Clockwork Display Mechanism with Multi-Track Guiding
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing watch display mechanisms face challenges in maintaining readability as the number of time values to display increases, particularly with concentric discs, leading to reduced readability and requiring convergent reading efforts, which limits practical utility.
Innovation Solution
A clockwork display mechanism that uses a sliding carriage driven by a clockwork movement or drive mechanism, traversing a complex trajectory defined by complementary guide means, allowing the display to move in different directions and change tracks seamlessly, enabling a customizable and highly readable display along a figure-eight trajectory.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If concentric disk displays are used to show multiple time values, then the display capacity increases, but the readability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from two-dimensional concentric disk displays to a three-dimensional spatial trajectory system. The display element travels along a defined path in three-dimensional space, allowing multiple time values to be displayed sequentially at different positions and orientations, thereby maintaining readability while increasing display capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The display mechanism employs dynamic movement of the display element along a predetermined trajectory. Instead of static concentric disks, a single display element moves through space to present multiple time values sequentially, with the movement controlled by guide means that enable smooth transitions and directional changes along the trajectory.
2Quantity of substance
If multiple indicators are displayed side by side, then the display capacity increases, but the intellectual effort required for reading increases
Solution Approach 1:
The display trajectory is segmented into multiple distinct zones, each dedicated to displaying a specific time value. The guide means is correspondingly segmented into multiple tracks that guide the display element through each zone sequentially. This segmentation allows the reader to focus on one time value at a time as the display element passes through each zone, reducing the intellectual effort required to process multiple simultaneous indicators.
Solution Approach 2:
The display element periodically visits each display zone along the trajectory, allowing each time value to be presented in sequence rather than simultaneously. This periodic presentation at optimized positions and orientations reduces reading effort while maintaining the capacity to display multiple time values.
3Measurement precision
If the display follows a complex trajectory with direction changes, then the customization and readability improve, but the mechanism complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple guiding functions are merged into a single integrated guide means structure. The guide means combines multiple tracks and directional control elements into one unified component that simultaneously provides lateral guidance, longitudinal positioning, and directional changes. This merging reduces the number of separate components needed while achieving the complex trajectory required for optimized readability.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide means is designed as a multi-functional component that performs multiple guiding tasks along a single trajectory. It provides lateral guidance to keep the display element on course, longitudinal positioning to control the sequence of display zones, and directional changes to optimize the presentation of each time value. This universal guide means reduces overall mechanism complexity while achieving complex display patterns.
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3~5
Figure 6~8
AI summary
Clockwork display mechanism (1), comprising drive units (2; 20) comprising drive means (3; 30) driving on guide means (6; 60) a sliding carriage (4) with display (5), comprising complementary guide means (7), along trajectories T1 and T2 tangent to each other, the display mechanism (1) comprises on each drive unit (2; 20) a fork with elastic blades (31; 310) forming a clamp arranged for holding or releasing for its transfer from a shaft (41) which comprises the sliding carriage (4).