Breitling B01 Chronoworks®

At Baselworld 2016-Watch and Jewel Show, Breitling, Piaget and Land & Heyne all launched new gears made of silicon or gold, in order to enhance the performance of the movement. What they have in common is the application of DRIE (Deep Reactive Ion Etching) or UV LIGA (Lithographie & Galvanoformung & Abformung) techniques. Breitling selected silicon to fabricate gears so as to reduce energy loss, while Piaget and Lang & Heyne
developed gold gears, not worse than other two brands. Three watch brands created new possibilities in the atomic domain. Breitling Superocean Heritage Chronoworks® Limited Edition Watch

ULTRA LIGHT-WEIGHT SILICON

Silicon gears aim to improve the performance of Breitling B01 self-winding mechanical chronograph movement, which would later became Breitling Caliber B01 Chronoworks®. In fact, a watch movement is in stopped state in 95% of the time, but it loses the energy every time when we restart it. In order to avoid lower the loss, Breitling adopted silicon to produce three of the most important wheels: center wheel, third wheel and fourth wheel since silion is only half as weighty as ordinary material. These gears are made by DRIE (deep reaction ion etching) process, which makes the whole structure more stable. Most of energy losses occurs in motion of the escapement system, so escape system is another part need to be improved. Silicon lever and escape wheel can reduce the weight of Swiss lever escapement and the inertia in operation effectively. Optimized escape wheel makes the effective utilization rate of barrel kinetic energy increase by 42%.

Breitling Caliber B01 Chronoworks®
Silicon gears

Silicon gears supplied by Siga-Tech Company was connected to untreated steel axle by Breitling self-developed package technique. The combination of steel and silicon means teeth must be shaped precisely in case hard silicon stab into the metal. The application of silicon gears created an industry precedent. Silicon gears and other four innovations (ceramic baseplate and bridges, silicon escape system, variable-inertia balance wheel and seconds pinion with elastic toothing) make power reserve increase by 45%, from 70 hours to 100 hours. Breitling Caliber B01 Chronoworks® movement was passed successfully by Swiss Official Chronometer Control.

Lang & Heyne gold gears

Piaget Calibre 700P

GOLD GEARS
Patek Philippe, Kari Voutilainen and De Bethune have used gold gears in specific movements. Many watch brands laid gold gears aside since the force of machine operation would cause bending deformation of gold after gold is in laser hardened process. 24 K gold gears are made with UV LIGA developed by Mimo-Tec Company. Gold gears (Vickers hardness: 260) is better resistance than brass gears (Vickers hardness: 185), helping improve the performance of the movement. For Piaget, The place of innovation is that Piaget Calibre 700P (Vickers hardness: 220) with pure gold gears and quartz thruster. Piaget Emperador Coussin XL 700P watch launched at Basel world 2016 Fair.

In top watchmaking, small machinery parts also have innovation needs and space. Watch brands improve constantly the performance of watches and movements to prove themselves and create more wonders.

Facing the competetive watchmaking market, Breitling has just been proving itself by self-developed movements and products with high performance and good quality. I have introduced Breitling Chronomat 01, Cal. B04, Cal. B05 and Cal. B35 in the previous post. The following content is about the introduction of Breitling other movements.

Breitling B06
Breitling B06 was equipped with 30-second chronograph from 1926’s patent of innovation. It takes only 30 seconds for central timming hand to go around the dial. The timing accuracy extends to 1/8 second. Intermediate stop clock drive chain and chronometer stop clock drive chain were replaced by a part with the best deceleration function. Only Breitling For Bentley B06 watch is equipped with Caliber Breitling B06. Besides, Bentley B06 watch has another global exclusive patented technology-Variable speedometer which can figure out average speed by rotating the bezel freedom from time, distance or speed, a good example of Breitling for Bentley watches.

Breitling B02/B12
Caliber Breitling B02, which was based on Caliber B01, followed two features of Breitling Cosmonaute watch wron by Major Scott Carpenter in 1962-24-hour display and manual winding. With distinct column wheel timing device, 39 jewels and high-frequency (28,800 vibrations per hour), Caliber Breitling B02 was mounted on New Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute watch which is famous for the first Cosmonaute watch that went to space.

At 2016’s Basel Fair, Breitling launched Caliber B12 with 24-hour military time display. Thanks to self-winding mechanism, the movement supplies inexhaustible power for Breitling Avenger Hurricane watch.

Breitling B14
In 1915, Breitling invented the world’s first independent timing button at two O’clock. In memory of the history of Breitling watchmaking and the milestone, Breitling Transocean 1915 Chronograph watch was launched. To make sure the timing button continue to keep “Start-Stop-zero” operating function, self-made self-winding B14 was developed successfully by Breitling watchmakers and technicists. With three-stage mechanism and double-layer timing control system, “Start-Stop-zero” operating function works well. Thanks to patented double-layer column wheel, the movement can match with many other parts of B01. It has the best reliability and simplifies the after-sales maintenance process.

Breitling 01 Chronoworks®
As the cooperative partner of airline business, Breitling pursues excellent performance of a movement. Breitling was successful in developing Caliber 01 Chronoworks® based on Caliber 01. Excellent performance of Breitling 01 Chronoworks® was improved significantly by five major efficiency-enhancing innovations: ceramic baseplate and bridges, silicon wheels, silicon escape system, variable-inertia balance wheel and seconds pinion with elastic toothing. As a result, its power reserve was enhanced from 70 hours to 100 hours. Breitling Superocean Heritage Chronoworks® Limited Edition watch with Caliber 01 Chronoworks® made its first appearance at 2016’s Basel Fair.