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Huygens' maintaining power in use. The weight drive used by Christiaan Huygens in his early clocks acts as a maintaining power. In this layout, the weight which drives the clock is carried on a pulley and the cord (or chain) supporting the weight is wrapped around the main driving wheel on one side and the rewinding wheel on the other.
A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock.It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a spiral torsion spring, known as the balance spring or hairspring.
For the first two hundred years or so of the mechanical clock's existence, the verge, with foliot or balance wheel, was the only escapement used in mechanical clocks. In the sixteenth century alternative escapements started to appear, but the verge remained the most used escapement for 350 years until mid-17th century advances in mechanics ...
The going train is the main gear train of the timepiece. It consists of the wheels that transmit the force of the timepiece's power source, the mainspring or weight, to the escapement to drive the pendulum or balance wheel. [4] The going train has two functions. First, it scales up the speed of rotation of the mainspring or weight pulley.
The sudden stopping of the escapement's tooth is what generates the characteristic "ticking" sound heard in operating mechanical clocks and watches. The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement , was invented in medieval Europe during the 13th century and was the crucial innovation that led to the development of the mechanical clock.
It was used in the astronomical regulator clocks made by his German firm Clemens Riefler from 1890 to 1965, [3] which were perhaps the most accurate all-mechanical pendulum clocks made. An escapement is the mechanism in a mechanical clock that gives the pendulum precise impulses to keep it swinging, and allows the gear train to advance a set ...
The tower clock of Norwich Cathedral constructed c. 1273 (reference to a payment for a mechanical clock dated to this year) is the earliest such large clock known. The clock has not survived. [ 95 ] The first clock known to strike regularly on the hour, a clock with a verge and foliot mechanism, is recorded in Milan in 1336. [ 96 ]
An escapement is a mechanical linkage that delivers impulses to the timepiece's balance wheel, keeping it oscillating back and forth, and with each swing of the balance wheel allows the timepiece's gear train to advance a fixed amount, thus moving the hands forward at a steady rate. The escapement is what makes the "ticking" sound in mechanical ...