Patek Philippe

Back in 2005 Patek Philippe presented a new watch of a new kind for this venerable brand !

The Patek Philippe Advanced Research reference 5250 was based on a 5146 annual calendar, with a little plus. A little something that that only you die-hard fans and only if you were high tech aficionados could spot and appreciate.

The reference 5250 was the first Patek Philippe watch to incorporate the first step towards the Patek Philippe watch of the future: an escape wheel made of Silinvar®, for a better reliability without lubrication. Suitbert Walter covered this in full: http://www.thepurists.net/patrons/members/wsw/ppforum/sil05/pp_technew.htm

After more than 900 days of use of these 5250 the result is said excellent by Patek Philippe: more than 75% of these watches have increased their amplitude. The remaining less than 25% have remained in the norm.

The watch was there:  http://www.network54.com/Forum/196053/message/1112696762/%2ANew+ltd-+Ed-+ref-+5250+-+Annual+Calendar+%2A

A first glance at the new 5450

The next year step two took place with the launch of the 5350, adding to the 5250 the new Spiromax® balance spring made of Silinvar®, with a specific Patek Philippe curve. The objective was the optimization of rate with significantly improved isochronism. Here was the new 5350: patek.watchprosite.com

Here was the press release of reference 5350: patek.watchprosite.com

After more then 600 days of use, Patek Philippe says that all the 5350 calibres have maintained their amplitude.

Patek Philippe president Mr Philippe Stern

So what happened last year in 2007? Nothing on the public side, but they kept working and the result is coming this year!

Mr Jean-Pierre Musy from Patek Philippe

So the evolution this year is on the lever, the new lever being named Pulsomax® together with the escape wheel. The Pulsomax® escape wheel and lever are both made of Silinvar®.

The new Patek Philippe Advanced Research reference 5450

The Pulsomax® is still seen by Patek Philippe as a Swiss lever escapement. The first difference with the traditional Swiss lever escapement used in watches in the last 180 years for its dependability, ruggedness and efficiency is the absence of ruby pallets in the Pulsomax®.

The traditional Swiss lever escapement

The ruby pallets are the contact points between the lever and the escape wheel. We know that the escape wheel in the 5250 was of a new design, but it was still designed to fit with a traditional lever. The escape wheel of the Pulsomax® has a new optimized geometry and 16 teeth instead of 20 in the 5250 and 5350.

The escape wheels

So the escape wheel of the 5250 and 5350 is already out of date! 

It is safer and wiser in the industry to implement such a breakthrough in successive steps so that you have time to test and you can see works well. If all had been implemented at once and if something had not worked well, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to see where the problem relies.

The Spiromax balance spring launched in the 5350

We indeed have to remember that the innovations presented in the 5250, 5350 and 5450 are really a new approach to horology.

The three patents on the Spiromax

As it is the case for Ferrari with the FXX you'd better be sure to be right before launching a full production of such stuff! You can produce the Enzo because it is just the most optimized version of what you know, but when you produce the FXX you go beyond what you know! Time goes fast in our computerized world and we hardly see to what extent innovations can come unexpected and be implemented before we have nearly realized they exist!

The 5450 escape wheel and lever

So to some extent with the 5250, 5350 and 5450 each owner can be a test "driver" of the new horology!

The 5450 lever

So the main innovation with the 5450 is on the lever! You recognize that it is a lever, but indeed its profile is quite different.

New and old lever profiles

There is change on both extremities of the lever ! First the pallet fork is quite different, without ruby pallets as written earlier.

The impulse plans of the different pallet forks

One of the difficult aspects of the calibre assembly is the fact that the ruby pallets must be well regulated so that the contact with the escape wheel is optimized.

The traditional ruby pallet at use

The advantage of the Pulsomax® on the pallet side is that there is no regulation needed thanks to a specific design. Without regulation needed you're sure that it is efficient and can transmit more power to the balance. More power more easily is the aim!

The new profile of the integrated pallet

The design of the pallet, as seen above, brings the tooth of the escape wheel to find a perfect position on the pallet, without any need of regulation.

"Plan de rappel" means "return face » and "plan de repos" means "locking face"! The "coin de repos" is the "locking notch".

A possible first contact on the return face

Thanks to the pallet design the escape wheel tooth is first touched, wherever it happens, by the pallet, and then the two parts find a very temporary equilibrium position, contacting at the locking notch until the balance spring gives another impulsion to the lever.

Or an opposite contact on the locking face

That looks like a design that would allow more play to the parts ! In fact that's quite probably the contrary.

The escapement train

So the first innovation is on the pallet extremity, but let's look at the guard pin side of the lever!

New and traditional pin design

There's a new design there too.

Traditional pin system

The guard pin is the point of the lever where the pin of the roller gives the balance impulsion to the lever. Am I clear? 

At work

In the traditional pin system the lever must be blocked on both sides by banking detents that prevent the lever to be pushed out of the pin way. If that was not the case the balance wheel and the escape wheel could be disconnected after the first impulsion.

The full traditional lever at work

On the drawing above the red pin is going to turn around the rotating grey roller and give an impulsion to the yellow guard pin.

The same after the impulsion

You can see above and below that giving an impulsion to the yellow guard pin (partly hidden below the grey roller), the red pin pushes the lever top extremity from right to left, from the banking detent on the right to the banking detent on the left.

The Pulsomax lever without banking detents

While moving on the top (roller) side from right to left the lever moves on the escape wheel side from left to right, allowing the escape wheel to turn.

The roller's rolling

In the 5450 calibre the Pulsomax® obvisouly has a very close principle of functioning. The difference is in the way the guard pin and the banking detent are thought.

Seen from the other side

The guard pin is like the pallets integrated in the monobloc lever. It is a raised bridge at the extremity that has the guard pin function. This construction is allowed by the DRIE, i.e. Deep Reactive Ion Etching technologies used for the making of the lever. With this process silicon parts can be machined on a second horizontal plane in an extra process.  This gives a multidimensional architecture to the Silinvar® lever.

The recessed bridge at the extremity of the lever works as a guard pin

With this tri-dimensional form the pin extremity of the lever becomes lubrication free as it is entirely in Silinvar®. 

That's a Pulsomax, it's written on it

The profile of the pin extremity of the lever also works as a banking detent device while the balance wheel passes through the supplementary arc of its amplitude after the impulsion on the guard pin.

The result

The final result of all this is an increase in the energy transmitted. Patek Philippe evaluated at 15% the supplementary energy transmitted through less losses in the escapement.

The lasting amplitude

Less losses in the escapement apparently means a less changing amplitude of the balance wheel. A better stability in the amplitude means a more precise watch in the long run (if properly regulated of course), a better rate accuracy.

The Formula one of the Patek Philippe watches

The results also show a 30% increase in the power reserve from 46 to 60 hours.

Another view on the Pulsomax

We can wonder what will be the next step after the presentation of this Pulsomax® escapement.

The real thing

Maybe the next step will be the implementation of all this in the standard watches ?  The main difference, out of the Pulsomax® pieces is the replacement of the wheel train as the escape wheel has 16 teeth instead of 20.

The bright Silinvar

Patek Philippe has precised during the introductory press conference that they plan to be independent on the Silinvar® parts production side.

You may want to look at the pics above and below to see how the lever really looks on the surface.

That's also a gorgeous watch

The good news is that you can take part in the story by buying a 5450. Obviously that's a very relative possibility! 

The platinum diamond

I must just say that the 5450 is a gorgeous watch, with its pink dial and platinum case. It will be produced in a limited series of 300.

A pink dial

The watch is water resistant to 30 meters, so that you can enjoy it on the deck of your finest yachts!

I hope you enjoyed it ! That's indeed a very nice watch and a technical wonder.

Dje