Time Display Device Summer Winter Selector Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing timepieces that display sunrise and sunset times face difficulties in managing summer/winter time changes, often requiring users to manually correct legal time, leading to incorrect displays of sunrise and sunset times, especially during daylight saving time transitions.
Innovation Solution
A mechanism with a summer/winter selector that moves between two positions to simultaneously adjust the display of legal time, sunrise time, and sunset time, allowing for a single action correction during time changes, ensuring accurate and synchronized displays.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If additional angular dials or sectors are added to display sunrise and sunset times, then the timepiece provides comprehensive time information, but the main dial becomes heavier and more information-intensive, making it difficult to read the time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple time display functions (legal time, sunrise time, sunset time) into a single unified dial structure. The first index displays legal time while the second and third indexes display sunrise and sunset times respectively, all on the same dial plane, eliminating the need for separate angular dials and reducing overall dial complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The single dial structure serves multiple functions simultaneously: it displays legal time, sunrise time, and sunset time through different indexes. This multi-functional approach replaces the need for separate specialized dials, maintaining comprehensive time information while simplifying the dial structure
2Device complexity
If the sunrise and sunset time display mechanism is not adjusted for summer/winter time changes, then the mechanism maintains simple structure, but the displayed times become incorrect for half the year when standard time switches to daylight saving time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent couples the legal time adjustment mechanism with the sunrise/sunset time adjustment mechanism. When the crown is used to adjust legal time for summer/winter changes, the same action automatically adjusts the sunrise and sunset time indexes through a connected transmission mechanism, ensuring all displays remain accurate without adding separate adjustment systems
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanism automatically adjusts sunrise and sunset times when legal time is adjusted. The user only needs to operate the crown for legal time adjustment, and the system self-adjusts the astronomical time displays through the coupled transmission mechanism, eliminating the need for separate manual adjustments
3Device complexity
If users are asked to manually correct legal time and add an hour to sunrise and sunset times during summer/winter time changes, then the mechanism maintains simple structure, but the process becomes complex and error-prone requiring user intervention
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the adjustment operations for legal time and astronomical times into a single action. The crown mechanism is coupled to both the legal time indexes and the sunrise/sunset time indexes, so that one rotation simultaneously adjusts all displays, eliminating the need for multiple separate correction steps
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically performs the hour addition to sunrise and sunset times when legal time is adjusted. The coupled transmission mechanism ensures that when the user adjusts legal time by one hour, the sunrise and sunset time indexes are automatically advanced by one hour as well, without requiring user calculation or separate actions
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention proposes a display device (1) for the legal time as well as the time of sunrise and/or sunset, comprising a first index of the legal time (4) arranged to indicate the legal time, a display element for the time of sunrise and/or sunset (8), a second index arranged to indicate the time of sunrise and/or a third index (12) arranged to indicate the time of sunset on said display element for the time of sunrise and/or sunset (8).Said display device (1) includes a mechanism for managing legal time as well as sunrise time and/or sunset time when changing summer/winter time, comprising a summer/winter selector (26) arranged to move between two positions, a summer time position when summer time is to be displayed and a winter time position when winter time is to be displayed, and to allow simultaneous display at summer time, respectively at winter time, of legal time by means of the first legal time index (4) and of sunrise by means of the second index and/or sunset by means of the third index (12) when it moves to its summer time position, respectively to its winter time position.