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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 .
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 ...
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 ...
Its advantages are (1) it is a "detached" escapement, in which (unlike the cylinder or duplex escapements) the balance wheel is only in contact with the lever during the short impulse period when it swings through its centre position and swings freely the rest of its cycle, increasing accuracy; and (2) it is a self-starting escapement, so if ...
All the parts of the watch were mounted between the two plates except the balance wheel, which was mounted on the outside of the back plate, held by a bracket called the balance cock. Three-quarter plate movement In the 18th century, to make movements thinner, part of the back plate was cut away to make room for the balance and balance cock ...
Balance wheel, the oscillator in a mechanical mantel clock. The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object that vibrates or oscillates repetitively at a precisely constant frequency. [2] [83] [84] [85] In mechanical clocks, this is either a pendulum or a balance wheel.
Each back and forth movement of the balance wheel from and back to its center position corresponds to a drop of one tooth (called a beat). A typical watch lever escapement beats at 18,000 or more beats per hour. Each beat gives the balance wheel an impulse, so there are two impulses per cycle.
Ruby jewel bearings used for a balance wheel in a mechanical watch movement Cross-section of a jewel bearing in a mechanical watch. This type of donut-shaped bearing (red) is called a hole jewel, used for most of the ordinary wheels in the gear train. It is usually made of synthetic sapphire or ruby, press-fit into a hole in the movement's ...