Some Cesium in Your Pocket

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Miniaturization has gotten to the point that there's now a complete Cesium based atomic clock module that's about the size of a matchbook (yes, 18th Century size reference). Based on that Hoptroff, a small British firm that makes high-tech electronic watches, has designed the first pocket watch with an internal Cesium reference. The Hoptroff 10 will be quite the beast, 82×25mm, and priced under, but nearing $100,000. Interestingly the dial, at least the sketch that they've released with the PR, is very much in the style of the great 17th and 18th C watchmakers, possibly harking back to the last time England was truly important in world horology.
hoptroff_dial1.jpg

For that you get all the following bits and pieces:
hoptroff_mvmt1.jpg

Internals:

  • Symmetricom Chip Scale Atomic Clock
  • USB socket
  • 4 x pusher actuators
  • 9 x Soprod bimotors (permits hands to move in reverse, they're the little black V-shaped things with 4 copper coils)
  • 10 x Soprod monomotors (only moves hands clockwise, small black blobs with only 2 coils)
  • 6 x PIC microcontrollers
  • 60 x side-emitting LEDs
  • Flexipanel Bluetooth Low Energy radio
  • Sensirion humidity / temperature sensor
  • Measurement Specialties pressure sensor
  • Freescale magnetometer
  • Union Fortune Lithium Polymer battery pack sandwiched between circuit boards (not visible)

Functions:

  1. Hours
  2. Minutes
  3. Seconds
  4. Annual wheel
  5. Magnetic compass
  6. Longitude - coarse scale
  7. Not shown due to patent applications
  8. Day of week
  9. Humidity
  10. Date
  11. Sidereal seconds
  12. Power remaining
  13. Tide forecast
  14. Tide height
  15. Temperature
  16. Atmospheric pressure
  17. Latitude - minutes
  18. Latitude - degrees
  19. Sidereal hours
  20. Sidereal minutes
  21. Longitude - minutes
  22. Longitude - degrees
  23. Microwave resonator status
  24. Charge status
  25. Atomic resonance lock indicator
  26. Clock status - atomic / ACXO / TCXO
  27. Caesium oven status
  28. Laser status
    hoptroff_dial2.jpg

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This page contains a single entry by Aaron Macks published on May 12, 2013 2:04 PM.

More from De Bethune: DB25 Imperial Fountain was the previous entry in this blog.

Bulgari Commedia dell'Arte Minute Repeater is the next entry in this blog.

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