Types of Watches

Watches with a Quartz Oscillator

Getting its energy from a battery, the Quartz Oscillator vibrates at the precisely calibrated frequency of 32'768Hz. The signal is then halved 16 times in a row by the circuitry to reach 1 second. The system then transmits an electric impulse to a step motor that moves the seconds hand forward.

Watches with an Inline Lever Escapement

These types of watches run with a mainspring. The Inline Lever Escapement lets the mainspring move the hands forward by fractions of a second (3Hz or 4Hz, depending on the model).

ILLUSTRATION: the drawing on the left shows the tuning fork of a standard Quartz Oscillator.
The drawing on the right shows a standard Inline Lever Escapement.

Operating the Screw-Down Crown

When wearing a watch equipped with a Screw-Down Crown, the user should frequently control that the winding crown is always fully locked, in order keep the movement protected from all exterior elements.

Notice: The crown should always be locked after winding the watch, setting the Date Display or synchronizing the watch to a signal. Failure to do so will compromise the water-resistance and void the Limited Warranty.

ILLUSTRATION
The series below shows the crown in four different positions:

  • Locked
  • Unlocked
  • Calendar setting
  • Time setting

Manual Winding of Watches with an Inline Lever Escapement

All Techné watches with an Inline Lever Escapement and devoid of a self-winding mechanism should preferably be manually wound up every 24h.

The watch can be manually wound when the Screw-Down crown is unlocked.

ILLUSTRATION: Wanual Winding of the calibre ST 1901.

Automatic Winding of Watches with an Inline Lever Escapement

The Self-Winding Mechanism allows watches with an Inline Lever Escapement to be wound simply by being worn during daily activities.

If the watch has stopped after having been left unworn, it should always receive a dozen crown winds before being worn again.

ILLUSTRATION: Automatic Winding of the calibre Miyota 8217

Setting the Date Display

The Date Display shows the date from the 1st to the 31st and automatically moves forward at midnight.

The Date Display should never be adjusted when the hour hand is in the Unsafe Zone of the dial. The Date Display is not covered by the Limited Warranty.

With the crown in Date setting position, turning the crown will move the Date forward.

ILLUSTRATION:
The image to the left shows the Unsafe Zone. Attempting to change the date with the hands in that position might damage the date mechanism and void the Limited Warranty.
The image to the right shows the rapid date change with the crown in Date Setting Position.

Synchronizing the Watch to a Signal

If the watch is an Atomic Solar model, instructions will be made available in the section "Programming the Atomic Solar Watch".

Hack feature

To synchronize the watch with a reference signal, the crown should be unlocked (if applicable) and pulled in the Setting position to hack the seconds hand. To set the time, hands should preferably be turned clockwise and moved a couple of minutes beyond the desired time. To compensate the parallax, the minute hand should then be turned backward to the desired position.

No hack feature

When the crown is unlocked (if applicable) and pulled in time setting position, the hands should preferably be turned clockwise and moved a couple of minutes beyond the desired time. To compensate the parallax caused by the cogwheels, the minutes hand should be turned backward to the desired position. Holding on to the crown allows freezing the seconds hand, which can be released once it is synchronized with the reference signal.