Why The Grand Seiko Spring Drive Is The Greatest Watch Movement & How It Works

now for quite some time i think many of us would probably agree that grand seiko wasn't getting the appreciation that it probably deserved but in the past 12 months i think that has totally changed i think people have started to wise up with what is taking place there dial finishing off the charts case finishing as well to follow there and then also of course the spring drive but outside of just the sweeping second hand i don't think people really understand what goes behind the spring drive so in this video we're going to take a closer look at the spring drive why it was made and ultimately why it's one of the greatest technological achievements in watchmaking history [Music] now before we get too far into looking at the spring drive i think it's very important to understand both how a mechanical watch works in general but also how a quartz watch works in general and throughout this video i'm gonna be going over some probably more complex type of ideas in terms of watchmaking but i'm a visual learner so everything that i do on this channel is really for that visual type of learner because that's what i am and that's really why i created this channel but basically really what i want to do is take a complex subject matter and try to make it as simple as possible and thankfully i do have a wide array of grand seiko watches and i also have some internal graphics that grand seiko uses and a lot of their demonstrations in showing how the spring drive works so first as i mentioned it's very important for the spring drive to understand it fully to first understand the mechanical watch as well as the quartz watch both from a sense of understanding the challenges associated with both of those movements and why the spring drive was created as a result of that and trying to make the best of both worlds come together now when looking at the overall world of watchmaking until the mid 20th century the primary way to track time with a watch was through mechanical movements and despite the world of mechanical watches varying greatly in their complexity the core backbone for telling time and traditional mechanical timepieces followed the same relative construction for years now when it comes to a mechanical watch to put it simply it works through the gradual distribution of stored energy through a gear train this starts with the winding of a mainspring so that is located within a barrel that can be wound either through the winding of the crown on the side of the case or through a winding mass or a rotor that you will find in automatic watches this action of winding will allow the mainspring to coil tightly and with the help of the barrel can pass along small releases of energy created by unwinding to a gear train to a thing called an escapement helping to regulate this gradual distribution of energy from here an escapement wheel will pass along the energy to a balance wheel with the help of the locking and unlocking of a component called a pallet fork that works in unison through the oscillation back and forth of the balance to keep precise time and that ticking sound that you commonly hear when you put a watch close up to your ear this is what's taking place that pallet fork interacting with that escapement wheel and is essentially serving as the heartbeat behind a mechanical timepiece this locking and unlocking is made possible with the pendulum-like action of the balance wheel and creates a constant flow of energy that will allow a mechanical timepiece to keep time the frequency of this oscillation or full movements back and forth will vary depending on the type of movement as there are different beat frequencies however most mechanical movements complete three to four full back and forth motions of a balance every second this process of how a mechanical watch works does have its perks because you don't need any external power supply like a battery for example to power it but it does have its downside there's a lot of friction so that locking and unlocking is going to lead to need for service after a certain period of time if you just constantly bang back and forth back and forth that's going to cause friction and that's why there's joules on that pallet fork to help really minimize that in addition there's also the issues with shock and temperature change anything that can disrupt the oscillation of that balance wheel and that slow distribution of energy will cause the watch to lose or gain time pretty easily so that's when the quartz watch comes into the equation so back in 1969 seiko unveiled the first quartz-powered wristwatch with the astron and it completely flipped the watch industry upside down quite literally at the time of its release bringing on an era called the course crisis which ultimately changed the way that watches were sold but really changed the way that consumers actually looked at them a quartz watch unlike a mechanical watch is powered through a battery and harnesses the power of reversing the piezoelectric effect more on that in a moment in order to track time at levels of accuracy never seen before during the period of its release to try to simply explain this through a small electrical charge created by that battery it is then passed to an integrated circuit and then is delivered to a quartz crystal cut in the shape of a tuning fork really microscopic tuning fork so i mentioned this idea of a piezoelectric effect so this is a concept where a material such as a quartz crystal can generate an electrical charge in response to applied mechanical stress however in the case of a quartz movement the opposite is taking place here as when that electrical charge from the battery goes to the integrated circuit it will then go to that small quartz crystal causing it to reverse the piezoelectric effect and will have it actually vibrate at an insane rate of 32 768 times per second following this vibration it will then send a frequency back to the integrated circuit that will send electromagnetic impulse through coils and a coil block that are in close proximity in order for the second hand to tick once a second with the help of a small rotor and when you look at that oscillation rate in comparison to a traditional mechanical watch you can see how this can produce a very accurate end result now at the time of the release of the quartz watch it was truly groundbreaking but nowadays the great thing about quartz is the fact that it can be mass produced with quite ease once this process was identified and it does have its perks because it is crazy accurate a really cheap quartz watch will be able to outperform the best swiss chronometer out there but it does have the downside that it does require an external power resource but what if you combine both worlds a super accurate quartz style movement with the endless power supply that a mechanical watch could provide without friction well that's when the spring drive comes into play now the idea of the spring drive was first put into existence by a brilliant engineer yoshikazu akahane back in 1977 where he made it his life goal to take this previously mentioned best of both world components of both a quartz watch and a mechanical watch and combine them together for the ultimate wristwatch movement and although there were gradual successes along the way with their first prototype being rolled out in 1982 and then their first watch being available for purchase in japan in 1999 we'd have to wait until 2005 until the first automatic winding and internationally released spring drive was put on the market this 28-year long journey with the spring drive amassed over 600 prototypes yet at the end yielded one of the most impressive findings in horological history now one thing that's interesting about the spring drive when flipping over the watch getting a view of the case back you see many of what you would expect from a mechanical piece with the presence of a rotor and what appears to be a balance wheel until you look a little bit closer now understanding those previously mentioned challenges and benefits of mechanical and quartz pieces really comes into play here as through the inclusion of a mainspring we get the added benefit of no need for external power while combining the accuracy of a quartz and how these worlds collide is made possible is through something called a tri-synchro regulator so similar to a mechanical watch a spring drive is powered by that uncoiling of a mainspring that gradually releases energy however instead of the typical escapement this is when the tri-synchro regulator comes into play this key part of the spring drive was given its name as a result of the three aspects that it helps to control one it helps to control the release of energy from that mainspring number two is it assists in converting mechanical power from the mainspring to electrical energy to the quartz to cause that quartz to oscillate and then finally with number three it generates a magnetic force to act as a frictionless break to ensure optimal time keeping now how all this works is the mechanical power being delivered from that mainspring arrives down the gear train to a component that essentially replaces the balance wheel that is called a glide wheel how it differs mostly from that of a bounds wheel is that instead of rocking back and forth it rotates constantly in one direction and features a magnet at the fixed point now the use of this magnet plays a key part in the conversion of taking that mechanical energy from the mainspring and converting it into a very small electrical charge as given the glide wheels quick rotation and use of a magnet in close proximity to copper wires will cause the electrons in that copper wire to move creating a small electrical charge that will be passed along to an integrated circuit but one incredible feat here that is taking place is just how efficient this use of energy is as this electrical charge is so small if everyone in the united states plus everyone in europe roughly a billion people all had a spring drive the combined electrical charge taking place there would not even be able to light a 60 watt light bulb but with this slight electrical charge the spring drive is able to accomplish something much more impressive than turning on a simple light with this small electrical current that is sent to the integrated circuit it is then sent to a quartz crystal that vibrates in its typical fashion of 32 768 times per second which then will send an impulse back to that integrated circuit where it will calculate the frequency of the quartz to determine proper time to be sent to the glide wheel now similar to how the balance wheel is the heartbeat of mechanical watch this glide wheel takes the honor here with the spring drive rotating eight times per second when keeping perfect time however in a case where the glide wheel is moving too fast the way that it is regulated is that integrated circuit that receives that frequency from the quartz oscillating will send a small burst of electromagnetic energy with the help of the closely located copper material to the glide wheel now why this is so incredible is the fact that instead of the typical locking and unlocking in a mechanical watch that causes friction we get a quartz oscillation frequency that is of course incredibly accurate and is sent to the glide wheel without any use of friction as with the presence of the magnet on the glide wheel this electromagnetic energy acts as a break to ensure the perfect free rotation of the glide wheel now this constant flow of that glide wheel is the reason behind that beautiful sweep that you will notice on the second hand and how it seems to just merely float without interruption as if it was magic and this might not be magic but is close to the next best thing this flow of engineering creates a watch movement that's really unlike anything that we have seen before and the spring drive family of movements only gets more complicated from here but this incredible technology hidden from view behind the exceptional dial work and zeratu polishing might not get the same appreciation but hopefully next time you look down at a spring drive powered watch you can then fully appreciate what goes into that oh so perfect sweep well guys that is the basic rundown of the grand seiko spring drive and of course i could probably try to make more cases why that this is such a huge feat that they were able to overcome with creating this but i think just going through the process of understanding how it works is just reason enough to prove this point as you'll probably see just how complicated this is and just how miraculous it is that they were able to develop this so really be interested to see what you guys think if you guys did like the video be sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe and hit the bell icon this is a lot of work to put together and also if you do want to learn a little bit more about the spring drive i can leave some other articles presentations down below that i think are really great in helping to understand this even further into just if you're curious just learn a little bit more because we really only scratch the surface here but i'm all about brevity in my content so just wanted to give you all the information you can need to be able to understand as much as you possibly could about the spring drive but also if you want to support this content allowing me to continue to do this and keep creating content of this sort definitely head over the website check out the different watches we have available as well as straps full authorized dealer full factory warranty really proud of the offering that we have there so definitely go check that out and also make sure to be following me on instagram as well so you can stay up to date with future content so guys thank you again so much for watching be well and i will see you all very soon

Channel: Teddy Baldassarre

Views: 807,488

Rating: 4.9484735 out of 5

Keywords: grand seiko, grand seiko spring drive, how does grand seiko spring drive work, grand seiko spring drive explained, grand seiko spring drive sweep, grand seiko watch, grand seiko watches, spring drive watch, what is a spring drive movement, grand seiko snowflake, are grand seikos worth the money, teddy baldassarre

Id: jVoRoK1u3Dg

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020