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US 7,733,744 B2Granted
Musical module for a watch movement
AssigneeMontres Breguet S.A.
InventorsPhilippe Subilia, Nicolas Court
Life of this patent
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AssigneeMontres Breguet S.A.
InventorsPhilippe Subilia, Nicolas Court
Estimating the term…
A musical module for a watch movement, said module comprising a barrel (11), at least one part (5) having pins (12), a comb (13) with a number of tines, a regulating system (7, 8, 9, 10), and a control device (16, 17, 21). The part (5) or each part (5) is a toothed disc driven by the barrel (11) via at least one pinion (6). The or each toothed disc (5) with said pins (12) on at least one face is able to be positioned over or underneath the comb (13) so that the pins (12) act on the tines of the comb (13) to play a tune. The control device (16, 17, 21) is designed to trigger a rotation of the toothed disc or discs (5) in order to start the tune. The regulating system (7, 8, 9, 10) maintains a constant rotation of the toothed disc or discs (5).
A musical module for a watch movement, said module comprising a barrel (11), a rotary disc (5) having pins (12), a comb (13) with a number of tines able to be acted upon by the pins (12) of the disc (5) as the latter rotates, a drive device (6, 14a, 15) for turning the rotary disc (5), and a regulating system (7, 8, 9, 10) designed to maintain a constant rotation of said disc (5), said module being characterized in that it also comprises a carousel (1) comprising a central arbor (3) around which are arranged a number of rotary toothed discs (5), the drive device (6, 14a, 15) being able to be operated in order to turn the rotary toothed discs (5) and to trigger a rotation of the carousel (1) in such a way as to position the rotary toothed discs (5) in turn over the comb (13), and the regulating system (7, 8, 9, 10) maintaining a constant rotation of the rotary toothed discs (5).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Regular striking mechanisms giving the full hour, half hour or quarter hour: sounding bodies; Whistles; Musical apparatus
Automatic musical instruments: musical boxes with plucked teeth, blades, or the like
Mechanically-driven clocks or watches
Automatic musical instruments
About 2 months of term left · ends 23 Dec 2026 (estimated)
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to horology and more particularly to a musical module for a watch movement, especially a wristwatch, as well as to a watch comprising the musical module.
(2) Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 is a top view of the musical module comprising a carousel with four arms, with a pinned musical disc mounted on the end of each arm,
FIG. 2 is an intermediate bottom view of the musical module, and
FIG. 3 is a bottom view of the musical module.
In the main embodiment of the present invention, the musical module comprises a carousel (1) with four arms (2) arranged around a central arbor (3). Near its end, each arm (2) has an arbor (4) on which is mounted one of four toothed musical discs (5). A central pinion (6) is mounted idly on the central arbor (3) of the carousel (1) in order to be able to drive on the one hand simultaneously the four musical discs (5) and on the other hand a first wheel (7) of a gear train (7, 8, 9) working together with an inertial flywheel (10). The gear train (7, 8, 9) and the inertial flywheel (10) constitute the regulating system of the musical module (FIG. 2). The central pinion (6) is drivable by the barrel (11).
Each musical disc (5) has pins (12) on its underside for lifting the tines of a comb (13) when the four discs (5) are positioned in turn over the latter. The positions of the pins (12) vary from disc (5) to disc (5) in order to give each of the musical discs (5) its own tune.
The musical module has a control device for triggering both the rotation of the discs (5) and the rotation of the carousel (1) through 90°. For this purpose, a rotary member (14) which has a tooth (14a) is fixed to the first wheel (7) of the gear train (7, 8, 9), the tooth (14a) being arranged to drive a Geneva wheel (15) mounted on the central arbor (3) of the carousel (1). The pitch circle of the musical discs (5) is identical to that of the first wheel (7) so that rotation of the carousel (1) is triggered by the tooth (14a) only when the disc (5) positioned over the comb (13) has completed one revolution and the tune has finished.