Horological Meandering

Chapter 5 QUARTZ and SPRING DRIVES

 

I think for these guys we can start with the specifications table. Following the same format as the mechanical watches, but with modifications as necessary, here's what I found:
                 

Mechanical	SBGA011	GCLL997	SBGT027	SBGX039	SBGF009
Winding	Automatic	Automatic	Quartz	Quartz	Quartz
Movement	9S56-0AA0	5R77-0AA4	9F83-0AD0	9F61-0AA0	8J55-0010
Power Rsrv	72 hr	72 hr	5 yr	3 yr	3 yr
Timekeeping	-1, +1 sec/day	-1, +1 sec/day	-5, +5 sec/year	-10, +10 sec/year	-10, +10 sec/year
Diameter	41.0	41.3	37.2	38.6	36.0
Thickness	12.5	13.6	10.6	11.0	9.3
Crown Dia.	5.9 locking	5.7	4.7 locking	5.2 locking	4.2
Material & Weight	Titanium 70	Steel 85	Steel 60	Steel 135	Steel 95
Hand Color	1 blue 3 silver	3 blue 1 silver	1 blue 2 silver	3 silver	1 silver 2 silver/blk
Hand Shape	sword beveled	curved pitched	dauphine pitched	dauphine pitched	modern pitched
Crystal	sapphire domed	sapphire dual curve	sapphire dual curve	sapphire dual curve	sapphire flat
Date / Day	Date 3	No	Day Date at 3	No	No
Other Dial	Power 7 Snowflake	Moon 4 Power 7	Tuxedo stripes Star at 6	Cross grid Lion & GS	Sparkles
Indicies	applied triangular at 6,9,12	applied at 3,6,9,12	applied 6,9,12	applied double at 3,6,9,12	applied numerals at 3,6,9,12
Minute Marks	lines	2 types of dots chrome & blue	applied all minutes	applied all minutes	lines
Caseback	sapphire screw-in	sapphire screw in	solid with gold Lion	solid	solid
GS Lion	etched in sapphire	no Lion	faces crown	faces crown	no Lion
Lugs	drilled	screws	drilled	drilled	solid
Buckle	flip lock	deployant	tang	flip lock	flip lock
Bracelet	20 titanium multi-segment	20 strap 8 holes	18 strap 8 holes	20 steel multi-segment	18 steel multi-segment

QUARTZ MOVEMENTS
Much of the following copy comes from the Grand Seiko site describing their quartz models. I'm including because QUARTZ and PuristS are not often combined in the same post, much less the same sentence. I get some flak from people for having included a few quartz watches in my collection - the GS models, another Japanese model called The Citizen Chronomaster, the Breitling Aerospace, and the Rolex OysterQuartz.

These are not your normal beater $9.95 digital quartz watches.

The Caliber 9F models look like a mechanical watch, because the hands extend right to the very edge of the dial - not possible in a normal quartz watch. Caliber 9F has greater torque and uses longer hands, thanks to a twin pulse motor that delivers more power with a three year battery life.

A quartz oscillator vibrates 32,768 times a second, but this frequency may be affected by environmental and temperature changes. Stable oscillation is the key to the accuracy of a quartz watch. Each Grand Seiko quartz crystal is chosen and tested individually for a three month long aging process.

To ensure the minimum accuracy of one second a day required by the Grand Seiko standard, Quartz caliber 9F automatically detects temperature variations 540 times a day (every 160 seconds) and compensates for these variations so as to maintain accuracy.

In a mechanical watch, accuracy can be manually adjusted, but no normal quartz watch is adjustable. The Grand Seiko quartz caliber 9F has a “Pacing Switch” for fine adjustment. This allows high accuracy to be maintained even if the watch is worn in extreme temperatures.

Caliber 9F is not just extremely accurate, it presents time extremely accurately. The second hand in Caliber 9F stops exactly on the second markers, without any vibration. This quartz movement uses a device from the world of high-grade mechanical watchmaking to ensure precise motion - the addition of a regulatory wheel automatically adjusts the backlash between the gears.

The hour hand moves 24 times a day, the minute hand moves 1,440 times a day and the second hand 86,400 times. To ensure that the absolute precision of each of these 87,864 movements is not compromised by any interference of one hand by another, each axis of the three hands is separate and independent, not driving off another.

The rotor and gear train of caliber 9F are tightly sealed in a self-contained cabin. This guarantees the long lasting quality and precision of the movement by preventing dust entering when the case back is opened for battery replacement. This 'super sealed' cabin mechanism also increases the life of the lubricating oils that ensure the smooth operation of the gear train. Theoretically, additional lubrication is not needed for fifty years.

In most watches, the date change is gradual and takes several hours to complete. This imprecision was not good enough for the Caliber 9F design team, so they added a spring lever mechanism which causes the date to change instantaneously in just 1 / 2,000th of a second!

SPRING DRIVE
This model movement is entirely mechanical down to the escapement, which has been replaced by a "glide wheel", a tiny generator, and a balancing circuit that gently slows the glide wheel (should it go too fast) by magnetic repulsion. There are no batteries, capacitors or other user-replaceable parts in this circuits. Its merits can be debated elsewhere - all I can say is the movement is lovely and the smoothly gliding second hand is unlike either a conventional second hand or the tic-toc of a few mechanical "dead seconds" movements or the quartz brigade.

I've had about 10 Spring Drives but kept only these.

Still more to come in another chapter!
This message has been edited by cazalea on 2014-10-19 06:07:07

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