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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 .
The balance spring is a fine spiral or helical torsion spring used in mechanical watches, alarm clocks, kitchen timers, marine chronometers, and other timekeeping mechanisms to control the rate of oscillation of the balance wheel. The balance spring is an essential adjunct to the balance wheel, causing it to oscillate back and forth. The ...
A poorly constructed or poorly maintained escapement will cause problems. The escapement must accurately convert the oscillations of the pendulum or balance wheel into rotation of the clock or watch gear train, and it must deliver enough energy to the pendulum or balance wheel to maintain its oscillation.
Each swing of the balance wheel thus allows one tooth of the escape wheel to pass, advancing the wheel train of the clock by a fixed amount, moving the hands forward at a constant rate. The moment of inertia of the foliot or balance wheel controls the oscillation rate, determining the rate of the clock. The escape wheel tooth, pushing against ...
Each beat gives the balance wheel an impulse, so there are two impulses per cycle. Despite being locked at rest most of the time, the escape wheel rotates typically at an average of 10 rpm or more. The origin of the "tick tock" sound is caused by this escapement mechanism. As the balance wheel rocks back and forth, the ticking sound is heard.
The fourth wheel also turns the escape wheel pinion. Many clocks don't need this wheel because of their slower-moving escapements; in these the third wheel drives the escape wheel directly. Escape wheel which is released one tooth at a time by the escapement, with each swing of the pendulum or balance. The escape wheel keeps the pendulum or ...
The Gyromax is a 'free sprung' balance, meaning there is no regulator on the wheel's balance spring for adjusting the watch's rate, so the collets are used for adjusting both poise and rate. Swiss patents were granted to Patek Phillipe for the Gyromax balance on May 15, 1949 and December 31, 1951, and the balance was first used in watches in 1952.
A Roskopf, pin-lever, or pin-pallet escapement is an inexpensive, less accurate version of the lever escapement, used in mechanical alarm clocks, kitchen timers, mantel clocks and, until the 1970s, cheap watches now known as pin lever watches. It was popularized by German watchmaker Georges Frederic Roskopf in its "proletarian watch" from 1867 ...