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Before servicing, mainsprings are “let down” gently by pulling the click back while holding the winding key, allowing the spring to slowly unwind. However, even in their “let down” state, mainsprings contain dangerous residual tension. Watchmakers and clockmakers use a tool called a "mainspring winder" to safely install and remove them ...
Any small changes in the force applied to the pallets, for example by a change in lubrication due to oil aging, or the declining force of a clock's mainspring as it runs down, will change the period of the pendulum's swing. Anchor escapement clocks driven by a mainspring required a fusee to even out the force of the mainspring.
A clockwork mechanism is often powered by a clockwork motor [4] consisting of a mainspring, a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon. Energy is stored in the mainspring manually by winding it up, turning a key attached to a ratchet which twists the mainspring tighter. Then the force of the mainspring turns the clockwork gears, until the stored ...
So without some device to equalize the force of the mainspring, early clocks and watches slowed down drastically during the clock's running period as the mainspring lost force, causing inaccurate timekeeping. Two devices appeared in the first spring powered clocks to even out the power of the mainspring: the fusee and the stackfreed.
Verge watches and clocks are sensitive to changes in the drive force; they slow down as the mainspring unwinds. [36] This is called lack of isochronism. It was much worse in verge and foliot clocks due to the lack of a balance spring, but is a problem in all verge movements.
A mechanical movement contains all the moving parts of a watch or clock except the hands, and in the case of pendulum clocks, the pendulum and driving weights. The movement is made of the following components: [2] Power source Either a mainspring, or a weight suspended from a cord wrapped around a pulley.
The force of the spring turns the barrel. In a fusee clock, the barrel turns the fusee by pulling on the chain, and the fusee turns the clock's gears. When the mainspring is wound up (Fig. 1), all the chain is wrapped around the fusee from bottom to top, and the end going to the barrel comes off the narrow top end of the fusee.
The first Atmos clock was designed by Jean-Léon Reutter, an engineer in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1928. [5] [6] [7] This noncommercial prototype, which predated the Atmos name but is now known unofficially as Atmos 0, was driven by a mercury-in-glass expansion device. The mechanism operated on temperature changes alone.