
unwound.

It’s the constant rocking back and forth of the regulator that limits the
speed that small gear (called the escape wheel) can rotate, therefore limiting
how quickly the mainspring releases it’s energy.

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sowbug
Indeed it helped. Thanks.

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factsaresacred
Not only is the content incredibly interesting, but that website layout is
perfect. So clean.

The ads page is interesting:

> The typical HODINKEE reader holds a master’s degree or higher, browses from
> his professional office, earns more than $200,000 per year, owns seven
> watches, and purchases, on average, three watches per year with an average
> value of $7,000 or higher per watch.

An attrition rate of three $7,000 watches a year is a lot!

~~~
christoph
Hodinkee is a great site! Some of the videos of people discussing their
collections and stories are fantastic and well worth checking out.

Do bear in mind though, even very wealthy collectors also regularly sell
pieces and 'trade up' over time. You can only wear one watch at time after
all... unless you decide to start 'Schwarzkopfing'

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thyrsus
A nit: the article states "A guitar string is a harmonic oscillator; no matter
how soft or hard you pluck it, a G string is going to play a G note."

It's not that simple. I have a steel string guitar which, when a string is
stuck loudly, will play sharp, then asymptotically approach the Hz it has when
sounding its quietest. I hear it, and my digital tuner displays the effect as
well. I speculate that when the the string is more perturbed (arced further
away from straight), the tension increases more than proportionately to the
displacement from straight.

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SAI_Peregrinus
Much more practical but much less accurate than an atomic wristwatch[1]. I
wonder how small a cesium frequency standard could be made. Miniaturization
isn't typically a priority in their design, there's surely room for
improvement.

[1] [http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-
bill/](http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-bill/) (Yes, that is a guy with
an HP-5071A strapped to his arm.)

~~~
y04nn
You can also get a radio controlled watch

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Of course, or a GPS-synchronized smart watch. But where's the fun in that?

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mixedmath
It's likely that this is a paid post. And if that's the case, then I think
it's money well-spent, as this is a beautiful post and an effective
advertisement.

~~~
anton69
Only 10 have been made and all have been sold for some exorbant amount, so
mostly it’s genuinely motivated coverage of some cool tech.

~~~
QAPereo
_Zenith is also debuting a new material for the case: a composite called
Aeronith. Aeronith is essentially an aluminum foam; melted aluminum is poured
into a mold "where a procedure initially developed by Hublot transforms it
into an open pore metal foam," according to Zenith. The voids in the foam are
then filled with an "extremely light polymer" and the result is 2.7 times
lighter than titanium, 1.7 times lighter than solid aluminum, and even 10%
lighter than carbon fiber._.

F1 engine tech, in a watch case, and that's not even the innovative part.
Sooooo cool.

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sbmassey
All this technology is amazing, but does it have any applications beyond
mechanical timepieces?

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olympus
Realistically, no. The design is very clever, but nothing is truly new here.
You could have made this out of wood 200 years ago, but it would have been
much bigger and less precise. Using silicon for a mechanical device is neat,
but not new. All the technology in terms of the movements- springs, levers,
escapements, wheels, gears- has been known for a while.

New designs are pretty much all digital (for better or for worse). If a
spaceship needs a backup timepiece, it will just carry a second digital clock.
If a spaceship needs a mechanical lockout, it will just do it with
microswitches, solenoids, and digital logic.

~~~
sowbug
Is silicon-material manufacturing now within reach of industries other than IC
manufacturers and high-end watch manufacturers? If so, you could imagine all
sorts of mechanical devices that will experience a renaissance now that they
can be precisely designed and manufactured in tiny sizes and in huge numbers.

I suspect I just reinvented nanotechnology. For some reason, this watch
article makes it feel much more real.

~~~
anfractuosity
Have you heard of MEMS before?

There seems lots of cool applications for that, apparently also Timex is
bringing out a watch which uses the technology in some way (
[http://www.ablogtowatch.com/timex-silmach-watch-movements-
me...](http://www.ablogtowatch.com/timex-silmach-watch-movements-mems-
technology/) ).

Also MEMS is used in DLP projectors, where lots of tiny little mirrors can be
moved which seems rather amazing.

~~~
sowbug
Ah, of course. Thanks. Yet another set of dots I hadn't connected.

From the Wikipedia article, one might even say this is a MEMS watch. MEMS
describes devices up to 1mm having components up to 100 microns. This watch
has parts as thin as 20 microns, so although it is overall larger than MEMS,
its components encroach on MEMS territory.

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AnonNo15
I wonder what are the mechanical properties of the case material (aluminium
foam filled with plastic). This seems like entirely new class of composites.

~~~
jacquesm
This one is super coarse, there are much finer ones:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice)

I've played around a bit with such super light metals and aerogels as well,
they are very interesting materials with surprising properties.

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fsiefken
So, these watches are all pre-sold and we can't buy one? When would be able to
buy a watch with this innovative mechanism?

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dogma1138
Eventually you will, hopefully it won't be as expensive as the gyrotourbillon
that one is the most amazing mechanism I've seen.

[https://youtu.be/lmxLAZZ2fhM](https://youtu.be/lmxLAZZ2fhM)

[https://youtu.be/IQJTGPtYtqA](https://youtu.be/IQJTGPtYtqA)

~~~
anfractuosity
Wow, that is truly amazing, are there large versions of the gyrotourbillon out
of interest, as in for a clock.

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SamReidHughes
The thing about clocks is, they sit in only one position, so there's no
justification for a tourbillon, which averages out the errors caused by change
of position.

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anfractuosity
Wasn't one of the first tourbillon mechanisms in a carriage clock though?

I thought this was pretty cool regarding tourbillons:
[http://www.laimer.ch/laimer_tourbillon](http://www.laimer.ch/laimer_tourbillon)

I'm not sure what that would be classed as though.

Edit: Oh, doh, I misunderstood you, yeah I see what you mean

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SamReidHughes
Yeah, that would make sense. And (googles) you can get a tourbillon clock in
your carriage today -- if your carriage is a Bentley Bentayga.

~~~
anfractuosity
Haha, awesome. Since the tourbillon spring mechanism seems to be constantly
rotated with the gyro version, I wonder if there is another way to
mechanically keep the tourbillon always level?

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yoz-y
Wouldn’t that render it useless though? The purpose of tourbillon is
specifically to cancel the effect gravity has on watches or clocks that are
stationary. This was a problem with pocket watches that had a mechanism always
in the same direction. Tourbillons in wrist watches are largely only for
decorative purpose as the hands move and thus the gravity effect averages out.

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beloch
What interests me about this movement is that it's mechanically simpler than a
conventional movement and should eventually be cheaper to produce. We might
actually see these in relatively affordable watches rather than sold-out
unobtanium stuff. This is a lot more exciting than yet another watch-maker
piling on ridiculous numbers of complications to make a watch nobody will ever
want to actually _wear_.

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jacquesm
How durable would Silicon be in this application? Those teeth look awfully
delicate.

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kazinator
Love the irony of how silicon is used.

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sv7n
Awesome write-up.

