US 6,570,823 B1Granted

Electronic chronograph watch

AssigneeETA SA Fabriques d'Ebauches

InventorsBeat Gilomen, André Triponez

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Abstract

The invention concerns electronic chronograph watches which include a central hour hand (3), a central minute hand (4) and a small off-central second hand (6) for permanently indicating the current time, chronograph hands (7, 8, 9) for indicating a measured time when the watch is operating in chronograph mode, drive units for driving said hands and generator means responding to manual control means (P1, P2, 10) to apply control pulses to said drive units. According to the invention, the watch also includes a central second hand (5) driven by its own drive unit and the generator means include means for selectively applying the control pulses to this drive unit, so that the central second hand indicates the seconds of the current time, in phase with the small off-center second hand (6), when the watch is operating normally and the measured seconds when the watch is operating in chronograph mode.

Claims10

Dependent claims

An electronic chronograph watch including:

a central hour hand, a central minute hand and a small off-centre second hand for permanently indicating the current time;
chronograph hands for indicating a measured time when the watch is operating in chronograph mode;
drive means operatively connected to the central hour hand, the central minute hand, the small off-centre second hand and said chronograph hands for driving the connected hands;
generator means responding to manual control means for applying control pulses to said drive means, the generator means being operatively connected to the drive means, the drive means being responsive to the control pulses;
and
a first central second hand driven by its own drive unit, the drive unit being operatively connected to the first central second hand and being a member of the drive means and said generator means including means for selectively applying control pulses to the drive unit so that said first central second hand indicates the seconds of the current time, in phase with said small off-centre small second hand, when the watch is operating normally and the measured seconds when the watch is operating in chronograph mode.

3 more elements

An electronic chronograph watch including:

a set of current time hands for permanently indicating the current time including central hour and minute hands;
a set of chronograph hands for indicating a measured time when the watch is operating in chronograph mode;
drive means operatively connected to the set of current time hands and said set of chronograph hands for driving the connected hands;
generator means responding to manual control means for applying control pulses to said drive means, the generator means being operatively connected to the drive means, the drive means being responsive to the control pulses;
and
wherein the current time hands includes an off centre second hand and the watch further includes a first central second hand, the drive means includes a first drive unit, the first drive unit being operatively connected to the first central second hand and said generator means includes means for selectively applying control pulses to the first drive unit so that said central second hand indicates the seconds of the current time, in phase with said off-centre small second hand, when the watch is operating normally and the measured seconds when the watch is operating in chronograph mode.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.