For several centuries, man was able to significantly improve the mechanical wrist watch. By creating a variety of complex design devices have achieved accuracy of the up to ± 5 seconds per day. But the hours were difficult to produce and, consequently, very expensive.
Electricity is increasingly invading all areas of human life could not get around horology. With the advent of high-precision quartz clock technology became available to every citizen of Earth, and the quality of hours was not so much depend on the skill and experience of people as to the accuracy of the automated lines. Today, the vast majority produced in the world are just hours to quartz.
As they work, how they work and why more and more people give preference to quartz watches?
In a nutshell
The main elements of a quartz watch is an electronic unit and stepping motor. The electronic unit every second sends a pulse motor, and he turns the arrow.
1. Coil
2. Startor
3. Rotor
4. Tribes of the rotor
5. Magnets
Very high frequency stability of the generated pulses, and hence a high precision, provides a quartz crystal, because of which the clock and got its name.
Battery, powering the electronic unit and motor, designed for a year (sometimes several years) and eliminates the need to wind the watch during this period. Obtained a unique combination of high accuracy and ease of use.
Sometimes, instead of the dial arrow with a digital display. These clocks have called electronic, but the world they are called quartz watches with digital display. This name emphasizes that, in the first place, the basis of hours is a crystal oscillator, and secondly, the time information in them is displayed in the form of numbers.
In fact, quartz watches are a mini-computer. Appropriately programmed chip, they can easily turn into a multifunction device: chronograph (stopwatch), add to them the alarm, etc. Moreover, unlike the mechanical clock, the cost is on the increase not so much.
Why watch crystal?
Quartz crystal has unique properties: it generates a compression electrical pulse and an electric current when exposed to quartz is compressed. Thus, the crystal can be made to shrink, decompress, ie fluctuate under the influence of electric current. By choosing the dimensions of the crystal resonance frequency are making 32 768 Hz.
1. Power supply
2. Stepping motor
3. The gear wheel
4. Seconds wheel
5. The central wheel
6. The hour wheel
7. Clutch lever
8. Transferable lever
9. The transfer head
10.Transferable shaft
11. Jaw coupling
12. Brake lever
13. Minute wheel
14. Idler wheel
15. Block Crystal Oscillator
Electronic quartz clock unit consists of two parts. One part, the generator produces electrical oscillations, which are stabilized quartz crystal at its resonance frequency. Thus, we have a generator of electrical oscillations, the frequency of these oscillations is very stable. It remains to transform these uniform oscillations in the same uniform motion arrows.
Electrical generator produces 32,768 vibrations per second. It is about 10,000 times greater than the number of oscillations in the balance of ordinary hours. Neither mechanical device can operate at such speed. So another part of the electronic circuit, called the divisor, converts these vibrations into pulses at 1 Hz. These pulses are applied to the coil of the stepper motor.
The engine consists of a stator fixedly mounted thereon with the coil winding and rotor - a permanent magnet set on the axle. When passing through the coil of an electric pulse, a magnetic field which rotates the rotor at a half-turn. The rotor rotates through the gears of the arrow.
How long will last, "quartz"?
Wheel mechanism for a quartz watch has the same resource as that of the mechanical. Very long and will last a stepper motor. Today you can find workable radios 20s, ie, life of electronic components is also high and not yet fully understood. And, theoretically, a good quartz watch on longevity should not yield to mechanical. Statistics for "longevity" quartz clock is not scored, since they appeared only 30 years ago. But many electronic balance hours, released 40 years ago, well go to this day.
On the other hand, 100 years ago, inherited a watch because it was extremely rare and expensive thing. Those days are long gone, today more and more we buy a new thing, not because the old spoiled, but because it is obsolete. A period for obsolescence, quartz clock nursed by delivering to the owner a minimum of hassle.
But in any case, each buyer wants to get a good quality, reliable and inexpensive as possible - ideally quartz watches meet this requirement. There are also more complex quartz clock with options. Today, with full confidence we can say that the clock with quartz movement - a worthy competitor to watch traditional, classical mechanics.
Electricity is increasingly invading all areas of human life could not get around horology. With the advent of high-precision quartz clock technology became available to every citizen of Earth, and the quality of hours was not so much depend on the skill and experience of people as to the accuracy of the automated lines. Today, the vast majority produced in the world are just hours to quartz.
Quartz crystal has unique properties: it generates a compression electrical pulse and an electric current when exposed to quartz is compressed. Thus, the crystal can be made to shrink, decompress, ie fluctuate under the influence of electric current. By choosing the dimensions of the crystal resonance frequency are making 32 768 Hz.
