Seiko
The Seiko Holdings K. K. (セイコー ホールディングス 株式会社, Seiko Hōrudingusu kabushiki - gaisha, English Seiko Holdings Corporation. ), In short: Seiko is a Japanese watch manufacturer that has specialized in the technologies mechanics, Quartz, Solar, Kinetic and Spring Drive.
- 3.1 Mechanics
- 3.2 quartz
- 3.3 Kinetic
- 3.4 Spring Drive
Business
His seat has officially registered the company, founded in 1881 in 4-5-11 Ginza, Chuo, Tokyo Prefecture, which is also the seat of the company's founder, also founded by Wako Depātos. President (代表 取缔 役 社长, Daihyō torishimariyaku shachō ) since 30 April 2010 Shinji Hattori (服 部 真 二) of the Chairman and President (代表 取缔 役 会 长兼 社长, Daihyō torishimariyaku KAICHÔ ken shachō ) Koichi Murano (村野 晃 一) replaced. By Japanese standards unusual Murano was thereby removed from office by the Executive Board from his post because of his "blind following of " the instructions of Reijiro Hattori (服 部 礼 次郎) - the honorary chairman ( meiyo KAICHÔ ) of Seiko, as well as Chairman and President of WAKO.
Seiko Germany has its headquarters in Willich. Main competitor is also based in Japan 's biggest watchmaker Citizen Watch.
History
Company History
Kintaro Hattori (服 部 金太郎) opened on September 1, 1877 at the age of 18 years, his own watch repair business in a modern part of Tokyo's Ginza Area 6 -chome. In 1881 he founded the company Tokeiten Hattori (服 部 时 计 店, dt " watchmaker's shop Hattori "), a repair and sales shop for used watches. In May 1892 K. Hattori bought in addition Ishiwara -chō, in the former district of Tokyo Honjo, a disused glass factory and founded Seikosha (精工 舎, German " precision work building " ) as a wall clock factory. From 1895 he turned pocket watches, alarm clock from 1899 and finally in 1913 Wristwatches ago. In 1917, the company (English K. Hattori & Co., Ltd.). Was organized as a Kabushiki - gaisha.
1923 destroyed the Great Kanto Earthquake, the headquarters in Ginza and the Seikosha factory. Kintaro Hattori invested his entire personal resources in the company and the company built up again. Noteworthy in this context is a gesture Kintaro Hattori, who before the earthquake for maintenance by the customer deposited 1500 Watches completely replaced by equivalent timepieces and so brought about a tremendous confidence in the company. Kintaro Hattori died in 1934 at the age of 75 years.
In 1937, the watch manufacturing as K. K. Daini Seikosha (株式会社 第二 精工 舎, dt " 2 precision work building " ) - today's Seiko Instruments KK - Split off.
Since 1949, the company is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
In 1959, the work was outsourced in Suwa Seikosha and Daini from merged with the companies located there YK Daiwa Kōgyō (有限会社 大 和 工业, Yugen - gaisha Daiwa. Kōgyō, Eng. Daiwa Kogyo, Ltd. ) for KK Suwa Seikosha (株式会社 诹 访 精工 舎), the later Seiko Epson (short: Epson).
1970 Seikosha became an independent company.
1983 was renamed the K. K. Hattori Tokeiten in K. K. Hattori Seiko (社名 を 株式会社 服部 セイコー, Eng. Hattori Seiko Co., Ltd.). Around which assumed 1990 as the English name of Seiko Corporation.
1996 Seikosha was in the two companies SEIKO Precision KK (セイコー プレシジョン 株式会社, Seiko Kabushiki - Pureshijon gaisha, Eng. Seiko Precision Inc. ) and Seiko Clock KK (セイコー クロック 株式会社, Seiko Kabushiki - Kurokku gaisha, Eng. Seiko Clock Inc.) split. In the same year, the Seiko Optical Products KK was (セイコー オプティカル プロダクツ 株式会社, Seiko Kabushiki - Oputikaru Purodakutsu gaisha, Eng. Seiko Optical Products, Co., Ltd.). Founded. 1997, you was renamed as Seiko K. K. (セイコー 株式会社) to align the Japanese corporate name to the English
2001 Seiko Watch K. K. was (セイコー ウオッチ 株式会社, Seiko Kabushiki - Uotchi gaisha, Eng. Seiko Watch Corporation ) founded the also took over the watch business. The Seiko K. K. thereby became a pure holding company, Seiko Watch, Seiko Clock, Seiko Precision and Seiko Optical Products as subsidiaries. 2007 was finally the Seiko K. K. changed its name to Seiko Holdings K.K..
Product history
1955, the first automatic Seiko watch came out. 1963 allowed the Observatoire Cantonal de Neuchâtel in Switzerland participating Seiko watches on competition. For four years, the company worked on the development of competitive movements, and 1967 were two Seiko timepiece honored with a second and third place. Seiko sent works of the caliber 45 to Neuchâtel, which were used in the series Grand Seiko and King Seiko. These watches were marketed as special watches that had a test for " specially calibrated timer " pass. They were later called observatory chronometer, and this Seiko VFA- watches took second and third place in the chronometer competition. Since the competition was set in Neuchatel then, Seiko in 1968 was at the competition in Geneva and finished with seven watches among the top 10 in first place in the overall standings.
On December 25, 1969 Seiko introduced the first quartz wristwatch in the world on the market. Although the Swiss had already presented prototypes, they marketed their first quartz watch in 1970., The first quartz wristwatch in the world was called Astron. Had made in your own production tuning-fork crystal oscillator has a frequency of 8192 oscillations per second (Hz ), and it should go exactly to five seconds per day. The Astron was produced in a limited edition of one hundred pieces and cost 450,000 yen - which at that time was approximately the price of a Toyota Corolla. Since 1972, Seiko produced in large series and tried to continuous innovation for high-quality quartz watches.
The Seiko Automatic Chronograph Ref 6139 with yellow dial, the so-called " Pogue Seiko " was on of William Reid Pogue, who was pilot of Skylab 4, 1974 Mission of November 16, 1973 to February 8, the first automatic chronograph his flight worn in space.
From the early 1970s Seiko's engineers thought of the possibility to combine the energy efficiency of mechanical and automatic watches with the accuracy of quartz watches. So in 1988 the Automatic Generating System (AGS or AGS), later called the Kinetic system, presented with a built-in generator, a mechanical automatic generated similar current through the arm movement. The innovative Auto Relay system causes the quartz clock stops when not wearing to provide maximum power savings and automatically adjusts only when movement to the current time and date. Thus, the power reserve of six months in the conventional kinetic system can be increased to four years.
Since Kinetic watches have been introduced, Seiko has developed another new technology. It is called Spring Drive and replaced the weakest part of a traditional mechanical going train, the inhibition, by a technology that makes it possible to regulate the flow of a mechanical going train by quartz technology. So the old and new technology is combined and battery exchange unnecessary. In 1999, the first clock with Spring Drive technology to the market.
The cheaper and more fashionable Second trademarks of Seiko Pulsar are ( since 1977) and Lorus. Under the brand name Grand Seiko 1960-1974 high quality and expensive mechanical watches were produced. They were reissued in 1998. In the German -speaking area are Grand Seiko watches available since 2010. The company had already produced the Super and Marvel Collections and elegant models Cronos, Crown and Lord Marvel.
Technologies
Mechanics
Seiko produced in 1913 for the first time mechanical watches. The hands are moved by means of a complex mechanism, which is driven by a spring reared.
In Seiko's mechanical watches the clock spring from Spron510 is made, a self-production Seikos. These cobalt -nickel-chromium -molybdenum alloy is non-magnetic, and should have a high elasticity and high mechanical strength and ensure a long power reserve.
Mechanical movements can have a variety of additional features and equipment. Most Popular are probably mechanical chronographs. A typical feature of high-quality mechanical chronograph is equipped with column wheel and vertical clutch, which is installed in Seiko mechanical chronographs since 1969. The vertical coupling ensures the precise work of the chronograph and the column wheel makes in the circuit for maximum reliability and stability. The vertical coupling of the chronograph second hand does not jump when it starts. In addition, Seiko equips since 2008 from its high-quality mechanical chronograph with a 3 -point heart - lever neutral position. This enables instant, synchronous reset of the three chronograph hands.
Quartz
Developed in 1969 Seiko quartz watches for three important components: a novel crystal oscillator, a first-time open-type stepping motor and a microchip that controls the clock. In recognition of the development of this world first, the company was awarded the 2004 Milestone Award from the IEEE. Developed by Seiko quartz oscillator is now standard in the industry.
While mechanical watches the balance drives the mechanics and thus can continue to move in time with the pointers are all controlled electronically in a quartz watch. A special quartz crystal is excited by applying an electrical voltage to the overshoot, which is evaluated by an electronic system. These controls stepper motors that drive the pointer.
Kinetic
A Kinetic Clock is the combination of automatic and a quartz watch. Here, the obtained by the rotor, kinetic energy is converted by a generator into electrical energy, thereby forming a capacitor, or for a number of years, a lithium ion battery is always charged in the clock. This supplies - like a battery - the quartz watch with electric current. The early models of the Seiko Kinetic watches have been as Seiko Quartz AGS (Automatic Generating System ) refers.
A further development of the Kinetic technology is the Auto Relay system. If the Kinetic Auto Relay clock more than 24 hours not being worn, it automatically goes into sleep mode. Although the clock is sleeping and the hands stand still, the clock measures up to four years time. Once it is created again, the hands will move automatically to the correct time display. Thus, the power reserve of six months in the conventional kinetic system can be extended to four years.
Due to the high environmental compatibility, the leaders of the Blue Angel Seiko Kinetic technology in 1989 recorded as an environmentally- friendly manner.
Spring Drive
Spring Drive is a mechanical clock in which the inhibition was replaced with a novel control system which operates either mechanically or electrically. The basic idea of this technology comes from Seiko Epson engineer Yoshikazu Akahane from the year 1973. 1999 was the technology ready for the market. Seiko developed a new microchip that had a power consumption of 25 NW. This corresponds to only one thousandth of the power consumption of the first quartz watch.
The Spring Drive works have a crystal unit and a gear train with automatic winding and mainspring. As with any mechanical clock, the tension spring gives its energy to the wheels on. But instead of a balance wheel, a sliding wheel is now driven, the speed of which is regulated by an electronic system. Here, the actual speed of the glide wheel is measured and compared with the cycle of a quartz crystal, if necessary, the sliding wheel is subsequently decelerated.
The fact that the second hand moves fluently, is with the constant braking of the glide wheel by an electromagnet. The wheels run so continuously and is not slowed down abruptly, what the friction that causes wear on mechanical watches, remarkably reduced.
Unlike a traditional mechanical clock, the Spring Drive movement is running with the accuracy of a quartz watch; unlike a quartz watch, the rotation of its second hand is a completely smooth movement on the dial and is designed to reflect the everlasting flow of time. If the clock is fully wound, it will run for 72 hours with an accuracy of ± 15 seconds per month.