Quartz Watch Pulse Rates

by Watchking

Various quartz watches over the years have been designed with higher than
1 pulse per second movement rates. At present I think that only the Jaeger LeCoultre chronograph uses a high pulse rate when the chronograph is engaged.

The current one second pulse rate corresponds to a few different norms. Many of the most accurate grandfather clocks have advance rates of one or two advances per second for the second hand. Most electronic regulator clocks which are attached to centralized time reference systems, advance at one pulse per second (if you've seen the European railroad station clocks you've seen the most well known examples, although many school clocks and most military base clocks are synchronized as well). Since most quartz watches can be hack set, this allows them to be perfectly synchronized with a rail station clock (for example).

With manufacturing standards being established on the 1 pulse standard there is an abundance of reliable parts available for quartz watches. The capacitors used to advance the second hand are especially important. Jaeger has shown with their chrono that a smooth sweeping second hand is a possibility. The most important factor here is reliability. The finer the teeth get on the second hand gear, the more likely it is that one of them will have a problem. The Accutron used a variety of very finely toothed gears for its high frequency second hand and it had a higher failure rate due to this design factor.

There isn't any reason why a company couldn't retool their second hand system except for cost. It has taken over 20 years to develop a complete quartz module with the reliability and accuracy that the market desires while reducing the cost. If the market demanded a watch with a higher pulse rate, the watch companies (like ETA) would respond. A higher pulse rate would make hack synchronization more difficult but a flowing second hand might have fans in the marketplace. Write to your favorite watch companies and ask for a model like this and you might get one from a company like JL (which already has a fine toothed second hand gear available) or Breitling.

Many quartz chronographs have .10 second registers now. This capacitor pulsing system could be easily adapted to the main second hand. The high pulse rate would require superb quartz-oil lubrication and heat would actually be a factor in long term use but it is always a possibility. Hope this answers the question.