Quite ingenious how you used the pillow blocks, belts and pulleys, and the T-slot extrusions to isolate the going train from the changing escapements. The Grasshopper escapement never ceases to amaze. Thanks for sharing this with us.
What a great video, it was extremely informative. Nice job on accomplishing what you wanted to do by finding a way to build what you wanted. Thanks for taking the time to post this.
My late Father build several Clocks, as a Kid I never appreciated them, but they fascinate me now. Now I'm retired, I should have some time to restore one of two of them.
Nice setup for trialing different designs, though you may want to be careful with the off center pendulum for smaller builds, it can affect beat timing. For the Pin Wheel it's not actually required to have both pallet in the same pin space, you can stagger them over two or more spacings to increase your pallet width to the arc of escapement wheel motion. Rounding/angling the falloff edge of the pallets can give you a hair more (as long as it's past the initial contact point)
You are absolutely correct on the staggered pallets for the pinwheel. I remember struggling to squeeze them both into one pin space. I'm inspired to remake that escapement arm. I didn't put much effort into make these escapements into accurate timing devices. It was more of a exercise in building and learning. If they ran continuously and had a nice "tick", I was content. Thanks for your suggestion.
@@jeffg8232 if that's what "not much effort" looks like, you're already ahead of half the working clock restorers =) PS the PTFE tape solution is inspired, and don't let any traditionalist tell you otherwise. Function > Form 👍
I was trying to visualize the pinwheel escapement with a 1 pin and separation distance to see if I could eliminate the drop that you need to have to let the pin through. I sketched and found moving one arm a pin up doesn't solve the problem because on the return, the mechanism bumps into the pin and stops the pendulum. I'm trying to come up with an escapement with minimal friction or impact. I also thought about a pin on the pendulum arm that follows a grooved track in an escapement wheel (roughly looking like a routed sinewave in the side or edge of a wooden disc). The only problem is it locks the pendulum into one amplitude but it might actually work because it's quite difficult to force the pendulum to wiggle faster than its natural resonant frequency. If I had two rollers on the pendulum arm, I could make them roll along the edge of a wavy track.
In developing these escapement models, friction was one of my major enemies. Getting that little nudge of energy back into the pendulum reliably was difficult when friction would slow things down, especially when working with wood surfaces. I really liked the grasshopper movement because the pin just slightly rotates on the catch point, but doesn't slide. I'm also interested in gravity escapements. They appear to have minimal sliding components. Your pin-in-groove idea is going to be a challenge in many aspects. Please make a video if you succeed.
Thks & interesting, A clock is just an oscillator in-general. ?Could you tell me the crux purpose of an escapement? For example maybe the escapement converts oscillation motion (ex: pendulum) into a constant rotational/angular speed (ex: clock hands).
The escapement is the system to generate a constant beat or tempo (in musical terms). All the other gears in a clock are a system to count those beats. If your escapement ticks once per second, then you need gears to make 60X60 = 3600 ticks to drive the minute hand exactly 1 rotation to indicate 1 hour. I think of gears in terms of a digital divide by "n" logic circuit. Do a Google search on clock gear ratios, and you'll see some good articles on the choice of gears use in typical clocks.
@@jeffg8232 Well-Explained & thks; I just watched some inspiring Foucault's Pendulum & gyroscope videos. The earth rotates around once a day & in-theory a gyroscope always points in one direction in space relative to the-stars. An electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal is kinda-like an ugly free-gyro. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I'm going to try to use an electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal as a cool sidereal clock. The gyro should appear to rotate once a day (minus 4minutes for sidereal time & fingers-crossed).
Yes, 32 pins is unusual, but this was just an exercise in building escapements. I have a limited number of tools, and no 3d printing, CNC, or anything for precise saw cuts. That's why I used a pin wheel. I used 32 because is a power of 2, and I could lay out the wheel by bisecting right angles with a compass. These would never be clocks since the weight needs rewinding every 8 houses.
I really didn't build these escapements for time accuracy. It was an exercise in design and building. The aluminum pendulum would make them very temperature sensitive, and the weight needs to be wound about every 8 hours. However, I did make a digital "tick counter" to compare the swing of a pendulum to a 1.843200 MHz time reference. It can show long term drift of a pendulum clock. Maybe I will do a video on that.
I never really measured them. Each escapement runs on the same wheel and same pendulum, so I assume they're about the same, to first order. The weight drops 12" per hour, so It's only good for about 5 hours until the weight hits the floor. I'd need more gears and heavier weights to even get it to run 24 hours.
I didn't build these for timekeeping performance, rather as a building and learning experience. I've made no attempt to measure the stability of these escapements. The Galileo was the most difficult to get working, and the grasshopper was the easiest. I like the grasshopper because it is the most satisfying to watch. Stay tuned. I am starting to work on a video of a vintage regulator clock that takes the performance prize.
@@jeffg8232 - Thank you for the reply. I hope that clockwork can make a comeback and replace batteries for a lot of simple home devices. Any advice on fitting clockwork mechanisms into larger projects?
@@christopherd.winnan8701 Wow! You're on your own for that. No idea what devices you would like to convert, but these escapements wouldn't go far. You have to wind them every 8 hours or so. Good Luck.
Amazing design. I see where Kevin gets his smarts!
Quite ingenious how you used the pillow blocks, belts and pulleys, and the T-slot extrusions to isolate the going train from the changing escapements. The Grasshopper escapement never ceases to amaze. Thanks for sharing this with us.
These are very well designed and it was helpful for me to see them. Thank you for sharing.
What a great video, it was extremely informative. Nice job on accomplishing what you wanted to do by finding a way to build what you wanted. Thanks for taking the time to post this.
Thank you for your time. I am just learning the same things about clocks. This helps a lot.
I learn the most by building things. It immerses you into all the details, and shows what is important.
Great Job!!! Thank You for the Ideas.
Gorgeous and ingenious, I love your work.
Nice. I like the quiet one best!
Great work and great video! Well done.
My late Father build several Clocks, as a Kid I never appreciated them, but they fascinate me now.
Now I'm retired, I should have some time to restore one of two of them.
Great project . I like you work .waiting to see more ..👍
Great mechanics builds 👍
great job, well done, keep it up
Nice setup for trialing different designs, though you may want to be careful with the off center pendulum for smaller builds, it can affect beat timing.
For the Pin Wheel it's not actually required to have both pallet in the same pin space, you can stagger them over two or more spacings to increase your pallet width to the arc of escapement wheel motion. Rounding/angling the falloff edge of the pallets can give you a hair more (as long as it's past the initial contact point)
You are absolutely correct on the staggered pallets for the pinwheel. I remember struggling to squeeze them both into one pin space. I'm inspired to remake that escapement arm. I didn't put much effort into make these escapements into accurate timing devices. It was more of a exercise in building and learning. If they ran continuously and had a nice "tick", I was content. Thanks for your suggestion.
@@jeffg8232 if that's what "not much effort" looks like, you're already ahead of half the working clock restorers =) PS the PTFE tape solution is inspired, and don't let any traditionalist tell you otherwise. Function > Form 👍
I was trying to visualize the pinwheel escapement with a 1 pin and separation distance to see if I could eliminate the drop that you need to have to let the pin through. I sketched and found moving one arm a pin up doesn't solve the problem because on the return, the mechanism bumps into the pin and stops the pendulum. I'm trying to come up with an escapement with minimal friction or impact. I also thought about a pin on the pendulum arm that follows a grooved track in an escapement wheel (roughly looking like a routed sinewave in the side or edge of a wooden disc). The only problem is it locks the pendulum into one amplitude but it might actually work because it's quite difficult to force the pendulum to wiggle faster than its natural resonant frequency. If I had two rollers on the pendulum arm, I could make them roll along the edge of a wavy track.
In developing these escapement models, friction was one of my major enemies. Getting that little nudge of energy back into the pendulum reliably was difficult when friction would slow things down, especially when working with wood surfaces. I really liked the grasshopper movement because the pin just slightly rotates on the catch point, but doesn't slide. I'm also interested in gravity escapements. They appear to have minimal sliding components. Your pin-in-groove idea is going to be a challenge in many aspects. Please make a video if you succeed.
Thank you very much!
Good job!
Very cool.
Bravo
Thks & interesting,
A clock is just an oscillator in-general. ?Could you tell me the crux purpose of an escapement?
For example maybe the escapement converts oscillation motion (ex: pendulum) into a constant rotational/angular speed (ex: clock hands).
The escapement is the system to generate a constant beat or tempo (in musical terms). All the other gears in a clock are a system to count those beats. If your escapement ticks once per second, then you need gears to make 60X60 = 3600 ticks to drive the minute hand exactly 1 rotation to indicate 1 hour. I think of gears in terms of a digital divide by "n" logic circuit. Do a Google search on clock gear ratios, and you'll see some good articles on the choice of gears use in typical clocks.
@@jeffg8232
Well-Explained & thks;
I just watched some inspiring Foucault's Pendulum & gyroscope videos. The earth rotates around once a day & in-theory a gyroscope always points in one direction in space relative to the-stars. An electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal is kinda-like an ugly free-gyro.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I'm going to try to use an electric motor mounted on a 3axis gimbal as a cool sidereal clock. The gyro should appear to rotate once a day (minus 4minutes for sidereal time & fingers-crossed).
32 pins on the escapement wheel? That’s an unusual number for horological purposes.
Yes, 32 pins is unusual, but this was just an exercise in building escapements. I have a limited number of tools, and no 3d printing, CNC, or anything for precise saw cuts. That's why I used a pin wheel. I used 32 because is a power of 2, and I could lay out the wheel by bisecting right angles with a compass. These would never be clocks since the weight needs rewinding every 8 houses.
@ powers of two rule :-). Too bad the ancient Babylonians used base 60 instead of binary.
noce innpvative clock. how accurate..?
your grasshopper looks pretty nice..
Maybe you could do a video that monitors the precision
I really didn't build these escapements for time accuracy. It was an exercise in design and building. The aluminum pendulum would make them very temperature sensitive, and the weight needs to be wound about every 8 hours. However, I did make a digital "tick counter" to compare the swing of a pendulum to a 1.843200 MHz time reference. It can show long term drift of a pendulum clock. Maybe I will do a video on that.
lovely
Hello Jeff. What was the longest run time? And which escapement was it? Thanks!
I never really measured them. Each escapement runs on the same wheel and same pendulum, so I assume they're about the same, to first order. The weight drops 12" per hour, so It's only good for about 5 hours until the weight hits the floor. I'd need more gears and heavier weights to even get it to run 24 hours.
@@jeffg8232 Ok thanks Jeff, much appreciated.
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼
Which one had the best performance?
I didn't build these for timekeeping performance, rather as a building and learning experience. I've made no attempt to measure the stability of these escapements. The Galileo was the most difficult to get working, and the grasshopper was the easiest. I like the grasshopper because it is the most satisfying to watch. Stay tuned. I am starting to work on a video of a vintage regulator clock that takes the performance prize.
@@jeffg8232 - Thank you for the reply. I hope that clockwork can make a comeback and replace batteries for a lot of simple home devices. Any advice on fitting clockwork mechanisms into larger projects?
@@christopherd.winnan8701 Wow! You're on your own for that. No idea what devices you would like to convert, but these escapements wouldn't go far. You have to wind them every 8 hours or so. Good Luck.
@@jeffg8232 - I am more interested in the 30 day mechanism that you used for your moon clock to simulate the tides. Thanks for the great vid.
Number 2
I'm trying to get into a hobby.
He calls aluminium bruh 😅
Jeff G ..
What is your Name…?
I am Jeff G Also.., and I build clock escapements, and other strange stuff..😹😹👍🏻⚙️🔧🪛
( The Jeff Galey Channel )