Timepiece and control method of timepiece
AssigneeSeiko Instruments Inc.
InventorKazuo Kato
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A timepiece, in which an indicating hand is driven by a motor and high speed processing is required for driving a load other than the indicating hand, includes a main control circuit that instructs drive timing of the motor so as to drive the load, and that is operated by an operation frequency serving as a first frequency, and a motor control unit that generates a drive pulse for driving the motor, and that is operated by an operation frequency serving as a second frequency which is lower than the first frequency.
Claims13
A timepiece that comprises a plurality of motors each configured to operate an indicating hand of the timepiece, the timepiece comprising:
- at least one oscillation circuit configured to output a first clock signal at a first frequency and a second clock signal at a second frequency that is set lower than the first frequency;
- a main control circuit configured to operate at the first frequency to generate a separate instruction signal to each of the plurality motors, the instruction signal being operable to set an operation mode of a corresponding motor, and the operation mode being set to determine a rotational direction of the corresponding motor;
- and
- a motor control circuit provided separately from the main control circuit and configured to operate at the second frequency to receive the instruction signal from the main control circuit, the motor control circuit comprising a plurality of motor drive circuits arranged, respectively, for the plurality of motors, each of the plurality of motor drive circuits configured to operate at the second frequency to generate, in response to the instruction signal from the main control circuit, drive pulses that drive a corresponding motor according to the instruction signal.
A control method of a timepiece that comprises a plurality of motors each configured to operate an indicating hand, the method comprising:
- operating at least one oscillation circuit to output a first clock signal at a first frequency and a second clock signal at a second frequency that is set lower than the first frequency;
- operating a main control circuit at the first frequency to generate an instruction signal to each of the plurality of motors, the instruction signal including an operation mode of a corresponding motor, and the operation mode determining a rotation direction of the corresponding motor;
- and
- operating a motor control circuit at the second frequency to receive the instruction signal from the main control circuit, the motor control circuit provided separately from the main control circuit comprising a plurality of motor drive circuits arranged, respectively, for the plurality of motors, wherein operating a motor control circuit at the second frequency comprises operation each of the plurality of motor drive circuits at the second frequency to generate, in response to the instruction signal, drive pulses that drive a corresponding motor accordingly to the instruction signal,
- wherein operating a main control circuit at the first frequency comprises generating an enabling signal having a time duration to the motor control circuit, and operating a main control circuit at the first frequency further comprises generating the instruction signal during the time duration of the enabling signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.