kids encyclopedia robot

Quartz clock facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Clock lock
A quartz clock

A quartz clock is a clock that uses an electronic oscillator that is regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than good mechanical clocks. Generally, some form of digital logic counts the cycles of this signal and provides a numeric time display, usually in units of hours, minutes, and seconds. Since the 1970s, they have become the most widely used timekeeping technology.

Images for kids

  • Circuitboard from chronograph-watch

    Circuit board of an e block from a chronograph-wristwatch. Quartz oscillator crystal on right.

  • Quartz Clockwork (disassembled)

    Disassembeled analog quartz clockwork; real-time clock (RTC) quartz crystal oscillator unit (top left), Lavet-type stepping motor (left) with a black rotor sprocket and connected white and transparent gears (right). These gears control the movement of the second, minute and hour hands.

  • Armbanduhr Rueckseite

    Basic quartz wristwatch movement. Bottom right: quartz crystal oscillator, left: button cell watch battery, top right: oscillator counter, digital frequency divider and driver for the stepping motor (under black epoxy), top left: the coil of the stepper motor that powers the watch hands.

  • Frequency divider animation

    Each flip-flop decreases the frequency by a factor of 2

  • Inside QuartzCrystal-Tuningfork

    Picture of a quartz crystal resonator, used as the timekeeping component in quartz watches and clocks, with the case removed. It is formed in the shape of a tuning fork. Most such quartz clock crystals vibrate at a frequency of 32768 Hz.

  • Early NBS crystal oscillator frequency standards

    Four precision 100 kHz quartz oscillators at the US Bureau of Standards (now NIST) that became the first quartz frequency standard for the United States in 1929. Kept in temperature-controlled ovens to prevent frequency drift due to thermal expansion or contraction of the large quartz resonators (mounted under the glass domes on top of the units) they achieved accuracy of 10−7, roughly 1 second error in 4 months.

  • Clock (4140348113)

    A quartz clock hung on a wall, 2005

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Reloj de cuarzo para niños

kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Quartz clock Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.