Automatic
movements in the best watchmaking tradition
- What is an automatic movement?
An automatic movement has a mechanical movement which winds itself through the
normal acton of your wrist as you wear the watch. The freely spinning rotor
in the movement turns both ways on its axis to wind the mainspring. The regulating
mechanism of the watch is the spring-balance, which vibrates six to eight times
a second. An automatic movement is comprised of more than 70 parts, the smallest
of which is hair-thin (0.07mm). Automatics do not have the accuracy of quartz
movements, but they keep time to within a few minutes a month and represent
the culmination of traditional Swiss watchmaking skills and know-how.
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Sophisticated Chronographs
A chronograph is a watch that not only displays the hours, minutes and seconds
of conventional time, but also measures the duration of a given event, notably
in sports timing.
- The basic functions of chronographs
All chronographs, whether quartz or automatic, have three basic functions
in common:
- Simple time measurement
This function measures the time of any event lasting up to 12 hours, from a 100-meter race to an allday sailing regatta.
- Additional time measurement
This function records several consecutive results and adds them together to measure the cumulating time. The chronograph hands are stopped and restarted at each pause.
- The tachometer
Chronographs have a tachometer scale that converts the time elapsed over a unit of distance (one mile of one kilometer) into average speed (m.p.h. or km/h). back to top
source: TAG Heuer General Catalog