Vacheron Constantin Minute Repeater Analysis

　　In the late 1980s,Vacheron Constantindecided to create an entirely new minute repeater, and in 1993 created its first calibre 1755 movement, named after the year the brand was founded. This movement is assembled from over 330 parts and is only 3.3 mm thick, making it the thinnest minute repeater movement in the world today.

　　Minute Repeater Striking Mechanism

　　The minute repeater striking mechanism can be described as a highly complex system engineering. It can be divided into 6 functional units: the striking mainspring system, the striking governor system, the striking release system, the repeating train system, the sounding system, and the safety system. I will briefly explain the responsibilities of these six functional units so that friends interested in minute repeaters can have the most rational understanding:

　　1. Striking mainspring system—provides sufficient power for the striking mechanism to ensure the entire mechanism runs from start to strike and finally stops. The slide on the outer edge of the minute repeater that we often see is specially designed to store power for starting the mechanism. Later, a button-type appeared (this form is a new starting method developed based on the slide-type), but the slide-type remains the mainstream in today's minute repeater models;

　　2. Striking governor system—equivalent to the escapement of a mechanical watch. The role of the escapement is to control the speed of the energy output from the mainspring, so that the output energy can be regularly provided to the balance spring system. The task of the striking governor system is to control the striking mainspring system to output energy to the striking mechanism in a regular manner;

　　3. Striking release system—the mechanism is characterised by the coexistence of a release mechanism connected to the exterior of the mechanical watch and a release mechanism connected to the striking mechanism, with a tight connection between the two;

　　4. Repeating train system—its driving source comes from the display system inside the movement, specifically the minute wheel that rotates once every 60 seconds. Driven by this wheel, the entire repeating train system is triggered, and various oddly shaped levers and gears begin to move, including the hour repeating mechanism, quarter repeating mechanism, and minute repeating mechanism. They operate according to a pre-set "programme" to encode and input the current time information to the next stage;

　　5. Sounding system—this part follows the repeating train system and is the key to the striking mechanism. Once encoded by the repeating train system, the information is transmitted completely and accurately to the sounding system, a process very much like sending a telegram. Upon receiving the command, the sounding system immediately orders the hour, quarter, and minute detents to strike the gongs with hammers (two, three, or four) according to the level and pre-set rhythm. In this way, the pleasant sound of time will be transmitted to your ears, and at the same time, you can quickly know what time it is according to the rules of identifying time on a repeater mentioned earlier;

　　6. Safety system—this part has a dual meaning: firstly, it ensures that the striking system can work normally and accurately to avoid incorrectly transmitting time information to you, especially since hour striking is most prone to misreporting; secondly, it prevents your misoperation from directly causing the striking mechanism to fail to run normally, or even damaging the mechanism itself, which would only result in sending your beloved repeater back to the factory for repair.