Escapement
Encyclopedia
In mechanical watches and clocks, an escapement is a device that (1) transfers energy to the timekeeping element and (2) enables counting the number of oscillations of the timekeeping element. It is the source of the "ticking" sound in watches and clocks.
An escapement transfers energy to the clock's timekeeping element (usually a pendulum
or balance wheel
) to make up the energy lost during a cycle. Without the energy transfer, the oscillation would cease. The escapement may take the energy from a coiled spring
(e.g., in a wristwatch) or a suspended weight (e.g., in a cuckoo or grandfather clock). The escapement also permits each cycle of the timekeeping element to be counted. During each cycle, the escapement permits a gear train
to advance or "escape" slightly. The periodic advancement results in moving the timepiece's hands forward at a steady rate.
With each swing of the pendulum, one of its arms releases one tooth of a gear, making it change from a "locked" state to a "drive" state for a short period that ends when another tooth on the gear strikes the opposite arm of the pendulum, which locks the gear again. It is this periodic release of energy and rapid stopping that makes a clock "tick;" it is the sound of the gear train suddenly stopping when the escapement locks again.
is that it was the key invention that made the all-mechanical clock
possible. This development in 13th century Europe initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the flow of water in water clock
s, to repetitive oscillatory processes, such as the swing of pendulum
s, which could yield more accuracy. Oscillating timekeepers are used in every modern clock.
The earliest liquid-driven escapement was described by the Greek
engineer Philo of Byzantium
(3rd century BC) in his technical treatise Pneumatics (chapter 31) as part of a washstand
. A counterweighted spoon, supplied by a water tank, tips over in a basin when full, releasing a spherical piece of pumice
in the process. Once the spoon has emptied, it is pulled up again by the counterweight, closing the door on the pumice by the tightening string. Remarkably, Philo's comment that "its construction is similar to that of clocks" indicates that such escapement mechanisms were already integrated in ancient water clocks.
In China
, the Tang Dynasty
Buddhist monk Yi Xing
along with government official Liang Lingzan
applied the escapement in 723 (or 725) to the workings of a water-powered armillary sphere
and clock drive
. The Song Dynasty
(960–1279) era horologists Zhang Sixun
(fl. late 10th century) and Su Song
(1020–1101) duly applied escapement devices for their astronomical clock towers
, before the technology stagnated and retrogressed. According to Ahmad Y Hassan
, a mercury
escapement in a Spanish
work for Alfonso X in 1277 can be traced back to earlier Arabic
sources. Knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts.
However, none of these were true mechanical escapements, since they still depended on the flow of liquid through an orifice to measure time. For example, in Su Song's clock, water flowed into a container on a pivot. The escapement's role was to tip the container over each time it filled up, thus advancing the clock's wheels each time an equal quantity of water was measured out. The development of mechanical clocks, though, depended on the invention of an escapement which would allow a clock's movement to be controlled by an oscillating weight. Unlike the continuous flow of water in the Chinese device, the medieval escapement was characterized by a regular, repeating sequence of discrete actions and the capability of self-reversing action:
invented a primitive form of escapement, in an apparatus that was apparently a timekeeping device, but without being subject to any minute requirement of accuracy.
The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement
, was used in a bell ringing apparatus called an alarum for several centuries before it was adapted to clocks. In 14th century Europe it appeared as the timekeeper in the first mechanical clocks, which were large tower clocks. Its origin and first use is unknown because it is difficult to distinguish which of these early tower clocks were mechanical, and which were water clock
s. However, indirect evidence, such as a sudden increase in cost and construction of clocks, points to the late 13th century as the most likely date for the development of the modern clock escapement. Astronomer Robertus Anglicus
wrote in 1271 that clockmaker
s were trying to invent an escapement, but hadn't been successful yet. On the other hand, most sources agree that mechanical escapement clocks existed by 1300.>
Actually, the earliest description of an escapement, in Richard of Wallingford
's 1327 manuscript Tractatus Horologii Astronomici on the clock he built at the Abbey of St. Albans, was not a verge, but a variation called a 'strob' escapement. It consisted of a pair of escape wheels on the same axle, with alternating radial teeth. The verge rod was suspended between them, with a short crosspiece that rotated first in one direction and then the other as the staggered teeth pushed past. Although no other example is known, it is possible that this was the first clock escapement design.
However the verge was the standard escapement used in every other early clock and watch, and remained the only escapement for 400 years. Its friction and recoil limited its performance, but the accuracy of these 'verge and foliot' clocks was more limited by their early foliot
type balance wheel
s, which because they lacked a balance spring
had no natural 'beat', so there was not much incentive to improve the escapement.
The great leap in accuracy resulting from the invention of the pendulum
and balance spring
around 1657, which made the timekeeping elements in both watches and clocks harmonic oscillator
s, focused attention on the errors of the escapement, and more accurate escapements soon superseded the verge. The next two centuries, the 'golden age' of mechanical horology
, saw the invention of perhaps 300 escapement designs, although only about 10 stood the test of time and were widely used. These are described individually below.
The invention of the crystal oscillator
and the quartz clock
in the 1920s shifted technological research in timekeeping to electronic
methods, and largely put an end to escapement design.
In many escapements, the unlocking of the escapement involves sliding motion; for example, in the animation shown above, the pallets of the anchor slide against the escapement wheel teeth as the pendulum swings. The pallets are often made of very hard materials such as polished stone (for example, artificial ruby), but even so they normally require lubrication. Since lubricating oil degrades over time due to evaporation, dust, oxidation, etc., periodic re-lubrication is needed. If this is not done, the timepiece may work unreliably or stop altogether, and the escapement components may be subjected to rapid wear. The increased reliability of modern watches is due primarily to the higher-quality oils used for lubrication. Lubricant lifetimes can be greater than five years in a high-quality watch.
Some escapements avoid sliding friction; examples include the grasshopper escapement
of John Harrison
in the 18th century, and the co-axial escapement
of George Daniels in the 20th century. This may avoid the need for lubrication in the escapement (though it does not obviate the requirement for lubrication of other parts of the gear train).
Escapements play a big part in accuracy as well. The precise point in the pendulum's travel at which impulse is supplied will determine how closely to time the pendulum will swing. Ideally, the impulse should be evenly distributed on either side of the lowest point of the pendulum's swing. This is because pushing a pendulum when it's moving towards mid-swing makes it gain, whereas pushing it while it's moving away from mid-swing makes it lose. If the impulse is evenly distributed then it gives energy to the pendulum without changing the time of its swing.
The crucial element in escapement design is to give just enough energy to the pendulum in order to keep it swinging, and to interfere with the free swinging of the pendulum as little as is possible. As the lubrication of the escapement ages, friction will increase, and less power will be transferred to the timing device (for example, the pendulum). If the timing device is a pendulum, this means the pendulum will swing a shorter and shorter arc. Contrary to popular opinion, the time taken for a pendulum swing is not constant regardless of the size of the swing; the swing time changes with the size of the swing. Therefore, a dirty escapement will cause inaccuracy because the arc of the pendulum swing becomes shorter (the clock will speed up). To minimize this effect, pendulum swings are kept as small as possible.
Wristwatches, and smaller clocks, do not use pendulums as the timing device. Instead, they use balance spring
s; fine springs connected to a metal balance wheel
(imagine a bicycle wheel without the tire). The balance wheel rotates back and forth; a good Swiss watch has a frequency of 4Hz
(4 cycles—or 8 beats—per second). Faster speeds are used in some watches. The balance spring must also be temperature neutral. Very sophisticated alloys are used; in this area, watchmaking is still advancing. As with the pendulum, the escapement must provide a small kick each cycle to keep the balance wheel oscillating. Also, the same lubrication problem occurs over time; the watch will lose accuracy (typically it will speed up) when the escapement lubrication starts failing.
Pocket watches were the predecessor of modern wristwatches. Pocket watches, being in the pocket, were usually in a vertical orientation. Gravity causes some loss of accuracy as it magnifies over time any lack of symmetry in the balance mechanism. The 'tourbillon
' was invented to minimize this: the balance spring is put in a cage which rotates (typically once a minute), smoothing gravitational distortions. This very clever and sophisticated clock-work is a prized 'complication' in wrist-watches, even though the natural movement of the wearer tends to smooth gravitational influences much more than for a pocketwatch.
The most accurate commercially produced mechanical clock was the Shortt-Synchronome free pendulum clock
invented by W. H. Shortt in 1921, which had an error rate of about 1 second per year.
The most accurate mechanical clock to date is probably the Littlemore Clock, built by noted archaeologist E. T. Hall
in the 1990s. In Hall's paper, he reports an error of 3 parts in 109 measured over 100 days (an error of about 0.02 seconds over that period). Both of these clocks are electromechanical clocks: they use a pendulum as the timekeeping element, but electrical power rather than a mechanical gear train to supply energy to the pendulum.
and balance spring
made accurate timepieces possible, it has been estimated that more than three hundred different mechanical escapements have been devised, but only about 10 have seen widespread use. These are described below. In the 20th century, electric timekeeping methods replaced mechanical clocks and watches, so escapement design became a little known curiosity.
The earliest escapement in Europe (from about 1275) was the verge escapement
, also known as the crown-wheel escapement. It was used in the first mechanical clocks and was originally controlled by a foliot
, a horizontal bar with weights at either end. The escapement consists of an escape wheel shaped somewhat like a crown, with pointed teeth sticking axially out of the side, oriented vertically. In front of the crown wheel is a vertical shaft, the verge, attached to the foliot at top, which carries two metal plates (pallets) sticking out like flags from a flag pole, oriented about ninety degrees apart, so only one engages the crown wheel teeth at a time. As the wheel turns, one tooth pushes against the upper pallet, rotating the verge and the attached foliot. As the tooth pushes past the upper pallet, the lower pallet swings into the path of the teeth on the other side of the wheel. A tooth catches on the lower pallet, rotating the verge back the other way, and the cycle repeats. A disadvantage of the escapement was that each time a tooth lands on a pallet, the momentum of the foliot pushes the crown wheel backwards a short distance before the force of the wheel reverses the motion. This is called "recoil" and was a source of wear and inaccuracy.
The verge was the only escapement used in clocks and watches for 400 years. In watches it required a fusee to even out the force of the mainspring
. It was used in the first pendulum clocks for about 50 years after the pendulum clock was invented in 1656. In a pendulum clock the crown wheel and verge were oriented so they were horizontal, and the pendulum was hung from the verge. However the verge is the most inaccurate of the common escapements, and after modern timekeeping oscillators (the pendulum and the sprung balance wheel) were introduced in the 1650s the verge was replaced by other escapements by about 1800.
this improved the accuracy of mechanical clock of his time by two orders of magnitude and allowed his clocks to be correct to within a minute a day.
Invented around 1660 by Robert Hooke
, the anchor quickly superseded the verge to become the standard escapement used in pendulum clock
s through the 19th century. Its advantage was that it reduced the wide pendulum swing angles of the verge to 3°-6°, making the pendulum isochronous
, and allowing the use of longer, slower moving pendulums, which used less energy. It is responsible for the long narrow shape of most pendulum clocks, particularly grandfather clocks.
It consists of an escape wheel with pointed, backward slanted teeth, and an 'anchor' shaped piece pivoted above it which rocks from side to side, attached to the pendulum. The anchor has slanted pallets on the arms which alternately catch on the teeth of the escape wheel, receiving impulses. Mechanically its operation has similarities to the verge escapement, and it has two of the verge's disadvantages: (1) The pendulum is constantly being pushed by an escape wheel tooth throughout its cycle, and is never allowed to swing freely, which disturbs its isochronism, and (2) it is a recoil escapement; the anchor pushes the escape wheel backward during part of its cycle. This causes backlash
, increased wear in the clocks gears, and inaccuracy. These problems were eliminated in the deadbeat escapement, which slowly replaced the anchor in precision clocks.
to a design by Richard Towneley
in 1675 although it is often credited to Tompion's successor George Graham
who popularized it in 1715. In the anchor escapement the swing of the pendulum pushes the escape wheel backward during part of its cycle. This 'recoil' disturbs the motion of the pendulum, causing inaccuracy, and reverses the direction of the gear train, causing backlash
and introducing high loads into the system, leading to friction and wear. The main advantage of the deadbeat is that it eliminated recoil.
In the deadbeat, the pallets have a second curved "locking" face on them, concentric about the pivot on which the anchor turns. During the extremities of the pendulum's swing, the escape wheel tooth rests against this locking face, providing no impulse to the pendulum, which prevents recoil. Near the bottom of the pendulum's swing the tooth slides off the locking face onto the angled "impulse" face, giving the pendulum a push, before the pallet releases the tooth. This was the first escapement to separate the locking and impulse actions of the escapement. The deadbeat was first used in precision regulator clocks, but due to greater accuracy superseded the anchor in the 19th century. It is used in almost all modern pendulum clocks. The deadbeat escapement does rely on a quality wheel train to receive constant impulse. Variations in the impulse will affect the pendulum arc and the accuracy of the clock. For this reason it is not always the best choice for cheap mass produced clocks, or for tower clocks with large hands exposed to the outside weather.
s, although some precision watches during the 19th century also used it. The early form was invented by Pierre Le Roy
in 1748, who created a pivoted dentent type of escapement. The invention was then generalized in 1783 by Thomas Earnshaw
with his standard spring-detent escapement (John Arnold
created a variant, patented in 1779, as did Ferdinand Berthoud
, but the Earnshaw design was the one generally adopted) and used until mechanical chronometers became obsolete in the 1970s. They could be made far more accurate than lever escapements, due to the virtual absence of sliding friction between the escape tooth and the pallet during impulse. Yet they were extremely fragile, not self-starting, and harder to manufacture in volume. Unlike the lever escapement, the impulse to the balance occurs at every other swing. Usually a balance making 4 swings per second with a helical balance spring was used.
The duplex watch escapement was invented by Robert Hooke
around 1700, improved by Jean Baptiste Dutertre and Pierre Le Roy
, and put in final form by Thomas Tryer, who patented it in 1782. It was used in quality English pocketwatches from about 1790 to 1860, and in the Waterbury, a cheap American 'everyman's' watch, during 1880-1898.
In the duplex, as in the chronometer escapement to which it has similarities, the balance wheel only receives an impulse during one of the two swings in its cycle. The escape wheel has two sets of teeth (hence the name 'duplex'); long locking teeth project from the side of the wheel, and short impulse teeth stick up axially from the top. The cycle starts with a locking tooth resting against the ruby disk. As the balance wheel swings counterclockwise through its center position, the notch in the ruby disk releases the tooth. As the escape wheel turns, the pallet is in just the right position to receive a push from an impulse tooth. Then the next locking tooth drops onto the ruby roller and stays there while the balance wheel completes its cycle and swings back clockwise (CW), and the process repeats. During the CW swing, the impulse tooth falls momentarily into the ruby roller notch again, but isn't released.
The duplex is a frictional rest escapement; the balance is never totally free from the escapement because of the tooth resting against the roller. As in the chronometer, there is little sliding friction during impulse since pallet and impulse tooth are moving almost parallel, so little lubrication is needed. The duplex is capable of accuracy at least equal to the lever escapement, and perhaps approaching the chronometer.
However it lost favor to the lever; its tight tolerances and sensitivity to shock made duplex watches unsuitable for active people. Like the chronometer, it is not self-starting and is vulnerable to "setting;" if a sudden jar stops the balance during its CW swing, it can't get started again.
The lever escapement
, invented by Thomas Mudge in 1750, has been used in the vast majority of watches since the 19th century. Its advantages are (1)the balance wheel is more "detached" or independent than in the cylinder or duplex escapements; it is only in contact with the lever during the short impulse period when the balance swings through its center position, increasing accuracy, and (2) it is a self-starting escapement, so if the watch is shaken so that the balance wheel stops, it will automatically start again. The original form was the rack lever escapement, in which the lever and the balance wheel were always in contact via a gear rack on the lever. Later, it was realized that all the teeth from the gears could be removed except one, and this created the detached lever escapement. British watchmakers used the English detached lever, in which the lever was at right angles to the balance wheel. Later Swiss and American manufacturers used the inline lever, in which the lever is inline between the balance wheel and the escape wheel; this is the form used in modern watches. In 1867 Georges Frederic Roskopf
invented an inexpensive, less accurate form called the Roskopf or pin-pallet escapement, which was used in cheap "dollar watch
es" in the early 20th century and is still used in cheap alarm clock
s and kitchen timers.
's grasshopper escapement
. In this escapement, the pendulum is driven by two hinged arms (pallets). As the pendulum swings, the end of one arm catches on the escape wheel and drives it slightly backwards; this releases the other arm which moves out of the way to allow the escape wheel to pass. When the pendulum swings back again, the other arm catches the wheel, pushes it back and releases the first arm and so on. The grasshopper escapement is more difficult to manufacture than other escapements and is something of a rarity. Grasshopper escapements made by Harrison in the 18th century are still operating. Most escapements wear far more quickly, and waste far more energy.
s and has recently been perfected in the inertially-detached gravity escapement invented by James Arnfield. This frees the pendulum from any part in unlocking the clock train; all it does is lift a gravity arm and then later on part company from it at a lower point. They part company because the gravity arm comes into contact with, and unlocks, the mechanism which re-sets the gravity arm in its raised position.
In the animation shown here the two "gravity arms" are coloured blue and red. The two three-legged escape wheels are also coloured blue and red. They work in two parallel planes so that the blue wheel only impacts the locking block on the blue arm and the red wheel only impacts the red arm. In a real escapement these impacts give rise to loud audible "ticks" and these are indicated by the appearance of a * beside the locking blocks. The three black lifting pins are key to the operation of the escapement. They cause the weighted gravity arms to be raised by an amount indicated by the pair of parallel lines on each side of the escapement. This gain in potential energy is the energy given to the pendulum on each cycle. For the Trinity College Cambridge Clock a mass of around 50 grams is lifted through 3mm each 1.5 seconds - which works out to 1 mW of power. The driving power from the falling weight is about 12 mW, so there is a substantial excess of power used to drive the escapement. Much of this energy is dissipated in the acceleration and deceleration of the frictional "fly" attached to the escape wheels.
Invented around 1974 and patented 1980 by British watchmaker George Daniels, the co-axial escapement is one of the few new watch escapements adopted commercially in modern times. It is a modification of the lever that has some features of the detent escapement. Its main advantage is that through a complicated system of 3 pallets that separates the locking function from the impulse, it is able to avoid the sliding friction of the lever escapement, making lubrication of the pallets unnecessary. Purchasers no longer buy mechanical watches primarily for their accuracy, so manufacturers had little interest in investing in the tooling required, although finally Omega adopted it in 1990. While low-friction escapements existed already, they were too large for small "movements" (as watch-work is referred to).
energised an electromagnet
for a brief section of the pendulum's swing. On some clocks the pulse of electricity that drove the pendulum also drove a plunger to move the gear train.
invented a switch for a clock which was impulsed electro-magnetically. The pendulum drove a ratchet wheel via a pawl on the pendulum rod and the ratchet wheel drove the rest of the clock train to indicate the time. The pendulum was not impulsed on every swing or even at a set interval of time. It was only impulsed when its arc of swing had decayed below a certain level. As well as the counting pawl, the pendulum carried a small vane, known as a Hipp's toggle, pivoted at the top, which was completely free to swing. It was placed so that it dragged across a triangular polished block with a vee-groove in the top of it. When the arc of swing of the pendulum was large enough, the vane crossed the groove and swung free on the other side. If the arc was too small the vane never left the far side of the groove, and when the pendulum swung back it pushed the block strongly downwards. The block carried a contact which completed the circuit to the electromagnet which impulsed the pendulum. The pendulum was only impulsed as it required it.
This type of clock was widely used as a master clock
in large buildings to control numerous slave clocks. Most telephone exchanges used such a clock to control timed events such as were needed to control the set up and charging of telephone calls by issuing pulses of varying durations such as every second, six seconds and so on.
whose length changes very little with temperature, swings as free of external influence as possible sealed in a vacuum chamber and does no work. It is in mechanical contact with its escapement for only a fraction of a second every 30 seconds. A secondary "slave" pendulum turns a ratchet, which triggers an electromagnet slightly less than every thirty seconds. This electromagnet releases a gravity lever onto the escapement above the master pendulum. A fraction of a second later (but exactly every 30 seconds), the motion of the master pendulum releases the gravity lever to fall farther. In the process, the gravity lever gives a tiny impulse to the master pendulum, which keeps that pendulum swinging. The gravity lever falls onto a pair of contacts, completing a circuit that does several things:
Since it is the slave pendulum that releases the gravity lever, this synchronization is vital to the functioning of the clock. The slave clock is set to run slightly slow and the re-set circuit for the gravity arm activates a pivoted arm which just engages with the tip of a blade spring on the pendulum of the slave clock. If the slave clock has lost too much time its blade spring pushes against the arm and this accelerates the clock. The amount of this gain is such that the blade spring doesn't engage on the next cycle but does on the next again. This form of clock became a standard for use in observatories (roughly 100 such clocks were manufactured), and was the first clock capable of detecting small variations in the speed of Earth's rotation.
The synchronizing mechanism used a small spring attached to the shaft of the slave pendulum and an electromagnetic armature that would catch the spring if the slave pendulum was running slightly late, thus shortening the period of the slave pendulum for one swing. The slave pendulum was adjusted to run slightly slow, such that on approximately every other synchronization pulse the spring would be caught by the armature.
An escapement transfers energy to the clock's timekeeping element (usually a pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
or balance wheel
Balance wheel
The balance wheel is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and some 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 spring, the balance spring or hairspring...
) to make up the energy lost during a cycle. Without the energy transfer, the oscillation would cease. The escapement may take the energy from a coiled spring
Spring (device)
A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...
(e.g., in a wristwatch) or a suspended weight (e.g., in a cuckoo or grandfather clock). The escapement also permits each cycle of the timekeeping element to be counted. During each cycle, the escapement permits a gear train
Gear train
A gear train is formed by mounting gears on a frame so that the teeth of the gears engage. Gear teeth are designed to ensure the pitch circles of engaging gears roll on each other without slipping, this provides a smooth transmission of rotation from one gear to the next.The transmission of...
to advance or "escape" slightly. The periodic advancement results in moving the timepiece's hands forward at a steady rate.
With each swing of the pendulum, one of its arms releases one tooth of a gear, making it change from a "locked" state to a "drive" state for a short period that ends when another tooth on the gear strikes the opposite arm of the pendulum, which locks the gear again. It is this periodic release of energy and rapid stopping that makes a clock "tick;" it is the sound of the gear train suddenly stopping when the escapement locks again.
History
The importance of the escapement in the history of technologyHistory of technology
The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques, and is similar in many ways to the history of humanity. Background knowledge has enabled people to create new things, and conversely, many scientific endeavors have become possible through technologies which assist...
is that it was the key invention that made the all-mechanical clock
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
possible. This development in 13th century Europe initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the flow of water in water clock
Water clock
A water clock or clepsydra is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel where the amount is then measured.Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions...
s, to repetitive oscillatory processes, such as the swing of pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
s, which could yield more accuracy. Oscillating timekeepers are used in every modern clock.
Liquid-driven escapement
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
engineer Philo of Byzantium
Philo of Byzantium
Philo of Byzantium , also known as Philo Mechanicus, was a Greek engineer and writer on mechanics, who lived during the latter half of the 3rd century BC...
(3rd century BC) in his technical treatise Pneumatics (chapter 31) as part of a washstand
Washstand
A washstand is a table or stand containing conveniences for washing oneself.- Ancient Greece:In his Pneumatics, Philo of Byzantium, a Greek engineer and writer on mechanics, describes an escapement mechanism, the earliest known, as part of a washstand...
. A counterweighted spoon, supplied by a water tank, tips over in a basin when full, releasing a spherical piece of pumice
Pumice
Pumice is a textural term for a volcanic rock that is a solidified frothy lava typically created when super-heated, highly pressurized rock is violently ejected from a volcano. It can be formed when lava and water are mixed. This unusual formation is due to the simultaneous actions of rapid...
in the process. Once the spoon has emptied, it is pulled up again by the counterweight, closing the door on the pumice by the tightening string. Remarkably, Philo's comment that "its construction is similar to that of clocks" indicates that such escapement mechanisms were already integrated in ancient water clocks.
In China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
Buddhist monk Yi Xing
Yi Xing
Yi Xing , born Zhang Sui , was a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, mechanical engineer,and Buddhist monk of the Tang Dynasty...
along with government official Liang Lingzan
Liang Lingzan
Liang Lingzan was a Tang Dynasty military engineer and government official of the Kaiyuan era. He invented a mechanized water clock with the Tantric monk and mathematician Yi Xing . It was actually an astronomical instrument that served as a clock, made of bronze in the capital of Chang'an in the...
applied the escapement in 723 (or 725) to the workings of a water-powered armillary sphere
Armillary sphere
An armillary sphere is a model of objects in the sky , consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centred on Earth, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features such as the ecliptic...
and clock drive
Drive wheel
A drive wheel is a roadwheel in an automotive vehicle that receives torque from the powertrain, and provides the final driving force for a vehicle. A two-wheel drive vehicle has two driven wheels, and a four-wheel drive has four, and so-on....
. The Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
(960–1279) era horologists Zhang Sixun
Zhang Sixun
Zhang Sixun was a Chinese astronomer and military engineer from Bazhong, Sichuan during the early Song Dynasty . He is credited with creating an armillary sphere for his astronomical clock tower that employed the use of liquid mercury...
(fl. late 10th century) and Su Song
Su Song
Su Song was a renowned Chinese polymath who specialized himself as a statesman, astronomer, cartographer, horologist, pharmacologist, mineralogist, zoologist, botanist, mechanical and architectural engineer, poet, antiquarian, and ambassador of the Song Dynasty .Su Song was the engineer of a...
(1020–1101) duly applied escapement devices for their astronomical clock towers
Astronomical clock
An astronomical clock is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the sun, moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.-Definition:...
, before the technology stagnated and retrogressed. According to Ahmad Y Hassan
Ahmad Y Hassan
Ahmad Yusuf Al-Hassan is a historian of Arabic and Islamic science and technology, educated in Jerusalem, Cairo and London with a Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from University College London. He was Dean of Engineering and later President of the University of Aleppo where he founded the...
, a mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
escapement in a Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
work for Alfonso X in 1277 can be traced back to earlier Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
sources. Knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts.
However, none of these were true mechanical escapements, since they still depended on the flow of liquid through an orifice to measure time. For example, in Su Song's clock, water flowed into a container on a pivot. The escapement's role was to tip the container over each time it filled up, thus advancing the clock's wheels each time an equal quantity of water was measured out. The development of mechanical clocks, though, depended on the invention of an escapement which would allow a clock's movement to be controlled by an oscillating weight. Unlike the continuous flow of water in the Chinese device, the medieval escapement was characterized by a regular, repeating sequence of discrete actions and the capability of self-reversing action:
Both techniques used escapements, but these have only the name in common. The Chinese one worked intermittently; the European, in discrete but continuous beats. Both systems used gravity as the prime mover, but the action was very different. In the mechanical clock, the falling weight exerted a continuous and even force on the train, which the escapement alternately held back and released at a rhythm constrained by the controller. Ingeniously, the very force that turned the scape wheel then slowed it and pushed it part of the way back . . . In other words, a unidirectional force produced a self-reversing action—about one step back for three steps forward. In the Chinese timekeeper, however, the force exerted varied, the weight in each successive bucket building until sufficient to tip the release and lift the stop that held the wheel in place. This allowed the wheel to turn some ten degrees and bring the next bucket under the stream of water while the stop fell back . . . In the Chinese clock, then unidirectional force produced unidirectional motion.
Mechanical escapement
Villard de HonnecourtVillard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment containing about 250 drawings dating from the 1220s/1240s, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
invented a primitive form of escapement, in an apparatus that was apparently a timekeeping device, but without being subject to any minute requirement of accuracy.
The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement
Verge escapement
The verge escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by advancing the gear train at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Its origin is unknown. Verge escapements were used from the 14th century until about 1800 in clocks...
, was used in a bell ringing apparatus called an alarum for several centuries before it was adapted to clocks. In 14th century Europe it appeared as the timekeeper in the first mechanical clocks, which were large tower clocks. Its origin and first use is unknown because it is difficult to distinguish which of these early tower clocks were mechanical, and which were water clock
Water clock
A water clock or clepsydra is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel where the amount is then measured.Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions...
s. However, indirect evidence, such as a sudden increase in cost and construction of clocks, points to the late 13th century as the most likely date for the development of the modern clock escapement. Astronomer Robertus Anglicus
Robertus Anglicus
Robertus Anglicus was an English astronomer of the thirteenth century. He taught at the University of Montpellier, and possibly also at Paris. He is known as the author of a 1271 commentary on the De Sphera Mundi of Johannes de Sacrobosco. It includes a significant reference to the state of the...
wrote in 1271 that clockmaker
Clockmaker
A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...
s were trying to invent an escapement, but hadn't been successful yet. On the other hand, most sources agree that mechanical escapement clocks existed by 1300.>
Actually, the earliest description of an escapement, in Richard of Wallingford
Richard of Wallingford
Richard of Wallingford was an English mathematician who made major contributions to astronomy/astrology and horology while serving as abbot of St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire.-Biography:...
's 1327 manuscript Tractatus Horologii Astronomici on the clock he built at the Abbey of St. Albans, was not a verge, but a variation called a 'strob' escapement. It consisted of a pair of escape wheels on the same axle, with alternating radial teeth. The verge rod was suspended between them, with a short crosspiece that rotated first in one direction and then the other as the staggered teeth pushed past. Although no other example is known, it is possible that this was the first clock escapement design.
However the verge was the standard escapement used in every other early clock and watch, and remained the only escapement for 400 years. Its friction and recoil limited its performance, but the accuracy of these 'verge and foliot' clocks was more limited by their early foliot
Verge escapement
The verge escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by advancing the gear train at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Its origin is unknown. Verge escapements were used from the 14th century until about 1800 in clocks...
type balance wheel
Balance wheel
The balance wheel is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and some 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 spring, the balance spring or hairspring...
s, which because they lacked a balance spring
Balance spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a part used in mechanical timepieces. The balance spring, attached to the balance wheel, controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands...
had no natural 'beat', so there was not much incentive to improve the escapement.
The great leap in accuracy resulting from the invention of the pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
and balance spring
Balance spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a part used in mechanical timepieces. The balance spring, attached to the balance wheel, controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands...
around 1657, which made the timekeeping elements in both watches and clocks harmonic oscillator
Harmonic oscillator
In classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system that, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force, F, proportional to the displacement, x: \vec F = -k \vec x \, where k is a positive constant....
s, focused attention on the errors of the escapement, and more accurate escapements soon superseded the verge. The next two centuries, the 'golden age' of mechanical horology
Horology
Horology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...
, saw the invention of perhaps 300 escapement designs, although only about 10 stood the test of time and were widely used. These are described individually below.
The invention of the crystal oscillator
Crystal oscillator
A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses the mechanical resonance of a vibrating crystal of piezoelectric material to create an electrical signal with a very precise frequency...
and the quartz clock
Quartz clock
A quartz clock is a clock that uses an electronic oscillator that is regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than good mechanical clocks...
in the 1920s shifted technological research in timekeeping to electronic
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
methods, and largely put an end to escapement design.
Reliability
The reliability of an escapement depends on the quality of workmanship and the level of maintenance given. 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.In many escapements, the unlocking of the escapement involves sliding motion; for example, in the animation shown above, the pallets of the anchor slide against the escapement wheel teeth as the pendulum swings. The pallets are often made of very hard materials such as polished stone (for example, artificial ruby), but even so they normally require lubrication. Since lubricating oil degrades over time due to evaporation, dust, oxidation, etc., periodic re-lubrication is needed. If this is not done, the timepiece may work unreliably or stop altogether, and the escapement components may be subjected to rapid wear. The increased reliability of modern watches is due primarily to the higher-quality oils used for lubrication. Lubricant lifetimes can be greater than five years in a high-quality watch.
Some escapements avoid sliding friction; examples include the grasshopper escapement
Grasshopper escapement
The grasshopper escapement is an unusual, low-friction escapement for pendulum clocks invented by British clockmaker John Harrison around 1722. An escapement, part of every mechanical clock, is the mechanism that causes the clock's gears to move forward by a fixed distance at regular intervals and...
of John Harrison
John Harrison
John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...
in the 18th century, and the co-axial escapement
Co-axial escapement
Co-axial escapement is a type of modern watch escapement mechanism invented by English watchmaker George Daniels.-Overview:Invented around 1974 and patented 1980 by English watchmaker George Daniels, the Co-axial escapement is a modification of the lever escapement with some features of the detent...
of George Daniels in the 20th century. This may avoid the need for lubrication in the escapement (though it does not obviate the requirement for lubrication of other parts of the gear train).
Accuracy
The accuracy of a mechanical clock is dependent on the accuracy of the timing device. If this is a pendulum, then the period of swing of the pendulum determines the accuracy. If the pendulum rod is made of metal it will expand and contract with heat, shortening or lengthening the pendulum; this changes the time taken for a swing. Special alloys are used in expensive pendulum-based clocks to minimize this distortion. Pendulum swings also vary according to how big the arc is; highly-accurate pendulum-based clocks have very small arcs. Pendulum-based clocks can achieve outstanding accuracy. Even into the 20th century, pendulum-based clocks were reference time pieces in laboratories, although at sea the natural motion of the vessel severely impairs the accuracy of a pendulum.Escapements play a big part in accuracy as well. The precise point in the pendulum's travel at which impulse is supplied will determine how closely to time the pendulum will swing. Ideally, the impulse should be evenly distributed on either side of the lowest point of the pendulum's swing. This is because pushing a pendulum when it's moving towards mid-swing makes it gain, whereas pushing it while it's moving away from mid-swing makes it lose. If the impulse is evenly distributed then it gives energy to the pendulum without changing the time of its swing.
The crucial element in escapement design is to give just enough energy to the pendulum in order to keep it swinging, and to interfere with the free swinging of the pendulum as little as is possible. As the lubrication of the escapement ages, friction will increase, and less power will be transferred to the timing device (for example, the pendulum). If the timing device is a pendulum, this means the pendulum will swing a shorter and shorter arc. Contrary to popular opinion, the time taken for a pendulum swing is not constant regardless of the size of the swing; the swing time changes with the size of the swing. Therefore, a dirty escapement will cause inaccuracy because the arc of the pendulum swing becomes shorter (the clock will speed up). To minimize this effect, pendulum swings are kept as small as possible.
Wristwatches, and smaller clocks, do not use pendulums as the timing device. Instead, they use balance spring
Balance spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a part used in mechanical timepieces. The balance spring, attached to the balance wheel, controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands...
s; fine springs connected to a metal balance wheel
Balance wheel
The balance wheel is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and some 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 spring, the balance spring or hairspring...
(imagine a bicycle wheel without the tire). The balance wheel rotates back and forth; a good Swiss watch has a frequency of 4Hz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
(4 cycles—or 8 beats—per second). Faster speeds are used in some watches. The balance spring must also be temperature neutral. Very sophisticated alloys are used; in this area, watchmaking is still advancing. As with the pendulum, the escapement must provide a small kick each cycle to keep the balance wheel oscillating. Also, the same lubrication problem occurs over time; the watch will lose accuracy (typically it will speed up) when the escapement lubrication starts failing.
Pocket watches were the predecessor of modern wristwatches. Pocket watches, being in the pocket, were usually in a vertical orientation. Gravity causes some loss of accuracy as it magnifies over time any lack of symmetry in the balance mechanism. The 'tourbillon
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
' was invented to minimize this: the balance spring is put in a cage which rotates (typically once a minute), smoothing gravitational distortions. This very clever and sophisticated clock-work is a prized 'complication' in wrist-watches, even though the natural movement of the wearer tends to smooth gravitational influences much more than for a pocketwatch.
The most accurate commercially produced mechanical clock was the Shortt-Synchronome free pendulum clock
Shortt-synchronome clock
The Shortt-Synchronome free pendulum clock was a complex precision electromechanical pendulum clock invented in 1921 by British railway engineer William Hamilton Shortt in collaboration with horologist Frank Hope-Jones, and manufactured by the Synchronome Co., Ltd. of London, UK...
invented by W. H. Shortt in 1921, which had an error rate of about 1 second per year.
The most accurate mechanical clock to date is probably the Littlemore Clock, built by noted archaeologist E. T. Hall
Edward Thomas Hall
Edward Thomas Hall CBE, Hon. FBA, FSA, D.Phil was a British scientist.-Life:Born in London, Hall was also a hot-air-balloon pilot and owner of Cameron O-84 Flaming Pearl G-AYAJ 1970-1990....
in the 1990s. In Hall's paper, he reports an error of 3 parts in 109 measured over 100 days (an error of about 0.02 seconds over that period). Both of these clocks are electromechanical clocks: they use a pendulum as the timekeeping element, but electrical power rather than a mechanical gear train to supply energy to the pendulum.
Mechanical escapements
Since 1658 when the introduction of the pendulumPendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
and balance spring
Balance spring
A balance spring, or hairspring, is a part used in mechanical timepieces. The balance spring, attached to the balance wheel, controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands...
made accurate timepieces possible, it has been estimated that more than three hundred different mechanical escapements have been devised, but only about 10 have seen widespread use. These are described below. In the 20th century, electric timekeeping methods replaced mechanical clocks and watches, so escapement design became a little known curiosity.
Verge escapement
Verge escapement
The verge escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by advancing the gear train at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Its origin is unknown. Verge escapements were used from the 14th century until about 1800 in clocks...
, also known as the crown-wheel escapement. It was used in the first mechanical clocks and was originally controlled by a foliot
Balance wheel
The balance wheel is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and some 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 spring, the balance spring or hairspring...
, a horizontal bar with weights at either end. The escapement consists of an escape wheel shaped somewhat like a crown, with pointed teeth sticking axially out of the side, oriented vertically. In front of the crown wheel is a vertical shaft, the verge, attached to the foliot at top, which carries two metal plates (pallets) sticking out like flags from a flag pole, oriented about ninety degrees apart, so only one engages the crown wheel teeth at a time. As the wheel turns, one tooth pushes against the upper pallet, rotating the verge and the attached foliot. As the tooth pushes past the upper pallet, the lower pallet swings into the path of the teeth on the other side of the wheel. A tooth catches on the lower pallet, rotating the verge back the other way, and the cycle repeats. A disadvantage of the escapement was that each time a tooth lands on a pallet, the momentum of the foliot pushes the crown wheel backwards a short distance before the force of the wheel reverses the motion. This is called "recoil" and was a source of wear and inaccuracy.
The verge was the only escapement used in clocks and watches for 400 years. In watches it required a fusee to even out the force of the mainspring
Mainspring
A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon that is the power source in mechanical watches and some clocks. 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...
. It was used in the first pendulum clocks for about 50 years after the pendulum clock was invented in 1656. In a pendulum clock the crown wheel and verge were oriented so they were horizontal, and the pendulum was hung from the verge. However the verge is the most inaccurate of the common escapements, and after modern timekeeping oscillators (the pendulum and the sprung balance wheel) were introduced in the 1650s the verge was replaced by other escapements by about 1800.
Cross-beat escapement
Jost Bürgi invented the cross-beat escapement in 1584, a two foliots refinement of the verge escapement. Along with his invention of the remontoireRemontoire
In mechanical horology, a remontoire, is a small secondary source of power, a weight or spring, which runs the timekeeping mechanism and is itself periodically rewound by the timepiece's main power source, such as a mainspring...
this improved the accuracy of mechanical clock of his time by two orders of magnitude and allowed his clocks to be correct to within a minute a day.
Anchor escapement
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
, the anchor quickly superseded the verge to become the standard escapement used in pendulum clock
Pendulum clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
s through the 19th century. Its advantage was that it reduced the wide pendulum swing angles of the verge to 3°-6°, making the pendulum isochronous
Isochronous
Isochronous : From Greek iso, equal + chronos, time. It literally means regularly, or at equal time intervals. In general English language, it refers to something that occurs at a regular interval, of the same duration; as opposed to synchronous which refers to more than one thing happening at the...
, and allowing the use of longer, slower moving pendulums, which used less energy. It is responsible for the long narrow shape of most pendulum clocks, particularly grandfather clocks.
It consists of an escape wheel with pointed, backward slanted teeth, and an 'anchor' shaped piece pivoted above it which rocks from side to side, attached to the pendulum. The anchor has slanted pallets on the arms which alternately catch on the teeth of the escape wheel, receiving impulses. Mechanically its operation has similarities to the verge escapement, and it has two of the verge's disadvantages: (1) The pendulum is constantly being pushed by an escape wheel tooth throughout its cycle, and is never allowed to swing freely, which disturbs its isochronism, and (2) it is a recoil escapement; the anchor pushes the escape wheel backward during part of its cycle. This causes backlash
Backlash (engineering)
In mechanical engineering, backlash, sometimes called lash or play, is clearance between mating components, sometimes described as the amount of lost motion due to clearance or slackness when movement is reversed and contact is re-established...
, increased wear in the clocks gears, and inaccuracy. These problems were eliminated in the deadbeat escapement, which slowly replaced the anchor in precision clocks.
Deadbeat escapement
The deadbeat escapement was an improvement of the anchor escapement first made by Thomas TompionThomas Tompion
Thomas Tompion was an English clock maker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the Father of English Clockmaking. Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world and can command very high prices whenever outstanding...
to a design by Richard Towneley
Richard Towneley
Richard Towneley was an English mathematician and astronomer from Towneley near Burnley, Lancashire. He was one of a group of seventeenth century astronomers in the north of England, which included Jeremiah Horrocks, William Crabtree and William Gascoigne, the pioneer astronomers who laid the...
in 1675 although it is often credited to Tompion's successor George Graham
George Graham (clockmaker)
George Graham was an English clockmaker, inventor, and geophysicist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.He was born to George Graham in Kirklinton, Cumberland. A Friend like his mentor Thomas Tompion, Graham left Cumberland in 1688 for London to work with Tompion...
who popularized it in 1715. In the anchor escapement the swing of the pendulum pushes the escape wheel backward during part of its cycle. This 'recoil' disturbs the motion of the pendulum, causing inaccuracy, and reverses the direction of the gear train, causing backlash
Backlash (engineering)
In mechanical engineering, backlash, sometimes called lash or play, is clearance between mating components, sometimes described as the amount of lost motion due to clearance or slackness when movement is reversed and contact is re-established...
and introducing high loads into the system, leading to friction and wear. The main advantage of the deadbeat is that it eliminated recoil.
In the deadbeat, the pallets have a second curved "locking" face on them, concentric about the pivot on which the anchor turns. During the extremities of the pendulum's swing, the escape wheel tooth rests against this locking face, providing no impulse to the pendulum, which prevents recoil. Near the bottom of the pendulum's swing the tooth slides off the locking face onto the angled "impulse" face, giving the pendulum a push, before the pallet releases the tooth. This was the first escapement to separate the locking and impulse actions of the escapement. The deadbeat was first used in precision regulator clocks, but due to greater accuracy superseded the anchor in the 19th century. It is used in almost all modern pendulum clocks. The deadbeat escapement does rely on a quality wheel train to receive constant impulse. Variations in the impulse will affect the pendulum arc and the accuracy of the clock. For this reason it is not always the best choice for cheap mass produced clocks, or for tower clocks with large hands exposed to the outside weather.
Detent escapement
The detent or chronometer escapement is a type of detached escapement, and was most commonly used on marine chronometerMarine chronometer
A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...
s, although some precision watches during the 19th century also used it. The early form was invented by Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy was a French clockmaker. He was the inventor of the detent escapement, the temperature-compensated balance and the isochronous balance spring. His developments are considered as the foundation of the modern chronometer...
in 1748, who created a pivoted dentent type of escapement. The invention was then generalized in 1783 by Thomas Earnshaw
Thomas Earnshaw
Thomas Earnshaw was an English watchmaker who following John Arnold's earlier work, further simplified the process of marine chronometer production, making them available to the general public...
with his standard spring-detent escapement (John Arnold
John Arnold
John Arnold was an English watchmaker and inventor.John Arnold was the first to design a watch that was both practical and accurate, and also brought the term "Chronometer" in to use in its modern sense, meaning a precision timekeeper...
created a variant, patented in 1779, as did Ferdinand Berthoud
Ferdinand Berthoud
Ferdinand Berthoud was a Swiss chronometer-maker.-Career:He was born at Plancemont, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Having served his apprenticeship with his brother, Jean-Henri, a pendulum maker, he set up a clockmaking business in Paris in 1745 and gained a great reputation for the excellence and...
, but the Earnshaw design was the one generally adopted) and used until mechanical chronometers became obsolete in the 1970s. They could be made far more accurate than lever escapements, due to the virtual absence of sliding friction between the escape tooth and the pallet during impulse. Yet they were extremely fragile, not self-starting, and harder to manufacture in volume. Unlike the lever escapement, the impulse to the balance occurs at every other swing. Usually a balance making 4 swings per second with a helical balance spring was used.
Cylinder escapement
The cylinder escapement was an improvement over the verge escapement in terms of time keeping abilities, but it was not easy to manufacture, was somewhat fragile and the escape wheel was in constant contact with the balance which caused it to need regular cleaning due to wear. It was commonly used by the French watchmakers, although the Swiss also used it quite a bit.Duplex escapement
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
around 1700, improved by Jean Baptiste Dutertre and Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy was a French clockmaker. He was the inventor of the detent escapement, the temperature-compensated balance and the isochronous balance spring. His developments are considered as the foundation of the modern chronometer...
, and put in final form by Thomas Tryer, who patented it in 1782. It was used in quality English pocketwatches from about 1790 to 1860, and in the Waterbury, a cheap American 'everyman's' watch, during 1880-1898.
In the duplex, as in the chronometer escapement to which it has similarities, the balance wheel only receives an impulse during one of the two swings in its cycle. The escape wheel has two sets of teeth (hence the name 'duplex'); long locking teeth project from the side of the wheel, and short impulse teeth stick up axially from the top. The cycle starts with a locking tooth resting against the ruby disk. As the balance wheel swings counterclockwise through its center position, the notch in the ruby disk releases the tooth. As the escape wheel turns, the pallet is in just the right position to receive a push from an impulse tooth. Then the next locking tooth drops onto the ruby roller and stays there while the balance wheel completes its cycle and swings back clockwise (CW), and the process repeats. During the CW swing, the impulse tooth falls momentarily into the ruby roller notch again, but isn't released.
The duplex is a frictional rest escapement; the balance is never totally free from the escapement because of the tooth resting against the roller. As in the chronometer, there is little sliding friction during impulse since pallet and impulse tooth are moving almost parallel, so little lubrication is needed. The duplex is capable of accuracy at least equal to the lever escapement, and perhaps approaching the chronometer.
However it lost favor to the lever; its tight tolerances and sensitivity to shock made duplex watches unsuitable for active people. Like the chronometer, it is not self-starting and is vulnerable to "setting;" if a sudden jar stops the balance during its CW swing, it can't get started again.
Lever escapement
Lever escapement
The lever escapement is a key component of the typical movement found in most mechanical wristwatches, pocket watches and many small mechanical non-pendulum clocks....
, invented by Thomas Mudge in 1750, has been used in the vast majority of watches since the 19th century. Its advantages are (1)the balance wheel is more "detached" or independent than in the cylinder or duplex escapements; it is only in contact with the lever during the short impulse period when the balance swings through its center position, increasing accuracy, and (2) it is a self-starting escapement, so if the watch is shaken so that the balance wheel stops, it will automatically start again. The original form was the rack lever escapement, in which the lever and the balance wheel were always in contact via a gear rack on the lever. Later, it was realized that all the teeth from the gears could be removed except one, and this created the detached lever escapement. British watchmakers used the English detached lever, in which the lever was at right angles to the balance wheel. Later Swiss and American manufacturers used the inline lever, in which the lever is inline between the balance wheel and the escape wheel; this is the form used in modern watches. In 1867 Georges Frederic Roskopf
Georges Frederic Roskopf
Georges F. Roskopf , the inventor of the pin-pallet escapement, was born in Germany and became a naturalized Swiss citizen.- Early life and introduction :...
invented an inexpensive, less accurate form called the Roskopf or pin-pallet escapement, which was used in cheap "dollar watch
Dollar watch
A dollar watch was a pocket watch or later, a wristwatch, that sold for about one dollar.The sale of such watches began in 1892 by the watchmakers Ingersoll Watch Company, Waterbury Clock Company, and New Haven. Later, Western Clock in 1899 and the E. Ingraham Company also began manufacturing them...
es" in the early 20th century and is still used in cheap alarm clock
Alarm clock
An alarm clock is a clock that is designed to make a loud sound at a specific time. The primary use of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they are sometimes used for other reminders as well. To stop the sound, a button or handle on the clock is pressed; but...
s and kitchen timers.
Grasshopper escapement
A rare but interesting mechanical escapement is John HarrisonJohn Harrison
John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...
's grasshopper escapement
Grasshopper escapement
The grasshopper escapement is an unusual, low-friction escapement for pendulum clocks invented by British clockmaker John Harrison around 1722. An escapement, part of every mechanical clock, is the mechanism that causes the clock's gears to move forward by a fixed distance at regular intervals and...
. In this escapement, the pendulum is driven by two hinged arms (pallets). As the pendulum swings, the end of one arm catches on the escape wheel and drives it slightly backwards; this releases the other arm which moves out of the way to allow the escape wheel to pass. When the pendulum swings back again, the other arm catches the wheel, pushes it back and releases the first arm and so on. The grasshopper escapement is more difficult to manufacture than other escapements and is something of a rarity. Grasshopper escapements made by Harrison in the 18th century are still operating. Most escapements wear far more quickly, and waste far more energy.
Gravity escapement
A gravity escapement uses a small weight or a weak spring to give an impulse directly to the pendulum. The earliest form consisted of two arms which were pivoted very close to the suspension spring of the pendulum with one arm on each side of the pendulum. Each arm carried a small dead beat pallet with an angled plane leading to it. When the pendulum lifted one arm far enough its pallet would release the escape wheel. Almost immediately another tooth on the escape wheel would start to slide up the angle face on the other arm thereby lifting the arm. It would reach the pallet and stop. The other arm meanwhile was still in contact with pendulum and coming down again to a point lower than it had started from. This lowering of the arm provides the impulse to the pendulum. The design was developed steadily from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. It eventually became the escapement of choice for turret clockTurret clock
A Turret clock is a clock mounted in a tower or turret, usually to show the current time on a dial with hand or to announce the time by strike, or both. It can also have more than one dial to show days, moon phases, and other astronomical data.-Sundials:...
s and has recently been perfected in the inertially-detached gravity escapement invented by James Arnfield. This frees the pendulum from any part in unlocking the clock train; all it does is lift a gravity arm and then later on part company from it at a lower point. They part company because the gravity arm comes into contact with, and unlocks, the mechanism which re-sets the gravity arm in its raised position.
In the animation shown here the two "gravity arms" are coloured blue and red. The two three-legged escape wheels are also coloured blue and red. They work in two parallel planes so that the blue wheel only impacts the locking block on the blue arm and the red wheel only impacts the red arm. In a real escapement these impacts give rise to loud audible "ticks" and these are indicated by the appearance of a * beside the locking blocks. The three black lifting pins are key to the operation of the escapement. They cause the weighted gravity arms to be raised by an amount indicated by the pair of parallel lines on each side of the escapement. This gain in potential energy is the energy given to the pendulum on each cycle. For the Trinity College Cambridge Clock a mass of around 50 grams is lifted through 3mm each 1.5 seconds - which works out to 1 mW of power. The driving power from the falling weight is about 12 mW, so there is a substantial excess of power used to drive the escapement. Much of this energy is dissipated in the acceleration and deceleration of the frictional "fly" attached to the escape wheels.
Co-axial escapement
Invented around 1974 and patented 1980 by British watchmaker George Daniels, the co-axial escapement is one of the few new watch escapements adopted commercially in modern times. It is a modification of the lever that has some features of the detent escapement. Its main advantage is that through a complicated system of 3 pallets that separates the locking function from the impulse, it is able to avoid the sliding friction of the lever escapement, making lubrication of the pallets unnecessary. Purchasers no longer buy mechanical watches primarily for their accuracy, so manufacturers had little interest in investing in the tooling required, although finally Omega adopted it in 1990. While low-friction escapements existed already, they were too large for small "movements" (as watch-work is referred to).
Electromechanical escapements
In the late 19th century, electromechanical escapements were developed for pendulum clocks. In these, a switch or phototubePhototube
A phototube is a type of gas-filled or vacuum tube that is extremely sensitive to light in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.-Operating principles:...
energised an electromagnet
Electromagnet
An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off...
for a brief section of the pendulum's swing. On some clocks the pulse of electricity that drove the pendulum also drove a plunger to move the gear train.
Hipp clock
In the middle of the 19th century Matthias HippMatthias Hipp
Matthäus Hipp also Matthias or Mathias was a German clockmaker and inventor who lived in Switzerland....
invented a switch for a clock which was impulsed electro-magnetically. The pendulum drove a ratchet wheel via a pawl on the pendulum rod and the ratchet wheel drove the rest of the clock train to indicate the time. The pendulum was not impulsed on every swing or even at a set interval of time. It was only impulsed when its arc of swing had decayed below a certain level. As well as the counting pawl, the pendulum carried a small vane, known as a Hipp's toggle, pivoted at the top, which was completely free to swing. It was placed so that it dragged across a triangular polished block with a vee-groove in the top of it. When the arc of swing of the pendulum was large enough, the vane crossed the groove and swung free on the other side. If the arc was too small the vane never left the far side of the groove, and when the pendulum swung back it pushed the block strongly downwards. The block carried a contact which completed the circuit to the electromagnet which impulsed the pendulum. The pendulum was only impulsed as it required it.
This type of clock was widely used as a master clock
Master clock
A master clock is a precision clock that provides timing signals to synchronize slave clocks as part of a clock network. The master clock in such installations is controlled by an accurate quartz crystal oscillator, usually referenced to an external frequency standard such as MSF, which is part of...
in large buildings to control numerous slave clocks. Most telephone exchanges used such a clock to control timed events such as were needed to control the set up and charging of telephone calls by issuing pulses of varying durations such as every second, six seconds and so on.
Free pendulum clock
In the 20th century William Hamilton Shortt invented a free pendulum clock, patented in September 1921 and manufactured by the Synchronome Company, with an accuracy of one hundredth of a second a day. In this system the timekeeping "master" pendulum, whose rod is made from a special steel alloy with 36% nickel called InvarInvar
Invar, also known generically as FeNi36 , is a nickel steel alloy notable for its uniquely low coefficient of thermal expansion . The name, Invar, comes from the word invariable, referring to its lack of expansion or contraction with temperature changes.It was invented in 1896 by Swiss scientist...
whose length changes very little with temperature, swings as free of external influence as possible sealed in a vacuum chamber and does no work. It is in mechanical contact with its escapement for only a fraction of a second every 30 seconds. A secondary "slave" pendulum turns a ratchet, which triggers an electromagnet slightly less than every thirty seconds. This electromagnet releases a gravity lever onto the escapement above the master pendulum. A fraction of a second later (but exactly every 30 seconds), the motion of the master pendulum releases the gravity lever to fall farther. In the process, the gravity lever gives a tiny impulse to the master pendulum, which keeps that pendulum swinging. The gravity lever falls onto a pair of contacts, completing a circuit that does several things:
- energizes a second electromagnet to raise the gravity lever above the master pendulum to its top position,
- sends a pulse to activate one or more clock dials, and
- sends a pulse to a synchronizing mechanism that keeps the slave pendulum in step with the master pendulum.
Since it is the slave pendulum that releases the gravity lever, this synchronization is vital to the functioning of the clock. The slave clock is set to run slightly slow and the re-set circuit for the gravity arm activates a pivoted arm which just engages with the tip of a blade spring on the pendulum of the slave clock. If the slave clock has lost too much time its blade spring pushes against the arm and this accelerates the clock. The amount of this gain is such that the blade spring doesn't engage on the next cycle but does on the next again. This form of clock became a standard for use in observatories (roughly 100 such clocks were manufactured), and was the first clock capable of detecting small variations in the speed of Earth's rotation.
The synchronizing mechanism used a small spring attached to the shaft of the slave pendulum and an electromagnetic armature that would catch the spring if the slave pendulum was running slightly late, thus shortening the period of the slave pendulum for one swing. The slave pendulum was adjusted to run slightly slow, such that on approximately every other synchronization pulse the spring would be caught by the armature.
See also
- Co-axial escapementCo-axial escapementCo-axial escapement is a type of modern watch escapement mechanism invented by English watchmaker George Daniels.-Overview:Invented around 1974 and patented 1980 by English watchmaker George Daniels, the Co-axial escapement is a modification of the lever escapement with some features of the detent...
- Galileo's escapementGalileo's escapementGalileo's escapement is a design for a clock escapement, invented by Galileo Galilei.While observing, and timing with his pulse, the swinging of lamps in the cathedral at Pisa, Galileo realized that their apparent isochronicity could be used for timekeeping...
- Grasshopper escapementGrasshopper escapementThe grasshopper escapement is an unusual, low-friction escapement for pendulum clocks invented by British clockmaker John Harrison around 1722. An escapement, part of every mechanical clock, is the mechanism that causes the clock's gears to move forward by a fixed distance at regular intervals and...
- HorologyHorologyHorology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...
- Lever escapementLever escapementThe lever escapement is a key component of the typical movement found in most mechanical wristwatches, pocket watches and many small mechanical non-pendulum clocks....
- Master clockMaster clockA master clock is a precision clock that provides timing signals to synchronize slave clocks as part of a clock network. The master clock in such installations is controlled by an accurate quartz crystal oscillator, usually referenced to an external frequency standard such as MSF, which is part of...
- Riefler escapementRiefler escapementThe Riefler escapement is a mechanical escapement for precision pendulum clocks invented and patented by German instrument maker Sigmund Riefler in 1889...
- Su SongSu SongSu Song was a renowned Chinese polymath who specialized himself as a statesman, astronomer, cartographer, horologist, pharmacologist, mineralogist, zoologist, botanist, mechanical and architectural engineer, poet, antiquarian, and ambassador of the Song Dynasty .Su Song was the engineer of a...
- TourbillonTourbillonIn horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
External links
- Mark Headrick's horology page, with animated pictures of many escapements
- Performance Of The Daniels Coaxial Escapement, Horological Journal, August 2004
- Watch and Clock Escapements, The Keystone (magazine), 1904, via Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
: "A Complete Study in Theory and Practice of the Lever, Cylinder and Chronometer Escapements, Together with a Brief Account of the Origin and Evolution of the Escapement in Horology." - US Patent number 5140565, issued 23 March 1992, for a cycloidal pendulum similar to that of Huygens
- findarticles.com: Obituary of Professor Edward Hall, The Independent (London), 16 August 2001
- American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute, non-profit trade association
- Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH, watch industry trade association