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Stackfreed
A stackfreed is a simple spring-loaded cam mechanism used in some of the earliest antique spring-driven clocks and watches to even out the force of the mainspring, to improve timekeeping accuracy. Stackfreeds were used in some German clocks and watches from the 16th to the 17th century, before they were replaced in later timepieces by the fusee. The term may have come from a compound of the German words ''starke'' ("strong") and ''feder'' ("spring"). History Spring-driven clocks were invented around 1400 in Europe. Mainsprings allowed clocks to be portable and smaller than the previous weight-driven clocks, evolving into the first large watches around 1500. However, the early spring-driven timepieces were much less accurate than weight-driven clocks, because they had a source of error weight-driven clocks didn't have. The drive force (torque) exerted by a coiled spring, unlike a weight, is not constant, but is maximum when the spring is wound up and declines as the spring u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Mainspring
A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon—commonly spring steel—used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. ''Winding'' the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in the mainspring by twisting the spiral tighter. The force of the mainspring then turns the clock's wheels as it unwinds, until the next winding is needed. The adjectives wind-up and spring-powered refer to mechanisms powered by mainsprings, which also include kitchen timers, metronomes, music boxes, wind-up toys and clockwork radios. Modern mainsprings A modern watch mainspring is a long strip of hardened and blued steel, or specialised steel alloy, 20–30 cm long and 0.05-0.2 mm thick. The mainspring in the common 1-day movement is calculated to enable the watch to run for 36 to 40 hours, i.e. 24 hours between daily windings with a power-reserve of 12 to 16 hours, in case the owner is late winding the watch. This is the no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Fusee (horology)
A fusee (from the French ''fusée'', wire wound around a spindle) is a cone (geometry), cone-shaped pulley with a helical groove around it, wound with a cord or chain attached to the mainspring Barrel (horology), barrel of antique mechanical watches and clocks. It was used from the 15th century to the early 20th century to improve timekeeping by equalizing the uneven pull of the mainspring as it ran down. The watch and clock historian Granville Hugh Baillie stated of the fusee, "Perhaps no problem in mechanics has ever been solved so simply and so perfectly." History The origin of the fusee is not known. Many sources erroneously credit clockmaker Jacob Zech of Prague with inventing it around 1525. The earliest definitely dated fusee clock was made by Zech in 1525, but the fusee actually appeared earlier, with the first spring driven clocks in the 15th century., p.127-128, p.121 The idea probably did not originate with clockmakers, since the earliest known example is in a cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Mainspring
A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon—commonly spring steel—used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. ''Winding'' the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in the mainspring by twisting the spiral tighter. The force of the mainspring then turns the clock's wheels as it unwinds, until the next winding is needed. The adjectives wind-up and spring-powered refer to mechanisms powered by mainsprings, which also include kitchen timers, metronomes, music boxes, wind-up toys and clockwork radios. Modern mainsprings A modern watch mainspring is a long strip of hardened and blued steel, or specialised steel alloy, 20–30 cm long and 0.05-0.2 mm thick. The mainspring in the common 1-day movement is calculated to enable the watch to run for 36 to 40 hours, i.e. 24 hours between daily windings with a power-reserve of 12 to 16 hours, in case the owner is late winding the watch. This is the no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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History Of Watches
The history of watches began in 16th-century Europe, where watches evolved from portable spring-driven clocks, which first appeared in the 15th century. The watch was developed by inventors and engineers from the 16th century to the mid-20th century as a mechanical device, powered by winding a mainspring which turned gears and then moved the hands; it kept time with a rotating balance wheel. In the 1960s the invention of the quartz watch which ran on electricity and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal, proved a radical departure for the watchmaking industry. During the 1980s quartz watches took over the market from mechanical watches, a process referred to as the "quartz crisis". Although mechanical watches still sell in the watch market, the vast majority of watches have quartz movements. One account of the origin of the word "watch" suggests that it came from the Old English word ''woecce'' which meant "watchman", because town watchmen used watches to keep track of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Clock
A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the Millennium, millennia. Some predecessors to the modern clock may be considered "clocks" that are based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement, which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels., pp. 103–104., p. 31. Traditionally, in horology (the study of timekeeping), the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Balance Wheel
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''. It is driven by the escapement, which transforms the rotating motion of the watch gear train into impulses delivered to the balance wheel. Each swing of the wheel (called a "tick" or "beat") allows the gear train to advance a set amount, moving the hands forward. The balance wheel and hairspring together form a harmonic oscillator, which due to resonance oscillates preferentially at a certain rate, its resonant frequency or "beat", and resists oscillating at other rates. The combination of the mass of the balance wheel and the elasticity of the spring keep the time between each oscillation or "tick" very constant, accounting for its nearly universal use as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Antique Watch With Stackfreed
An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that is old. An antique is usually an item that is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human history. Vintage and collectible are used to describe items that are old, but do not meet the 100-year criterion. Antiques are usually objects of the decorative arts that show some degree of craftsmanship, collectability, or an attention to design, such as a desk or an vintage car, early automobile. They are bought at antique shops, estate sales, auction houses, online auctions and other venues, or estate inherited. Antiques dealers often belong to national trade associations, many of whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Cam (mechanism)
A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion. It is often a part of a rotating wheel (e.g. an eccentric wheel) or shaft (e.g. a cylinder with an irregular shape) that strikes a lever at one or more points on its circular path. The cam can be a simple tooth, as is used to deliver pulses of power to a steam hammer, for example, or an Eccentric (mechanism), eccentric disc or other shape that produces a smooth reciprocating (back and forth) motion in the ''Cam follower, follower'', which is a lever making contact with the cam. A cam timer is similar, and these were widely used for electric machine control (an electromechanical timer in a washing machine being a common example) before the advent of inexpensive electronics, microcontrollers, integrated circuits, programmable logic controllers and digital control. Camshaft The cam can be seen as a device that converts rotational mot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Torque
In physics and mechanics, torque is the rotational analogue of linear force. It is also referred to as the moment of force (also abbreviated to moment). The symbol for torque is typically \boldsymbol\tau, the lowercase Greek letter ''tau''. When being referred to as moment of force, it is commonly denoted by . Just as a linear force is a push or a pull applied to a body, a torque can be thought of as a twist applied to an object with respect to a chosen point; for example, driving a screw uses torque to force it into an object, which is applied by the screwdriver rotating around its axis to the drives on the head. Historical terminology The term ''torque'' (from Latin , 'to twist') is said to have been suggested by James Thomson and appeared in print in April, 1884. Usage is attested the same year by Silvanus P. Thompson in the first edition of ''Dynamo-Electric Machinery''. Thompson describes his usage of the term as follows: Today, torque is referred to using d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Verge And Foliot
The verge (or crown wheel) escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by allowing the gear train to advance at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Verge escapements were used from the late 13th century until the mid 19th century in clocks and pocketwatches. The name verge comes from the Latin ''virga'', meaning stick or rod. Its invention is important in the history of technology, because it made possible the development of all-mechanical clocks. This caused a shift from measuring time by continuous processes, such as the flow of liquid in water clocks, to repetitive, oscillatory processes, such as the swing of pendulums, which had the potential to be more accurate., p.31 Oscillating timekeepers keep time for all modern clocks. Verge and foliot clocks The verge escapement dates from 13th-century Europe, where its invention led to the development of the first all-mechanical clocks. Starting in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Balance Spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a spring attached to the balance wheel in mechanical timepieces. It causes the balance wheel to oscillate with a resonant frequency when the timepiece is running, which controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, thus the rate of movement of the hands. A regulator lever is often fitted, which can be used to alter the free length of the spring and thereby adjust the rate of the timepiece. The balance spring is an essential adjunct to the balance wheel, causing it to oscillate back and forth. The balance spring and balance wheel together form a harmonic oscillator, which oscillates with a precise period or "beat" resisting external disturbances and is responsible for timekeeping accuracy. The addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel around 1657 by Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens greatly increased the accuracy of portable timepieces, transforming early pocketwatches from expensive novelties to useful timekeepe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |