EP1631864B1 - Date indicating mechanism for timepiece - Google Patents

Abstract

The mechanism has a date indicator with a series of dates from 1 to 31. An aperture (15) is sized to indicate seven dates according to seven days of a week registered in a dial. A date corrector has a series of dates from 1 to 6 to be partially superimposed on the date indicator. A needle (16) is pointed towards the aperture to indicate a date corresponding to the day of the week.

Description

The present invention relates to timepieces with date display. It relates, more particularly, a mechanism indicating the date and the day of the week for equipping a watch movement.

It is common in mechanical and electromechanical watches to display the date (1 to 31) and the day of the week (Monday to Sunday) by means of hands moving on the dial or discs rotating under the dial. revealing their indications through wickets.

Generally, only the date and the corresponding day are visible each day. However, it may be interesting to provide more information to the wearer of the watch, for example, the dates and days over a period of a week, as the offer a calendar.

The patent US 3,811,266 proposes a solution to meet this wish. However, the matching of the date and the day, necessary at the end of the months of less than 31 days, must be carried out manually.

The object of the present invention is to provide a mechanism that automatically converts the date and the day.

More specifically, a first embodiment is defined by claims 1 and 4.

In this embodiment, the mechanism further comprises a needle intended to show the date of the day, said first means being arranged to cause the needle to perform, each evening around midnight, an advance of one day.

A second embodiment is defined by claims 5 and 7.

• les figures 1 et 2 sont des vues d'ensemble schématisées d'une pièce d'horlogerie équipée de la première forme de réalisation du mécanisme selon l'invention ;
• les figures 3 à 7 représentent ce mécanisme en différents de ses états les plus significatifs;
• la figure 8 est une vue d'ensemble d'une pièce horlogerie dotée de la deuxième forme de réalisation du mécanisme ; et
• la figure 9 illustre la manière dont les organes indicateurs de la figure 8 peuvent être entraînés électroniquement.

Other features of the invention will emerge from the description which follows, given with reference to the appended drawing, in which:

• the Figures 1 and 2 are schematic overviews of a timepiece equipped with the first embodiment of the mechanism according to the invention;
• the Figures 3 to 7 represent this mechanism in different of its most significant states;
• the figure 8 is an overview of a timepiece having the second embodiment of the mechanism; and
• the figure 9 illustrates how the reporting bodies of the figure 8 can be trained electronically.

The timepiece schematically represented Figures 1 and 2 is intended to display, on a dial 10, the hour, minute and second of the current time, but also the date and the month.

The hour and the minute are displayed in the center of your room respectively by large hands 11 and 12, while the second is displayed, at the 6 o'clock position, by a small hand 13. The month is displayed using a disc appearing behind a window 14 at the 3 o'clock position. These functions will not be described because they are provided in a conventional manner and are not the subject of the invention.

We will therefore focus primarily on the display of the calendar which, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention, is provided through an aperture 15 circular arc concentric with the needles 11 and 12, arranged at 9 o'clock. This window reveals seven calendars opposite which are indicated, on the dial, from bottom to top, the indications of the seven days of the week. A needle 16, also concentric to the needles 11 and 12 and pointed towards the window 15, is used to designate the date of each day of the week.

The peculiarity of this timepiece lies in the mechanism to automatically display each day, in the window 15, with the help of the needle 16, the correct date in front of the good day of the week, that the month current is 31, 30, 29 or 28 days. The figure 2 shows, for example, the state of the play on February 29 of a leap year.

We will now refer to Figures 3 to 7 which represent schematically, according to different configurations, the constituent organs of the mechanism equipping the part of the Figures 1 and 2 . It forms a module arranged on a conventional movement and coupled to it according to any technique well known to those skilled in the art.

The figures show a date indicator 17 constituted, in known manner, by a disk ring whose upper face bears the thirty-one calendar days visible in sets of seven through the window 15 opposite the series of seven days of the week. The inner portion of the ring 17 is provided with thirty-one teeth serving, on the one hand, to its drive by means which will be described and, on the other hand, to its positioning by a conventional jumper not shown. '

The mechanism comprises a twenty-four hour wheel 18 driven in a counter-clockwise direction (hereinafter, SIAM), at a rate of one revolution per day, from the hour wheel of the movement. The wheel 18 carries, on the top, a stud 19 meshing with a star of thirty-one 20 disposed at the center of the movement and whose pinion 21 carries the indicator hand of date 16. The star 20 carries, on its lower face, a stud 22 whose role will appear later.

The pinion 21 meshes with a first rack 23 forming the end of an arm 24 which pivots about an axis 25. When the arm pivots in the SIAM, it loads a spring 26. The other end of this arm is provided a second rack 27 which meshes with a ratchet clutch mobile 28, of a type well known to those skilled in the art, cooperating with the internal toothing of the date indicator 17. The rack 27 has no effect on this mobile when it pivots in the SIAM but, when it rotates clockwise (hereinafter, SAM), it drives it to advance the indicator 17 in the SIAM.

A pawl 29, acting under the effect of a spring 30, serves to prevent, by one of its ends, the thirty-one star turning in the SIAM. The other end of this pawl is provided with a notch in which is placed a pad 31. The latter is attached to one end of a pivoting lever 32 whose other end is arranged so as to be in the path of the pad 22 equipping the star of thirty-one 20. The lever 32 is subjected to the action of a spring 33 which tends to bring its free end towards the center of the movement.

In operation, the mechanism is, in the night of Sunday to Monday, after the jump of midnight, in the position illustrated by the figure 3 for the week of Monday 7 to Sunday 13. The needle 16 is then pointed at the Monday date. Each of the following nights, around midnight, the pad 19 will then advance the position of the star of thirty-one 20, with its stud 22 and its needle 16 which, thus, on Sunday evening, will be pointed around the 13th, as shown on the figure 4 .

Throughout the week, the first rack 23 has also progressed in the SIAM, loading its spring 26, while the stud 22 has moved closer to the end of the lever 32. The second rack 27 has also progressed in the same direction but, as already mentioned, because of the presence of the clutch mobile 28, it had no effect on the date indicator 17 which has remained motionless. As an indication, the figure 5 shows the state of the mechanism on Thursday.

Each Sunday evening, when the stud 19 advances the mechanism of a position, the stud 22 raises the end of the lever 32, the stud 31 away from the pawl 29 of the star of thirty-one 20. This, actuated by the rack 23 subjected to the spring 26, returns quickly, in the SAM, with its needle 16, to the initial position of Monday morning, represented in the figure 3 .

At this moment, the needle 16 again indicates the Monday and the first of the seven new visible calendar of the week that begins. A new cycle of seven days begins then, identical to that which has just been described.

The mechanism would be perfect if every month had 31 days. Since this is not the case, the indication of the date designated by the needle 16 will not be correct for the months of less than 31 days. So, for example, for a 30-day month ending on a Thursday, the date in Friday's position will be 31, when it should be 1.

One solution that comes to mind immediately to solve this problem is to act on the date indicator 17 using a manual correction mechanism, well known to those skilled in the art, by which the indicator is advanced by 3, 2 or 1 step respectively at the end of the months of 29, 28 or 30 days. This solution certainly makes it possible to restore the concordance for the remaining days of the week, but it is then the past days that no longer display the correct date.

The mechanism according to the present invention provides a solution to the problem by allowing to automatically establish a perfect match, at the end of the months of less than 31 days, between the indication of the day and that of the date.

For this purpose, the mechanism uses a corrector 34 in the form of a disc crown sector 34 centered on the movement, of the same radius as the indicator 17. It carries, on its left side, the series of dates of 1 to 6 and is dimensioned so as to be superimposed exactly on the indicator 17 in order to hide inaccurate dates and replace them with his own. Sector 34 is endowed, inwards, with a toothing for its training.

For reasons which will appear later, the corrector 34 is, in its initial state, illustrated by the figures 3 and 4 , shifted by 3 positions relative to the last date appearing in the aperture 15.

According to the embodiment described, a first manual initialization, performed before the Sunday evening preceding the end of a month of less than 31 days, makes it possible to bring the corrector 34 closer to the last of the visible dates in the window 15. This initialization is 1 position for 30 days, 2 positions for 29 days and 3 positions for 28 days. In other words, the calendar 1 of the corrector is brought to 2, 1 and 0 positions respectively at the end of the months of 30, 29 and 28 days.

A second initialization must be performed, advantageously at the same time as the first, in order to advance the date indicator 17, 1, 2 or 3 positions respectively for the months of 30, 29 days and 28 days.

The figures 3 and 4 represent the mechanism before both initializations. These being performed, the mechanism according to the invention must therefore, at the beginning of the last week months of less than 31 days, that is to say at the time of passage from Sunday to Monday, allow to automatically move the correction sector 34 of a number of positions which depends on the date of Monday between the 23rd and the 30th. This number is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 depending on which last Monday is, respectively 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30. The mechanism must also, of course, automatically return the corrector 34 to its initial state next Sunday night.

To make it possible to carry out these displacements, the mechanism has, as a starting point, the internal toothing of the date indicator 17 which, by means of two mobiles 35 and 36, meshes with an associated wheel 37, above It has the particularity of having only eight of the thirty-one teeth that it should normally have, normally distributed over a sector 39 of about 93 ° and corresponding to operations to be carried out between the 23rd and the 30th of the months of less than 31 days. The rest of the perimeter of the star is smooth.

The eight-tooth sector 39 meshes with a pinion 40 whose circumference is equal to the length of the arc of sector 39, which is positioned to attack the pinion at the beginning of the 23rd of the month. This pinion is associated with a wheel of eight teeth 41 held in place by means of a jumper 42 and meshing with a correction wheel 43 which has the particularity of having a sector of nine notches 44 with a spacing corresponding to that of the teeth of the wheel 41. Three of these notches, bearing the references n1, n2 and n3, correspond to the corrections to be made at the end of the months of 30, 29 and 28 days, while the six others, bearing the references n4 to n9, serve for the correction of days. The rest of the circumference of the corrective wheel 43 is free of teeth.

The wheel 43 is associated, beneath it, with a wheel 45 meshing, by means of two movable members 46 and 47, with the internal toothing of the correction sector 34.

The wheel 45 meshes with a rack 48 forming the end of an arm which pivots about an axis 49. When the pivoting takes place in the SAM, it loads a spring 50.

A star of seven days 51 is driven, at a rate of one turn per week, by a finger 19 'carried, like the stud 19, by the wheel twenty-four hours 18. This star is provided with a tooth 52 which acts on a pawl 53 authorizing the rotation of the wheel 45, in the SIAM, under the action of the spring 50, every Sunday around midnight.

A cylinder 54 is engaged with the internal toothing of the date indicator 17 on which it acts only when it rotates in the SIAM. It is associated with a retaining pawl 55, subjected to the thrust of a spring 56 and actuated by a tooth 57 formed inside the right part of the corrector 34.

Finally, manual correction means, not shown in the drawing so as not to clutter, but that the skilled person knows well, allow to act simultaneously on the corrective wheel 43 and the cylinder 54 to make them perform respectively in the SIAM and SAM, 3, 2 and 1 not respectively before the end of the months of 28, 29 and 30 days. These corrections correspond to the respective initializations of the corrector 34 and the indicator 17, mentioned above.

The operation of the mechanism that ensures, automatically, the correct positioning of the corrector 34 will be described with reference, more particularly, to the figures 5 , 6 and 7 respectively concerning Thursday 30 of a month of 30 days, Monday 20 of a month of February to 28 days and Monday 27 of a month of February to 28 days.

When, at the moment of passing from 22 to 23 of the 31-day months, the eight-tooth sector 39 drives the pinion 40, the associated eight-tooth wheel 41 turns in a vacuum because the corrective wheel 43 does not show it. its sector with nine notches 44. The corrector 34 will remain motionless during the passage from 31 to 1 ^st .

This will be so as long as no initialization of position has been made by the wearer of the watch during the month to prepare the corrector 34 and cylinder 54 to a month of less than 31 days.

If the dual position initialization was performed, for example, for a month of 30 days, the corrective wheel 43 moved one position in the SIAM. On Sunday evening, at the time of the jump of 7 positions of the indicator 17, the notch n2 of the wheel 43 and the following can thus mesh with the wheel with eight teeth 41. Everything will then be determined by the date of Monday that follows.

According to the arrangements described above, if the Monday is 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 or 30, the correction wheel 43 will advance respectively 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 positions , thus progressing the corrector 34 of the same number of positions in order to hide the erroneous dates displayed by the indicator 17 and replace them with a correct indication of the date.

The same sequence of movements is made for the months of 29 and 28 days, after the manual initialization has advanced the corrector wheel 43 by 2 or 3 positions.

Of course, the operations that have just been described require that they be preceded, on Sunday evening, a return of the corrector 34 to its initial state, shifted by 3 positions compared to the last date appearing in the window 15.

This return to the initial state is triggered by the seven-day star 51 whose tooth 52 raises the pawl 53, thus freeing the wheel 45. This wheel, actuated by the rack 48 subjected to the spring 50, then returns rapidly, in the SIAM, to its starting position: The corrective wheel 43, which is associated with it, acting via the mobile 46 and 47, and also returns the corrector 34 to its initial state.

At the moment when the corrector 34 disappears to return to its initial position, the pawl 55, which until now immobilized the barrel 54, is lifted by the tooth 57. The barrel is then released and made to perform the indicator 17 a advance of 1, 2 or 3 positions depending on whether it is a month of 30, 29 or 28 days.

Thus is proposed a date indicator mechanism automatically together, from Monday to Sunday, the dates of the 7 days of the week opposite the corresponding day, that month is 31, 30, 29 or 28 days.

The present description has been made with reference to a fixed indication of the days of the week, from Monday to Sunday, and to a date indicator making jumps of 7 positions, the date being shown by a needle.

It goes without saying, however, that without departing from the scope of the invention, the mechanism could, as illustrated by the figure 8 , while keeping the principle of a day-date display over 7 days, having a day indicator and a date indicator advancing each day one position, both visible behind the wicket 15, the right day-date couple being always the one at the bottom of the ladder without the need to show it by a needle.

The display could also be done over two weeks or, more generally, n days. In this case, the corrector should have dates from 1 to n-1.

The invention has just been described in a mechanical embodiment, but it is obvious that the functions of the mechanism could also be realized electronically, as illustrated, for example, on the figure 9 .

In this case, according to an embodiment corresponding, for example, to that of the figure 8 , the date indicator 17 is surrounded by a crown disc 58 whose upper face carries four sets of indications of the seven days of the week, both visible through the window 15. The corrector 34 then takes the form of a disk sector centered on the movement. These three members are respectively rotated by three stepper motors 59, 60 and 61 which are controlled by a microprocessor (not shown) suitably programmed by the skilled person to, on the one hand; to advance each evening of a position the date indicator 17 and the day indicator 58 and, secondly, to position the corrector 34 so that at the end of the months of less than 31 days, it masks the incorrect dates and replace them with his own.

Claims (9)

1. Timepiece fitted with a dial which is pierced with an aperture (15), and equipped with a movement and a mechanism indicating the date and the day driven by said movement, said aperture being sized so as to allow seven dates to appear, with, inscribed facing them on the dial, the indications of the seven days of the week,
   said mechanism comprising a date indicator (17) bearing the series of dates from 1 to 31,
   characterized in that said mechanism comprises, furthermore :

   - first means for causing the date indicator to move on by seven days;

   - a date corrector (34) bearing the series of dates from 1 to 6 and arranged in such a way that it can be partially superposed on the date indicator; and

   - second means for causing the date corrector to move on in ways which allow it automatically, at the end of months comprising fewer than 31 days, to hide the incorrect dates and replace them with its own.
2. The timepiece as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that said indications inscribed on the dial are the seven days of the week from Monday to Sunday, and in that said first means are arranged for causing the date indicator to move on by seven days each Sunday around about midnight.
3. The timepiece as claimed in one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that it further comprises a hand (16) intended to show the date corresponding to the day, and in that said first means are arranged in such a way as to cause this hand to move on by one day each evening at around about midnight.
4. Mechanism indicating the date and the day intended to equip a timepiece according to one of claims 1 to 3 and equipped with a date indicator (17) bearing the series of dates from 1 to 31;
   characterized in that it comprises :

   - first means for causing the date indicator to move on by seven days between the end of a week and the beginning of the following week;

   - a date corrector (34) bearing a series of dates and arranged in such a way that it can be partially superposed on the date indicator; and

   - second means for causing the date corrector to move on in ways which allow it automatically, at the end of months comprising fewer than 31 days, to hide the incorrect dates and replace them with its own.
5. Timepiece fitted with a dial which is pierced with an aperture, and equipped with a movement and a mechanism indicating the date and the day driven by said movement, said aperture being sized so as to allow a plurality n of dates and days of the week to appear, said mechanism indicating comprising :

   - a date indicator (17) bearing the series of dates from 1 to 31;

   - a day indicator positioned beside the date indicator and bearing the indications of the seven days of the week,

   - first means for causing these two indicators to move on by one position each evening at around about midnight;

   - a date corrector (34) bearing the series of dates from 1 to n-1 and arranged in such a way that it can be partially superposed on the date indicator; and

   - second means for causing the date corrector to move on in ways which allow it automatically, at the end of months comprising fewer than 31 days, to hide the incorrect dates and replace them with its own.
6. The timepiece as claimed in claim 5, characterized in that said aperture (15) is sized so as to show seven dates and seven days of the week, and in that said corrector bears the series of dates from 1 to 6.
7. Mechanism indicating the date and the day intended to equip a timepiece according to one of claims 5 and 6, and equipped with:

   - a date indicator (17) bearing the series of dates from 1 to 31;

   characterized in that it further comprises :

   - a day indicator positioned beside the date indicator and bearing the indications of the seven days of the week,

   - first means for causing these two indicators to move on by one position each evening at around about midnight;

   - a date corrector (34) bearing the series of dates from 1 to n-1 and arranged in such a way that it can be partially superposed on the date indicator; and

   - second means for causing the date corrector to move on in ways which allow it automatically, at the end of months comprising fewer than 31 days, to hide the incorrect dates and replace them with its own.
8. The mechanism as claimed in claim 4 or 7, characterized in that said means are purely mechanical.
9. The mechanism as claimed in claim 4 or 7, characterized in that said means are electro-mechanical.

Images