Strike mode and tune selector for a watch or timepiece
AssigneeBlancpain SA
InventorsMehdi Denden, Julien Peter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A striking mechanism for a watch including an hour snail driven by a movement, a strike wheel set including a detent ratchet and a repeating rack pinion, a pivoting hour-rack for reading the snail and driving the pinion, a click set in motion at each passing strike to drive the detent ratchet, with a mode selector mechanism for selection by the user of a particular strike mode, among distinct modes including a silent mode, defining the angular position of a cam having an external profiled surface, wherein, in silent mode, the largest radius pushes back a beak of a silencing lever, to orient it into a position where its main arm moves the click away from the ratchet in order to disable every passing strike function.
Claims16
A striking mechanism including a movement, said striking mechanism being capable of operation in at least two distinct passing strike modes and on at least two distinct sets of gongs, said striking mechanism including a mode selector mechanism combined with a mechanism for selecting a tune or set of gongs, said mode selector mechanism including a user-accessible mode selector allowing the user to choose which strike mode to use, and at least one means for selecting a tune or set of gongs controlled by said movement for a passing strike, and/or accessible to the user for the selection of a tune or of a set of gongs, for performing passing strike functions or for a minute repeater function, said striking mechanism including at least one said means for selecting a tune or set of gongs distinct from said mode selector, wherein said striking mechanism includes a tune selector cam, which is arranged to cooperate with at least a first tune lever and a second tune lever, which are both arranged to cooperate with a tune selector arranged to control different trips for operating strike hammers, said first tune lever and said second tune lever each including an intermediate feeler beak arranged to move over the periphery of said tune selector cam, which includes a pin driving a fork of a tune selection feeler arm, a first finger of which follows the periphery of a tune-selection-by-mode cam, whose angular position is directly or indirectly controlled by said mode selector, and a second finger of which is arranged to limit the travel of a petite sonnerie lever.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.