RU2356078C2 - Mechanism of indicating animated ciphers, figures or symbols on clockwork dial - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: physics, watches.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to clock production and aims at producing indication mechanism to be fitted on the main clockwork with manual, automatic, quartz or automatic quartz winding and allowing reproducing preselected image for a selected time interval. In compliance with this invention, the proposed mechanism incorporates a certain set of meshed gear wheels driven by a movable member coupled with the main clockwork. Note that, above every gear wheel, there is a plate or disk furnished ciphers, figures or symbols and revolving in appropriate opening of the dial of this watch.

EFFECT: producing indication mechanism to be fitted on the main clockwork with manual, automatic, quartz or automatic quartz winding and allowing reproducing preselected image for a selected time interval.

13 cl, 6 dwg

Description

The object of the invention is a mechanism for displaying animated numbers, figures or signs on the dial of a clockwork, in particular for indicating the current time.

Recently, there are so-called fancy watch models (having a “fun” or psychedelic character) on the watch market, such as, for example, some Swatches models or Harry-Winston brand Silberstein or Opus III watches.

A feature of all these watch products is their originality and compliance with the fashion spirit, but usually their main drawback is the difficult reading of the current time.

The display mechanism in accordance with the invention can be installed on a basic clockwork with manual winding, with automatic winding, with a quartz or automatic quartz winding and with the property to animate the clock dial, recreating a given pattern over a selected period of time (from 1 minute to 24 hours).

An additional mechanism for displaying animated numbers, figures or signs on the dial of a clockwork is characterized in that it includes at least one gear wheel mounted under an opening in the dial of the clockwork and driven by a moving element, which itself is in turn connected with the basic clockwork of this watch product, and on top of this gear wheel is a plate bearing at least one number, figure or sign, intended for Nimac respect to the dial.

In accordance with one implementation method, the proposed mechanism comprises a plurality of gears connected to each other or controlled separately or in groups.

The proposed mechanism may contain some first set of elements, consisting of 12 gears located in the peripheral part of this mechanism, and some second set of elements, consisting of 6 gears, located between the center of the dial and said first set of 12 gears.

According to a preferred embodiment, said plates located on top of the gears are disks intended for rotation in the corresponding hole of the dial. These discs can be positioned at the same level as the dial, or can be positioned in such a way as to protrude beyond the level of this dial, or they can be embedded under this dial.

The proposed mechanism can be arranged in such a way as to set in motion at least one or more groups of disks. These discs are usually used to animate an image carrying a sequence of numbers designed to indicate the current hour. They are designed to animate the current hour, but as an implementation option, they can indicate the current minute, current month, current day of the week, seasons, equinox days, solstice days, day or night, etc.

As an example, the figures given in the appendix illustrate a method for realizing an object of the invention of a mechanism for displaying animated figures or characters on a watch face.

Among the figures given in the appendix:

Figure 1 is a schematic view of the proposed mechanism from above,

Figure 2 is a schematic view of the proposed mechanism from above, and the dial of this mechanism is provided with signs subject to animation, representing the indices of the clock to be displayed,

Figure 3 is a schematic view similar to the view shown in figure 1, and here the proposed mechanism performs the animation, indicating a single character, and in this case one digit "6" is visible,

4 is a schematic view similar to the view shown in figure 3, after the time interval corresponding to the current hour is completed, and the dial indicates the number "7", and the number "6" and all other digits are destructed,

Figure 5 is a schematic top view of the device for propelling the proposed mechanism, shown in figures 1-4,

6 is a schematic sectional view along the line VI-VI shown in figure 5.

The mechanism presented in the figures given in the appendix is implemented as an additional module that can be installed in watch products, in particular, in a basic clockwork with a manual winding, in an automatic clockwork or in a quartz or automatic quartz clockwork. The proposed mechanism has the feature of animating the dial of a watch product, recreating successively the characters from "1" to "12" for a pre-selected period of time corresponding to a duration of one hour.

Figure 1 explains the location of the moving parts of the dial. This arrangement is not exhaustive and can be changed arbitrarily, but the figures given in the appendix show an example implementation implemented as a function of a certain number of characters to be represented.

Here, the mechanism 1 is formed by twelve disks 2, distributed uniformly on the way the minute hand moves along the dial 3 and placed halfway between the locations of the indices indicating the current hour. Alternatively, the location of the disks 2 may coincide with those places where indexes indicating the current hour are usually located.

An additional set consisting of six disks 4 having the same diameter as the disks 2 is distributed concentrically around the dial 3 and the disks of this set are located at half the angular step with respect to the set consisting of the first twelve disks 2. The set of disks 2 and 4 is driven by a mechanism, which will be described below, and the disks 2 and 4 will be placed in the corresponding cutouts of the dial 3 so as to be in the same plane as this dial 3.

In the case when the mechanism 1 drives the disks 2 and 4, the part of the dial 3 that does not contain the aforementioned cutouts keeps its appearance unchanged; as for the eighteen disks mentioned above, they can be rotated at a speed selected between a speed of less than one minute per revolution and a speed exceeding 12 hours per revolution (see FIGS. 2-4). Thus, the image shown in FIG. 2 is disconnected into its constituent parts and successive reconstruction of the numbers is carried out at the end of a time period of one hour.

In the case described above, disks 2 and 4 are slowly stretching, that is, this means that they move continuously and linearly, supplying sequentially and gradually the numbers to be indicated, and never actually stopping. Advantageously, the proposed mechanism 1 will be arranged in such a way as to form a stopping period of one hour on each recreated figure.

Figure 2 presents the recreation of the clock indicators "1" to "12", located in a standard way on the dial 3 and on the dials 2 and 4.

For a person skilled in the art it is obvious that the dial 3 and the disks 2 and 4 will never indicate during operation the image shown in figure 2.

As can be seen in Figs. 3 and 4, during the installation of the elements of the mechanism 1, disks 2 and 4 are mounted in an offset manner in rotation relative to the previous disk so that in groups of three this displacement is 30 ° from one group to another, and the rotation speed of these eighteen drives is one revolution per hour. Thus, for all hour pointers, only one digit of this pointer will be recreated.

In FIG. 3, it can be seen that the number “6” is recreated, while in FIG. 4, after a certain period of time of one hour, and a shift of 30 °, after a certain period has elapsed, the number “7” is recreated.

You can imagine reading the current hour indicated by the recreated digit without using the clockwise, but in this particular case there is a reading problem: the recreated digit will completely indicate this or that hour when the angle changes by 30 °, that is, this means that you can read the digit of the given hour in a perfect way, that is, without distortion, only if the current time is X hours and 30 minutes.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment, the proposed mechanism will be arranged in such a way as to stop at the moment each digit is recreated and, after each hour, to perform a jump during which disks 2, 4 will be instantly shifted by an angle of 30 °.

The proposed mechanism on which the disks 2 and 4 are mounted is shown in FIG. 5 and operates as follows.

The gear wheel or the moving element 10 is in tight communication with the moving element belonging to the basic clock mechanism of this watch product, in which the proposed additional mechanism 1 is installed, such as, for example, a clockwise wheel of a basic caliber, or a wheel of its minute hand, or any other moving element.

This moving element 10 rotates in a clockwise direction, and it is in direct gear engagement with the moving element 11, which rotates in a counterclockwise direction. This moving member drives one gear wheel 12 in a rotational movement in a clockwise direction. This gear wheel 12 is identical with seventeen other gears 12 and 13 forming a movable system (a total of eighteen gears with this wheel). These eighteen gears respectively have six inner gears 12 and twelve outer gears 13. A disc 2, 4 is mounted on each of the gears. These discs can be seen from the side of the dial and they provide the desired animation from the dial as a result of their movement. In the implementation example considered here, a specially attached plate acts as a disk and is rigidly fixed to these gears 12, 13. As can be seen in the figures given in the appendix, these gears 12, 13 have the same diameter. The gear wheel 12, rotating in a clockwise direction, is installed at the same level in height as the five other gears 12 from this group, forcing the movable elements to alternate in a clockwise and counterclockwise direction. Since the number of gears in the group is even, this allows the last gear to gear with the first wheel without blocking their mutual movement, since this gear rotates in the opposite direction. Thus, the driving of these six gears can be implemented using any of these six gears. In other words, the gear 11 can be placed in any angular position around the movable element 10 so as to be in gear engagement with one of these six gears 12.

Twelve outer gears 13 having the same diameter as the six previous gears are located at a different level in height so that the teeth of these wheels do not touch the internal gears 12. The gear 14, acting at two different levels of height, gets its rotation speed from a group of six gears and transfers this rotation to a group of twelve gears. This gear 14 can be placed anywhere at the moment when its main diameter is tangent to any gear from the inner group and tangent to any gear from the outer group. Since the number of gears in a group of twelve wheels is even, the direction of rotation of each wheel of this movable system is carried out alternately in a clockwise and counterclockwise direction, being able to describe a closed loop without stopping the rotation of the movable elements.

Figure 6 shows two different height gear levels of a group of six gears and a group of twelve gears. This figure shows a sectional view between the inner gear wheel 12 and the outer gear wheel 13 adjacent to it. In the cross section shown in FIG. 6, two different height levels between the inner gears 12 and the outer gear wheels 13 should be noted. On these gears 12 and 13, discs not shown here are disposed, which are disks that can be seen in FIGS. 1-4.

The mechanism shown in the figures given in the appendix may contain some impulse organ, not shown in these figures and made in such a way as to discontinuously displace disks 2 and / or 4, for example, by an angle of 30 °, and a time interval of one hour is provided between each subsequent jump. Thus, it is possible to indicate the current hour with eighteen disks 2 and 4, and the design image or image superimposed on the disks 13, in this case, will be a sequence of numbers representing all twelve hours shown in figures 3 and 4. When In this case, the rhythm of movements (that is, the rhythm of successive reconstruction of various numbers) is set using pulses received by the moving element of the center of the proposed module in the case when this module is connected to the clock mechanism or to the module with chuschim hour. This clock mechanism or module with a galloping hour inevitably includes a clock wheel that moves in jumps, as its name suggests, from hour to hour, thus realizing jumps at an angle of 30 °.

The advantage of such a technical solution is the ability to display the current hour without using the clockwise, if desired, and the figure of the current hour, which is formed in an instant, continues to be displayed throughout this hour.

At the same time, reading the current hour becomes more convenient than in the case of using a slowly moving mechanism, which was mentioned above, but another advantage is the possibility of using the clockwise base movement with two possible results:

- providing a standard and convenient reading of the current hour;

- the use of this hour hand or number (in accordance with the choice or taste of the user) as an indicator of the current hour in another time zone.

The hour hand can be replaced with a transparent dial (sapphire dial) containing a translucent zone of a different color in such a way as to indicate the place where the newly recreated figure should be read, which facilitates and accelerates the reading of the current hour.

As an implementation option, the current hour can be displayed on the perimeter of the dial only with twelve discs 2 mounted on the outer gears 13, in which case the inner discs 4 are used to indicate any other information.

In general, the mechanism described above with reference to figures 1-6 in the appendix offers the following possibilities:

- disks 2 and 4 may or may not appear on the dial, that is, this means that you can only move one disk or just any desired number of disks from 1 to 18, or move several disk groups;

- discs 2 and 4 may be located at the same level as the zero level of the dial, or may not be located at this level (they may be located above or below the level of the dial);

- the design solution or decoration of these dials may represent a single uniform design image or not represent such a single image;

- disks 2 and 4 can be processed in a galvanic way or can be processed using any currently known means for decorating dials, such as, for example, encasing in frames, inlaid with stones, guilloche, decalcification, engraving, cutting, etc. ;

- discs 2 and 4 can all be copied in the same way or in different ways, can be grouped by genre or not grouped in this way.

The proposed mechanism is designed in such a way as to realize the action of disconnecting and re-creating the same single designer image, sign or logo, or several different designer images, signs and logos on the same dial. In addition to the numbers, the dial can carry, for example, one or another image that will be recreated at one or another selected hour.

The proposed mechanism can control the twelve external disks 2 in one of the ways described above, but rotate all six internal disks 4 (or only one of these disks) at a speed different from the rotation speed of the twelve external disks 2, so as to indicate, for example, AM / PM (that is, the time period from midnight to noon or from noon to midnight with a twelve-hour time scale) using colored discs, alternating between day and night.

The proposed mechanism has the ability to be connected to a clock mechanism with a Tourbillon case or to any other clock mechanism requiring not to use one or more disks. So, for example, internal disks 4 and, if necessary, two or three disks 2 can be removed in order to allow the Tourbillon case to pass through.

As for the materials used, in accordance with the class of this mechanism and the number of manufactured parts, the components that make up this mechanism (dial, wheels 2 and 4, gears 12 and 13, etc.) can be made of synthetic materials machined mechanically or die cast, or machined or die cast metal.

According to a preferred embodiment, the mechanism described in this example has an outer diameter of 30 mm and contains discs visible from the side of the dial and having a diameter of 5.7 mm. The dial itself has a thickness of 0.4 mm.

It goes without saying that to implement the same principle, but used in smaller watches, for example, ladies watches or intermediate watches, the dimensions of the dial and dials will be different. Ultimately, the number of drives used can vary from 1 to 50.

In addition, the proposed mechanism can be used for clockworks of larger sizes (for example, for clocks ranging in size from mantelpiece or tabletop to decorated tower or square clock of a large city).

A collection of six internal dials 4 can be replaced with seven dials that indicate the current day of the week (Monday through Sunday), and a population of twelve external dials 2 will indicate the current month and a copy or design image of the dial, which may contain an indication of one of the four seasons, indicate the days of the equinox and solstice, etc.

In accordance with an embodiment of the proposed mechanism, it is possible to cover the gears of eighteen movable elements 12, 13 of the module of FIG. 5 with a plate. Moreover, such a plate contains eighteen holes of small diameter, positioned on the axis of rotation of eighteen gears and allowing these axes to exit through these holes in order to move objects fixed at their ends. These objects can be represented in the form of plates of various shapes (any geometric shapes are possible here) with the goal of either animating parts in three dimensions or using them as “masks” to close the underlying plate.

These forms can give the impression of moving them relative to each other. For example, when using semicircular shapes, showing either hearts or "hearts", then "peaks", the whole dial can be decorated with either "hearts" or "peaks".

These parts, attached to the ends of the axes, may have shapes capable of transferring from one part to another a gem set in a cylindrical head so that this gem indicates the current minute. If twelve disks perform one full revolution in 10 minutes, or half a revolution in 5 minutes, they carry this stone from one module to another along a hidden passage milled in the main dial for 12 × 5 min = 60 min.

Ultimately, discs that want to rotate may not be in the same parallel plane as the hour and minute displays. For example, you can imagine a round conical window with disks arranged in a circular manner in the plane of the cone, and in order to make these small disks function in another plane, they are connected to a cable made of carbon fiber or equivalent material.

Claims (13)

1. The mechanism for displaying animated figures or signs on the dial of a watch product with a basic clock mechanism, characterized in that the mechanism contains at least one set of gears, each of which is installed under the opening of the dial, in which each of the gears engages with two adjacent gears of the specified population with the possibility of forming a continuous closed chain of coupled gears, in which a plate located on each of the gears is installed a watch face and bearing at least one part of a figure, sign or number intended for animation on the watch face, and one of these gears is driven by a moving element, which, in turn, is set in motion by the base clockwork. 2. The mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that it contains a second set of at least one set of gears, with each of said gears of said second set of gears located under the opening of the dial, with each of said gears of said the second set of gears engages with two adjacent gears in said second set of gears with the possibility of forming a second continuous closed chain of coupled gears forest, with each of these gears in the specified set of gears carries a plate located in the hole of the dial, and carries at least a part of a figure, sign or number intended for animation on the dial, while one of these gears wheels in said second set of gears engages with a moving member, which, in turn, engages with one of said gears in said set of gears. 3. The mechanism according to claim 2, characterized in that at least one of these sets of gears contains twelve gears installed in the peripheral part of this mechanism. 4. The mechanism according to claim 3, characterized in that the second of the indicated sets of gears contains six gears mounted between the center of the dial and said first set of gears. 5. The mechanism according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that due to the individual angular positioning of the plates relative to the dial, part of the figures, signs or numbers together with parts of figures, signs or numbers made on a fixed dial and / or other plates, form a complete image of a figure, sign or number. 6. The mechanism according to claim 5, characterized in that the plates occupy the said individual angular positions relative to the fixed dial at predetermined time intervals. 7. The mechanism according to one of claims 1 to 3, 5, 6, characterized in that each of these plates, supported by gears, is a disk made with the possibility of rotation in the corresponding hole in the dial. 8. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that the disks are located on the same level with the dial. 9. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that it is configured to animate at least one or more groups of disks. 10. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that the discs are used to reproduce selected figures, signs, or numbers, or time intervals, including hours, minutes, months, days of the week, seasons, days of the equinox, days of the solstice, days and nights . 11. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that it is arranged to drive the plates at a constant speed. 12. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that it is configured to cause discontinuous movement of the disks corresponding to their instantaneous angular displacement. 13. The mechanism according to claim 7, characterized in that each of the plates supported by gears is made in the form of disks made to rotate in the corresponding hole of the dial.

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