Operation Wall Clock

Watches either wall or not, despite being one of the most everyday objects stored inside a secret known by few.

The clock is a powerful machine that develops a power of 0.00000001 hp. Its construction requires up to 3500 different operations performed to tolerances up to 0.001 mm, or 1/50 the thickness of a human hair. Its moving parts made a tour of nearly 145,000 kilometers in a quarter century.

The basic movement of a wall clock consists of three mechanisms.

The first is the mainspring or motor. The second train wheels, a series of gears that reduce the rapid speed you need for the seconds at slower speeds required for the timer and schedule. Finally, the exhaust part that transmits the force of the mainspring through the gear train to a precise index.

Without the escapement mechanism, gears and hands would turn quickly to stop the mainspring. This control consists of the escape wheel, the pallet lever or exhaust, the wheel and the small spring. The two tiny fingers of escapement lever, integral with fork shaped sways from side to side, allowing the escape wheel advance a tooth with every swing wheel. In other words the ticking producing his watch.

The wheel oscillates five times per second 432,000 times a day, 157,680.000 times a year. The escapement wheel transmits the actual pressure to escape lever spring. This pushes the wheel, pulling the hair, which oscillate back behind the wheel at the rate of five times per second.


The controls of different clocks are basically the same, except for the power supply. In conventional watches, a spring unwinds rotates the gears, while the escapement mechanism regulates the speed. In the self-winding watches, the oscillating weight is used to keep the coiled spring. In electrical and electronic types, escape becomes the mechanism, and not only in a speed regulator. The electric type is activated by a battery and a moving coil. In the electronic type, the vibrations of a refiner fork spinning gears and maintain a constant speed at the same time.