The Caliber 3255 launched by Rolex in 2015 marked an important stage in the technical evolution of the Geneva-based company. The new movement, developed entirely by the brand, brings with it as many as 14 patents and numerous sinnovative technical solutions in both component design and manufacturing projects.

Almost all the components of the movement have been rethought and optimized to produce a movement twice as accurate of an officially certified chronometer and with one power reserve of approximately 70 hours (24 hours longer than the previous generation of watches).

The movement has been optimized in every fundamental part. The motor organ has been equipped with a larger barrel without having to increase its volume, on the contrary, even reducing its thickness by half. But let's get to the escapement, a component that has certainly benefited from an important innovation patented by Rolex and called Chronorgy.

What is the anchor escapement?

The escapement, consisting of an escape wheel and again, is thedistributor body of the movement positioned between the gear train and theorgano regulator. The escape wheel receives the spring energy contained in the barrel via the wheel train, and the distributes through the impulses of the anchor to the regulating organ (the balance wheel). In return, the escapement receives the time signature from the regulating organ and transmits it to the hands by means of the train of wheels.

THE NEW CHRONERGY ESCAPE

The new escapement developed by Rolex can be considered an evolution of the Swiss anchor escapement which, despite its acclaimed reliability, has always shown poor performance. In fact, it manages to return to the balance wheel only one third of the energy it receives from the spring present in the barrel and transmitted by the train of wheels.

The escapement Chronorgy Rolex allows you to improve the performance of this fundamental component by 15% without having to compromise with the reliability that made it so successful. Let's see how. The solution developed by Rolex engineers involves theinversion of length ratios between the teeth of the escape wheel and the anchor levers. The thickness of the latter is in fact reduced by fifty percent, while the contact surface of the teeth of the escape wheel is doubled.

 

These two components they are no longer aligned as in the Swiss anchor escapement, with a greater distance between the anchor and the balance wheel to create a greater leverage effect.

The escape wheel is perforated to make it lighter by reducing its inertia. The anchor and the escape wheel are made of nickel-phosphorus and this makes them insensitive to magnetic fields.

CONSIDERATIONS

Throughout its history, Rolex has never accustomed us to revolutionary technical evolutions.

Despite this, it has always stood out for two important elements as well as supporters of its great success: the precision and strength of his movements. Any watchmaker who has ever worked on the calibers of the crowned house will be able to confirm this.

By working on the details, without completely changing the set-up or even creating a new escapement, Rolex has managed to perfect an escapement (the still Swiss one) whose technical evolution has been at a standstill for the past fifty years.

With the escapement CHRONERGY , together with the other technical and production evolutions developed by the Manufacture, Rolex has once again managed to improve and redefine the parameters of precision. Indeed the term Superlative Chronometer now indicates an even smaller gap: -2/+2 seconds per day !