Press Release No. 136

THE FIRST 'TOURBILLON' WATCHWINDER

Advanced watchwinder technology from Orbita Corporation heralds the introduction of the first Tourbillon watchwinder.

Following the footsteps of Abraham-Louis Breguet, who many years ago invented the Tourbillon watch escapement to offset the gravity induced errors of pocket watches which remained in a static position when pocketed, Orbita has invented a tourbillon watchwinder, named the TOURBILLON, that, in effect, makes any automatic mechanical watch, when mounted on this winder, a Tourbillon watch.

As background, most watchwinders only rotate the watch for a short period of time each day in order to keep the watch fully wound.  Hence, the watch is in a stationary or fixed position mode for, perhaps, 22 or 23 hours per day, much like a pocket watch.  Hence, gravity-related error conditions can be experienced and can be the answer as to why watches on winders are sometimes less accurate than when they are worn on the wrist.

In the case of the TOURBILLON, rather than rotating a watch 360° to complete one winding cycle, it rotates the watch 390°.  Consequently, the watch’s rest position advances 30° at the end of each winding cycle.  In this manner, the watch’s rest position is constantly being indexed throughout the day and, as a result, all gravity related errors are canceled out.

Available in single, double or triple versions, the TOURBILLON has selectable winding programs of 650, 800, 950 or 1300 turns per day, while rotation direction is optional as either clockwise or counter-clockwise.  The whole system is digitally operated and winding rotations are counted photo-optically and shown on a bright LED display with accumulated turns for the day automatically zeroed out at midnight each day.  There is also an extremely accurate quartz based LED time display which facilitates watch resetting if required.

For an interesting visual effect, 4 flashing blue LED lights reflect off the crystal glass side frames and can be turned on/off or adjusted for different flash rates.

The modern design of this series is based on a polished optically clear crystal glass rectangular frame with all glass edges beveled to reflect incident light.  The glass members are a substantial 3/8” thick and are bonded together using ultraviolet light cured transparent adhesives.  Several units can be stacked to accommodate future watch collections.

For further information contact:

ORBITA Corporation    Tel: 910-256-5300 Fax: 910-256-5356

E-mail: info@orbita.com