TAG Heuer has overturned three centuries of watchmaking conventions to create a totally new mechanical regulator in its latest concept watch – the Tag Heuer Mikrogirder.
According to the Swiss brand, the Mikrogirder is its greatest ever achievement in watchmaking engineering.
Featuring “game-changing technology which promises to completely revolutionise the very heart of the watch”, the Mikrogirder is “a 5/10,000th of a second chronograph beating at 1000 Hz or 7,200,000 beats per hour”.
“The Mikrogirder is the fastest mechanical regulator ever crafted and tested,” the company said.
“It opens a promising new era in watchmaking, with potentially powerful and energy-sparing new movements precise to ever-smaller fractions of time.
“Accurate to an unprecedented 5/10,000 or 1/2,000th of a second, the Mikrogirder is a completely new regulator system – a coupling beam/girder and excitatory beam/girder system working with a linear oscillator that vibrates isochronously at a very small angle, as opposed to a traditional watch, which vibrates at an angle of up to 320 degrees.”
According to TAG, the advantages of the new regulator are numerous.
“In a classic spiral hairspring system, the effect of gravity due to mass is a dominant issue. With the Mikrogirder, the problem no longer even exists. There is no loss of amplitude and the movement’s frequency can be modulated on a very large spectrum of frequency without overburdening the power supply. The result is a significant increase in precision and performance.
“The Mikrogirder energy performance will enable TAG Heuer chronographs to attain ultra-high frequencies never before dreamed possible.
“The statistics are nothing short of astounding: 1,000 Hz = 1/2000th = 5/10,000th of a second = 7,200,000 beats per hour. In comparison, a regular watch functions at 4hz, or only 28,800 beats per hour. The Mikrogirder is 250 times faster.”
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