On this building, the hour wheel arbor is mounted on the mainspring barrel and because the barrel unwinds, the hour wheel is pushed in opposition to a hard and fast peripheral rack. It’s secured in place by a bridge that acts because the hour hand. On the similar time, the hour wheel drives the central pinion which, in flip, drives your entire gear prepare appearing because the minute hand in opposition to an higher fastened peripheral rack. As such, the motion distributed with the crown and keyless works; the mainspring is wound just by rotating the caseback and time is about by rotating the bezel because the peripheral rack is fastened to the internal circumference of the bezel. Past that, the Freak was additionally the primary wristwatch to include a pure escapement, which was invented by Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1789. Characterised by two counter-rotating wheels, the pure escapement was so known as as a result of every impulse was delivered on to the steadiness curler at every vibration, setting it aside from each recognized wristwatch escapement in use at this time and eliminating the necessity for lubrication. The Ulysse Nardin Twin Direct Escapement solved the difficulty of tolerance Breguet confronted throughout his time by changing conventional steel with exactly fashioned silicon parts produced through deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). Therefore, the Freak was the primary watch to include silicon elements, thereby ushering within the age of silicon in watchmaking.
The properties of silicon have rendered it a particularly useful materials for watchmaking. Being a 3rd the density of metal, it operates with low inertia, that means the quantity of power required to maneuver a silicon element is much much less, thus permitting a motion to run with better effectivity. Secondly, it’s more durable than metal and has a very clean floor, permitting interacting parts to work collectively with out the necessity for lubrication and with insignificant floor put on over time. Thirdly, it may be fabricated with excessive precision and in advanced geometries by way of DRIE, with no additional intervention after they’ve been fashioned. Fourthly, it is usually extremely elastic and subsequently, shock- resistant as it’s able to bouncing again to its authentic form instantly upon influence. Final however not least, it is usually anti- magnetic, counteracting the consequences of a long-time foe.
The primary silicon escape wheels had been produced for Ulysse Nardin by Centre Suisse d’Electronique et Microtechnique (CSEM), a Swiss analysis institute that makes a speciality of micro-electromechanical programs (MEMS). Greater than that, the Twin Direct Escapement within the Freak ingeniously built-in Breguet’s two-level escape wheel building right into a single airplane. Every escape wheel has 25 tooth with each fifth tooth protruding barely with a pointed tip whereas the remaining have flat ideas. The tooth with flat ideas serve to drive the following escape wheel and the pointed ideas contact a pivoting stopper that delivers an impulse on to the steadiness wheel at every vibration.
