EP1416342A1 - Timepiece with an alarm provided with surprise-piece lifting lever - Google Patents

Abstract

When a striking command is issued, a catch (36) is released allowing a spring (25) to rotate a curved rack (28) and lever (22). The lever has a contact finger (26) which releases a surprise jumper (8). The jumper moves under spring (10) loading to adjust the position of a surprise (5) mounted on a minutes spiral (4) and the contact finger with surprise insulator (47) continues the movement to block the hours spiral (16).

Description

The present invention relates to a striking timepiece comprising a center mobile making one revolution per hour and equipped with a first snail and a surprise associated with it, a second snail, a rack piece connected to a bell control and arranged to pivot from a rest position when said control is actuated, the rack part being provided with a probe arranged to abut against the second snail when the control of bell is activated, a surprise jumper arranged to lean against the surprise under the effect of a spring to rotate the surprise on the first snail, and a surprise isolating device arranged to keep the surprise jumper away surprise when the rack part is in the rest position.

Recall that virtually all timepieces capable of ring quarter and minutes (or five-minute intervals) have a retractable cam called "surprise", which is associated with the minute snail (or five minutes). The end of each of the four branches of this snail must be narrowed to allow the minute probe to reach the highest step near the center of the snail, when fourteen minutes must be struck. It results that the outer rung of the snail, which corresponds to zero minutes of ringing, extends over an angle less than the normal value of 6 ° corresponding to the rotation of the center mobile in one minute. The four branches of surprise are used to temporarily increase this step at the start of each quarter of an hour. The saltire of surprise controls the pivoting of the surprise on the snail by leaning against the end of one of the branches of surprise. In old timepieces, this support was continuous during the last minutes of a quarter of an hour and the first minutes of the next quarter hour. The friction of the necklace on the surprise during this time produced significant wear of the parts in contact and tended to slow down the watch movement.

To overcome this drawback, devices over a century ago were invented surprise isolators, which keep the necklace out of surprise the minutes ring is not requested. There is a detailed description of a example of a surprise isolator on pages 175 to 181 of the third edition of book by F. Lecoultre entitled "Complicated watches" and published by Chs. Rohr & Cie SA, Bienne (Switzerland) in 1985 (ISBN 2-88175-000-1). This device is formed by a additional lever with two branches, one of which leans against the control buzzer when it is at rest, so that the other branch will hold during this time the surprise jumper at a distance from the surprise, against the force of the spring acting on the necklace. The ringing control acts on the one hand on the part to rack and secondly on the surprise isolator.

In patent CH 11660, a surprise isolator is described comprising also an additional lever, but arranged differently. In this case, one of the arms of the isolating lever rests on the rack piece so that the lever keeps a position such that his other arm holds the jumper of surprise. The command of bell acts on the first arm to pivot the lever so as to push the rack piece and release the surprise jumper during this time. On the other hand, in this mechanism the hour sensor is not mounted on the rack part.

In the two aforementioned devices, the surprise isolator function requires a relatively large additional lever, which is inconvenient in a already very complicated mechanism. The present invention makes it possible to avoid this disadvantage thanks to a very simple and space-saving construction.

To this end, the invention relates to a striking timepiece of the kind indicated above in the preamble, characterized in that the isolating device surprise has a protruding element attached to the rack piece and arranged to cooperate with the surprise jumper to keep it from surprise.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, said projecting element, which may be formed by a pin arranged to rest against an edge of the jumper surprise, is arranged on said probe, which is preferably formed by an arm of the rack piece that crosses the jumper of surprise. Said probe can be either the hour probe, arranged to feel an hour snail, or another feeler arranged on a rack piece and arranged for palpating for example a snail quarters.

• la figure 1 est une vue en plan montrant le dispositif isolateur de surprise selon l'invention et les éléments auxquels il est associé dans le mécanisme de sonnerie d'une montre à grande sonnerie, dans une position de repos de ce mécanisme;
• la figure 2 représente les éléments de la figure 1 dans une position où la commande de sonnerie vient d'être actionnée, et
• la figure 3 représente les mêmes éléments que la figure 1, à une échelle agrandie.

Other characteristics and advantages of the present invention will appear in the following description of a preferred embodiment, presented by way of nonlimiting example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

• Figure 1 is a plan view showing the surprise isolating device according to the invention and the elements with which it is associated in the striking mechanism of a watch with large striking, in a rest position of this mechanism;
• FIG. 2 represents the elements of FIG. 1 in a position where the bell control has just been actuated, and
• Figure 3 shows the same elements as Figure 1, on an enlarged scale.

The mechanism represented in the drawings represents a mobile of center 1 driven by the watch movement to make one revolution per hour in the direction of arrow A. The mobile 1 comprises a carriageway 2, a snail of the quarters 3 and a 4 minutes snail equipped with a surprise 5. Each branch 4a, 4b, 4c and 4d of the the minute snail has fifteen steps, the first of which 6a, located farthest the outside and corresponding to the first minute of a quarter of an hour, is narrower than the others. The function of surprise is to extend this step when it is in its active position 5a shown in broken lines in Figure 1. The position of the surprise 5 drawn in solid lines is its retracted position. She is held by a return spring (not shown) resting on the snail 4.

A surprise jumper 8 is formed by a lever pivotally mounted in 9 and biased by a spring 10 which bears against a pin 11 of the jumper 8 for the push towards surprise 5, the jumper having a V-shaped beak which has a inclined plane 13 used to rotate surprise 5 in the direction of arrow A against the force of the aforementioned return spring. A fixed stop 15 retains the jumper 8 when it is advanced without being able to lean against surprise.

A 16 hour snail, forming a twelve-step cam 17, is fixed by a screw 18 to a star 19 which is driven step by step by the movement of watchmaking so as to complete one revolution in twelve hours. A long necklace 20 requested by a spring 21 holds the star 19 in each of its twelve positions.

A rack piece 22 is pivotally mounted at 23 and has a pin 24 against which a spring 25 which tends to make rotate the part 22 in the direction of the arrow B. An arm of the part 22 constitutes a hour probe 26 whose end 27 will abut against one of the rungs 17 of the 16 hour snail when the piece 22 pivots in the direction of the arrow B. The part 22 further comprises a rack 28 in an arc, centered at 23 and meshing with a rack pinion 29 mounted in a freely rotatable manner on a ringing center mobile 30 provided with a drive plate 31. The mobile ringing center 30 has a pinion (not shown) which is engaged with a ring barrel tending to rotate it in the direction of arrow C. The rack pinion 29 is part of a mobile called a turret, which is rotatable around of the mobile 30 and further comprises a ratchet with wolf teeth 33 and a ratchet of 34 hours intended to operate the hour hammer (not shown). Plateau 31 carries a hook 36 biased by a spring 37 to catch on the wolf teeth of the ratchet 33 in order to prevent the turret comprising the pinion 29 from rotating under the effect of the rack 28 and the spring 25.

The ringing control will not be described in detail here. Simply mention that to activate the mechanism that has just been described, it comprises a toothed wheel 40 mounted under the plate 31 so as to be able to pivot to a limited extent with respect thereto, the wheel 40 having a pin control 41 which can be pressed against an inclined face 42 of the hook 36 to release it from the ratchet teeth 33.

In the rest position illustrated in Figures 1 and 3, the center mobile 1 turns with the minute hand of the watch, while the hour star 19 advance one step per hour. All other parts shown remain stationary as long as the ringer control is not activated, because the center mobile bell 30 is then blocked by the minute piece (not shown), which blocks at the end of the stroke, the striking mechanism.

The hook 36 immobilizes the turret formed by the elements 29, 33 and 34, this which retains the rack piece 22 against the force of the spring 25. In this rest position, a pin 44, projecting from the hour probe 26 which crosses surprise necklace 8, leans against an edge 45 of necklace 8 and holds this one away from the trajectory 46 of the ends of the arms of the surprise 5. Thus, the probe 26 and its pin 44 constitute a surprise isolating device 47.

When the ringing control is actuated, the toothed wheel 40 rotates a few degrees in the direction of arrow C relative to the drive plate 31, so that its pin 41 lifts the hook 36 and releases the turret comprising elements 29, 33 and 34. This turret is then rotated by the part to rack 22 pivoting under the action of spring 25. From the start of this pivoting, the pin 44 lets the surprise jumper 8 pivot towards the center mobile 1. If at that time one of the branches 4a to 4d of the snail of minutes 4 is located proximity of one of the inclined sides 12 and 13 of the beak of the jumper 8, this side rests against the corresponding branch of surprise 5 and puts it in the appropriate position, in a known manner. The rack 22 continues to rotate until the end 27 of its feeler 26 abuts the 16 hour snail, which stops the action of the 34 hour ratchet. Then, the mechanism shown is brought back to the rest position of Figure 1 by the action of the striking barrel driving the mobile ring center 30. The pin 44 of the surprise isolator 47 raises again surprise jumper 8 and keep it away from surprise 5 as long as the ring command will not be activated again.

The above description shows that the present invention makes it possible to achieve a surprise isolator without any additional moving parts, simply by the addition of a projecting element 44 on a part of the part to rack 22 which moves in the vicinity of an edge of the surprise jumper 8. We note that this projecting element is not necessarily arranged on the probe of the 26 hours but could be on another arm of room 22 and show any another configuration capable of cooperating with the jumper 8, for example in the form of a hook or rim folded at right angles.

Although the example described above relates to the case of an associated surprise to the snail of the minutes, it should be remembered that a surprise isolating device according the invention can also cooperate with a surprise associated with another snail, especially a quarter or five minute snail.

The invention can be used in any timepiece provided with a ring, in particular a minute repeater watch or a large ring.

Claims (6)

Striking timepiece comprising: a center mobile (1) making one revolution per hour and provided with a first snail (4) and a surprise (5) associated with it, a second snail (16), a rack piece (22) connected to a striking control (40, 41) and arranged to pivot from a rest position when said control is actuated, the rack piece being provided with a feeler (26) arranged to abut against the second snail (16) when the ringing control is actuated, a surprise jumper (8) arranged to lean against the surprise under the effect of a spring (10) to rotate the surprise (5) on the first snail (4), and a surprise isolating device (47) arranged to keep the surprise jumper (8) away from the surprise when the rack part is in the rest position, characterized in that the surprise isolating device (47) comprises a projecting element (44) fixed to the rack piece (22) and arranged to cooperate with the surprise jumper (8) to separate it from the surprise. Timepiece according to claim 1, characterized in that said projecting element (44) is disposed on said probe (26). Timepiece according to claim 2, characterized in that said feeler (26) is formed by an arm of the rack piece (22) which crosses the jumper of surprise. Timepiece according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said projecting element is formed by a pin (44) arranged to bear against an edge (45) of the surprise jumper. Timepiece according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the first snail is a minute (4) or five minute snail. Timepiece according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the second snail is an hour snail (16).

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