Grand Seiko  9R Spring Drive  Watches

Grand Seiko Spring Drive Watches for Sale

The Grand Seiko Spring Drive chronograph watch was born in 2007, after 28 years and 600 prototypes created by watch engineer, Yoshukazu Akahane. Deemed the ‘everlasting’ watch, Akahane’s dream was to create a watch that would forever keep time. These timepieces live up to a standard of quality utility and mechanics, staying power, and time-keeping accuracy. 

Grand Seiko Spring Drive watches are a unique technology that generates energy and combines it with an electronic regulator to deliver a level of precision unmatched by other mechanical watches. The Grand Seiko quartz movement calibers offer highlights in high-frequency precision and are ideal for divers, chronographers, and fashionistas looking to marvel friends and peers. Achieve the function and elegance of the Grand Seiko watch, with all the added benefits of its high-performance time control system in one gadget. Other watch brands do not compare. These watches come in selections of titanium and ceramic cases so you can choose the style that best suits your preference. 

Grand Seiko Mechanisms

Powered by the mainspring, Grand Seiko Spring Drive watches are relatively like other mechanical watches, except that it has no need for a battery or other power sources. Wind this watch by turning the crown or by moving your wrist. Energy is stored and transferred to the internal gears, which moves the watch hands as the spring unwinds over time. 

The Spring Drive utilizes an exclusive speed control mechanism, incorporating electronic brake, an IC, and a quartz crystal. Using a tri-synchro regulator, the Spring Drive is controlled to adjust the speed of the mainspring as it unwinds. This regulation harmonizes the force at which the spring mechanism unwinds, making the second hand of the watch as precise as possible.

Get the best of both worlds with a luxury mechanical and electronic Grand Seiko Spring Drive watch from WatchShopping.com. Contact us to learn more and make your Grand purchase today.

Grand Seiko 9R Spring Drive Watches for Sale

The wound-up mainspring uses force to move gears at a set speed as it unwinds, with the speed control and escapement mechanism made up of the balance, pallet, and escape wheel controlling overall precision. Though precise, even the most precise Grand Seiko timepieces are unable to match the accuracy of a quartz one, which have a rate of +8/-1 seconds.  

Spring Drive is geared by a mainspring, similarly to all other mechanical watches. This classic way of trumping up power makes the watch able to be totally autonomous, without any need for a battery or other power element. Using the mainspring by turning the crown or by moving the wrist keeps energy that is then moved over to gears and utilised to push the watch hands as the spring unwinds over a period.  

By using the high level of torque given off by the mainspring, the caliber requires zero further power to plod along the hands in the gliding style that is the Spring Drive’s unique way. Spring Drive uses a unique speed control mechanism with an IC, a kind of electronic brake and a quartz crystal.  

If there is no mechanism to adjust the rate at which the mainspring comes back to its unwound state, it would unwind quickly and the watch would immediately cease to function. In realising the aim of accurate timekeeping, a movement to reign in the rate at which the spring unwinds is required.  

The Tri-synchro regulator made for Spring Drive takes up this responsibility. As its title suggests, the Tri-synchro regulator has three styles of energy to control the moving parts and create synchronicity. These are; Mechanical power from the mainspring, electrical power creating a reference signaling via an IC/quartz oscillator and electromagnetic power, to apply a brake via a rotor/stator.  

These three function harmoniously to keep track of the way in which the spring unwinds and to facilitate the accurate functioning of the second hand.  Spring Drive has a system that is the same as that of a pedal-powered bike light to generate electrical power. A rotor fixed to the end of the gear train functions along with a stator wound by wire to create power. 

In a Spring Drive watch, the rotor, or glide wheel, makes eight total revolutions every second, generating a slight electric current.  The electrical power made by the glide wheel is utilised to drum up the quartz oscillator and IC. The quartz oscillator moves at precisiely 32,768 Hz, giving off a perfect signal to the IC. The IC then takes this reference signal from the quartz oscillator along with the revolution speed of the glide wheel, and periodically adds a magnetic brake whenever it notices that the glide wheel is moving too quickly. This checking of the glide wheel is moved to the gear train, which makes sure that the watch hands operate with accuracy.  

It was in 1977 when Yoshukazu Akahane, a young watch engineer, wanted to attempt the potentially impossible and create an ‘everlasting’ watch. His idea was a traditional watch, powered by a mainspring, that could nonetheless bring the one-second-a-day accuracy of which Seiko’s electronic models were already able to. Almost thirty years later, he did just that, as Akahane presented the Spring Drive to the global horology community.