A sweeping Quartz!
One of the most discussed points when talking about why mechanical watch is the 'sweeping hand'. Though my collection right now is all quartz, I do like sweeping hand (had a few automatics in the past). And I've always wondered if at all it is possible for quartz watches to have this sweeping hand. I know there are a few meca quartz movements giving that feel, however majority quartz watches just still tick.
Until now, when I bought this £15 desk clock from Amazon (made in China of course). The moment I put the battery in, I was shocked! The hand was sweeping ever so smoothly, even better than the NH35 and some older seiko movements I had.
This immediately brought the question back. Why regular quartz watches can't have a sweeping hand? I'm pretty sure there's a technical reason behind it. I'm assuming maybe the size or even larger AA size battery in this clock helps with that. Just curious if someone from the crunch family can enlighten me :)
PS Edited - you can see the sweeping hand in the gif in comments
Have been buying watches for few years now but have recently started taking watch collection as a serious activity. Have been reading and learning a lot about different types and brands of watches and...
The gif does work when you open the pic to only view it.
And yeah, super interesting that it sweeps not ticks.
I have a 30 year old Seiko table clock that also has a sweeping second hand. I’m also curious.
You can see the sweeping hand now!
The gif does work when you open the pic to only view it.
And yeah, super interesting that it sweeps not ticks.
Just put a gif in the comments. That seems to work now 😅
I have a 30 year old Seiko table clock that also has a sweeping second hand. I’m also curious.
Damn.. Now I'm even more curious :)
It's all about battery life. Going from one tick per second to two or three presumably roughly cuts the battery life in half or a third. This makes sense for the mass market, but you'd think they'd wise up for the case-back-tool crowd.
It's all about battery life. Going from one tick per second to two or three presumably roughly cuts the battery life in half or a third. This makes sense for the mass market, but you'd think they'd wise up for the case-back-tool crowd.
Yeah. That makes sense.
It's all about battery life. Going from one tick per second to two or three presumably roughly cuts the battery life in half or a third. This makes sense for the mass market, but you'd think they'd wise up for the case-back-tool crowd.
I'm no physicist but isn't work supposed to equal mass x distance travelled? I wonder how is having more stops going to use more energy...
Doesn't it use more energy making it stop and start every second rather than a continuous sweep? A car would use more gas if it keep accelerating then decelerating.
Quite mysterious to me where the energy goes because the mass returns to the same position every 24 hours too 😂does anyone know the answer to this? My mind cannot figure it out 🤯🤯🤯
Also why do we need spring drive? A rotor that charges the battery then power a standard quartz would achieve the same purpose, albeit spring drives are "regulating" the mechanical balance wheel. Sounds to me quartz accuracy is already pretty good.
I'm no physicist but isn't work supposed to equal mass x distance travelled? I wonder how is having more stops going to use more energy...
Doesn't it use more energy making it stop and start every second rather than a continuous sweep? A car would use more gas if it keep accelerating then decelerating.
Quite mysterious to me where the energy goes because the mass returns to the same position every 24 hours too 😂does anyone know the answer to this? My mind cannot figure it out 🤯🤯🤯
The work only comes in bursts. Hypermilers are notorious for "pump and coast" techniques.
Seiko's Kinetic may have been such a dynamo-recharging scheme, I don't really know.