On 7/6/2011 10:24 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
n Accutron will run fast with modern cells.

What a crap design then.

I'm afraid your ignorance is showing.


How old are you?

The Accutron was designed 50 years ago. It uses a discrete circuit, which
seemed rather marvelously miniature at the time. And the Accutron was the
first wris****ch accurate to a minute a month -- quite an achievement for a
"crap" design.



Thanks for that, Bill. The design is quite elegant, with the ruby
tipped tuning fork tines operating a micro-toothed wheel. That, the
fact that it hums rather than ticks, and that the sweep second hand
moves smoothly like an AC clock. Very unique concept. The design was
also used in a marine chronometer for navigating longitude, which
requires high accuracy
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/exp...cfm?ID=ZAA0275. They
were also used in space, with the first Accutron timepiece sent up
aboard the Vanguard 1 satellite, which achieved orbit on March 17, 1958
(5 months before I was born). Very cool, but ya know, some people will
probably not get it, not to mention being rude enough to pointlessly
dismiss with the word "crap" something another person is sincerely
interested in.

Kids.

Here's more on the Accutron & space exploration, etc:
http://accutron.org/214/aerospace.htm

Here's a pic of one of my own Accutrons.
http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...gen/AAlpha.jpg An "Alpha"
from 1961. Solid 14Kt gold. Now tell me that's not a cool looking
timepiece. ;-)

The effect of the silver cells varies from watch to watch, and there
have been cases of the movement being damaged by the extra voltage. I'd
prefer not to take that risk.

Dan