Okay, so I wanted to mess around with watches, specifically looking at their frequency. I had this old watch lying around, and I got curious about how often its balance wheel swings back and forth. You know, that little wheel inside that keeps the time.
So, I grabbed my tools and carefully opened up the back of the watch. It was pretty cool to see all the tiny parts moving inside. I found the balance wheel and started counting how many times it vibrated in a minute. I used a stopwatch on my phone to keep track of the time. It was a bit tricky because the wheel moves so fast, but I managed to get a rough count.
After doing this a few times and averaging the results, I figured out the frequency in vibrations per hour. Then I remembered I could have done some research first. I did a little digging online and found out that watch frequencies are usually measured in vibrations per hour (vph) or Hertz (Hz). Most common frequencies are like 18,000, 21,600, or 28,800 vph. That’s a lot of swings!
Here’s a breakdown of my steps:
- Gathered my tools: I got my watch toolkit, which has a small screwdriver and tweezers.
- Opened the watch: I carefully unscrewed the back of the watch case to expose the movement.
- Found the balance wheel: It’s the little wheel that swings back and forth rapidly.
- Counted the vibrations: I used my phone’s stopwatch and counted how many times the wheel moved back and forth in one minute.
- Calculated the frequency: I multiplied the number of vibrations per minute by 60 to get the vibrations per hour. Then I realized I could have researched before doing it!
- Did some research: I searched on Google about watch frequency and realized I did the work the hard way.
It was a fun little experiment, even though it made me feel dumb for not researching it first. Now I know a bit more about how watches work and what frequency means in the watch world. I might try this again with some other watches I have to see if they have different frequencies. It’s always cool to learn new things, even if it’s just about a small part of a watch!
