Press Release No. 144

TOURBILLON WATCHWINDER PATENT ISSUED

U.S. Patent No. 7,270,474 has been granted to Chuck Agnoff, Orbita Corporation’s founder and CEO. 

This new watchwinder is unique in that it provides a tourbillon-like action for any automatic watch.  Typically, watches on a watchwinder spend most of their time standing still; the winding cycle generally involves rotations of the watch for no more than 1-2 hours per day.  Consequently, the watch remains in a fixed position for most of the time and, as such, experiences some of the inaccuracies caused by gravity acting on the balance wheel.

Abraham-Louis Breguet tried to solve this problem over 200 years ago by his invention of the Tourbillon mechanism which helped to make pocket watches more accurate; after all, pocket watches were pretty much in a fixed position for much of the time they were worn.  His idea of indexing the balance wheel is replicated by Orbita’s new Tourbillon winder which, at the end of each winding cycle, automatically indexes the rest position of the watch by 30°.

The new Tourbillon winder is available in single, double or triple versions, and 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