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Balance Wheel
A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock. It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a spiral torsion spring, known as the balance spring or ''hairspring''. It is driven by the escapement, which transforms the rotating motion of the watch gear train into impulses delivered to the balance wheel. Each swing of the wheel (called a "tick" or "beat") allows the gear train to advance a set amount, moving the hands forward. The balance wheel and hairspring together form a harmonic oscillator, which due to resonance oscillates preferentially at a certain rate, its resonant frequency or "beat", and resists oscillating at other rates. The combination of the mass of the balance wheel and the elasticity of the spring keep the time between each oscillation or "tick" very constant, accounting for its nearly universal use as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marine Chronometer
A marine chronometer is a precision timepiece that is carried on a ship and employed in the determination of the ship's position by celestial navigation. It is used to determine longitude by comparing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or in the modern world its successor Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and the time at the current location found from observations of celestial bodies. When first developed in the 18th century, it was a major technical achievement, as accurate knowledge of the time over a long sea voyage was vital for effective navigation, lacking electronic or communications aids. The first true chronometer was the life work of one man, John Harrison, spanning 31 years of persistent experimentation and testing that revolutionized naval (and later aerial) navigation and enabling the Age of Discovery and Colonialism to accelerate. The term ''chronometer'' was coined from the Greek words '' χρόνος (chronos)'' (meaning time) and ''meter'' (meaning measure) in 1713 by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floating Balance Escapement
Floating may refer to: * a type of dental work performed on horse teeth * use of an isolation tank * the guitar-playing technique where chords are sustained rather than scratched * ''Floating'' (play), by Hugh Hughes * Floating (psychological phenomenon), slipping into altered states * Floating exchange rate, a market-valued currency * Floating voltage, and floating ground, a voltage or ground in an electric circuit that is not connected to the Earth or another reference voltage * Floating point, a representation in computing of rational numbers most commonly associated with the IEEE 754 standard * ''Floating'' (film), a 1997 American drama film Albums and songs * ''Floating'' (Eloy album) (1974) * ''Floating'' (Ketil Bjørnstad album) (2005) * ''Floating'' (EP), a 1991 EP by Bill Callahan * "Floating" (The Moody Blues song) (1969) * "Floating" (Megan Rochell song) (2006) * "Floating" (Jape song) (2004) * "Floating", a song by Jolin Tsai from the 2000 album '' Don't Stop' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quartz Clock
Quartz clocks and quartz watches are timepieces that use an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks and watches are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than mechanical clocks. Generally, some form of digital logic counts the cycles of this signal and provides a numerical time display, usually in units of hours, minutes, and seconds. Since the 1980s, when the advent of solid-state digital electronics allowed them to be made compact and inexpensive, quartz timekeepers have become the world's most widely used timekeeping technology, used in most clocks and watches as well as computers and other appliances that keep time. Explanation Chemically, quartz is a specific form of a compound called silicon dioxide. Many materials can be formed into plates that will resonate. However, quartz is also a piezoelectric material: that is, when a quartz crystal is su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form ( native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from circa 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, circa 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beryllium
Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form minerals. Notable gemstones high in beryllium include beryl ( aquamarine, emerald) and chrysoberyl. It is a relatively rare element in the universe, usually occurring as a product of the spallation of larger atomic nuclei that have collided with cosmic rays. Within the cores of stars, beryllium is depleted as it is fused into heavier elements. Beryllium constitutes about 0.0004 percent by mass of Earth's crust. The world's annual beryllium production of 220 tons is usually manufactured by extraction from the mineral beryl, a difficult process because beryllium bonds strongly to oxygen. In structural applications, the combination of high flexural rigidity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity and low density (1.85 times that of water) ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glucydur
Glucydur is the trade name of a metal alloy with a low coefficient of thermal expansion, used for making balance wheels and other parts of mechanical watches. Glucydur is a beryllium bronze; an alloy of beryllium, copper and iron. In addition to its low coefficient of thermal expansion, its hardness (400 Brinell), nonmagnetizability, and resistance to deformation and damage make it suited for making precision parts that must have high dimensional stability. Glucydur is also resistant to corrosion; it is rather inert chemically. Glucydur was developed about the same time as another non-magnetic material, Nivarox Nivarox, also known as Nivarox - FAR SA is a Swiss company formed by a merger in 1984 between Nivarox SA and Fabriques d' Assortiments Réunis (FAR). It is currently owned by the Swatch Group. Nivarox is also the trade name of the metallic alloy fro .... References * . Technical article on construction of watch balance wheels, on watch repair website. Copper alloys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watch
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or other type of bracelet, including metal bands, leather straps or any other kind of bracelet. A pocket watch is designed for a person to carry in a pocket, often attached to a chain. Watches were developed in the 17th century from spring-powered clocks, which appeared as early as the 14th century. During most of its history the watch was a mechanical device, driven by clockwork, powered by winding a mainspring, and keeping time with an oscillating balance wheel. These are called ''mechanical watches''. In the 1960s the electronic ''quartz watch'' was invented, which was powered by a battery and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal. By the 1980s the quartz watch had taken over most of the market from the mechani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stopwatch
A stopwatch is a timepiece designed to measure the amount of time that elapses between its activation and deactivation. A large digital version of a stopwatch designed for viewing at a distance, as in a sports stadium, is called a stop clock. In manual timing, the clock is started and stopped by a person pressing a button. In fully automatic time, both starting and stopping are triggered automatically, by sensors. The timing functions are traditionally controlled by two buttons on the case. Pressing the top button starts the timer running, and pressing the button a second time stops it, leaving the elapsed time displayed. A press of the second button then resets the stopwatch to zero. The second button is also used to record ''split times'' or ''lap times''. When the split time button is pressed while the watch is running it allows the elapsed time to that point to be read, but the watch mechanism continues running to record total elapsed time. Pressing the split button a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timers
A timer is a specialized type of clock used for measuring specific time intervals. Timers can be categorized into two main types. The word "timer" is usually reserved for devices that counts down from a specified time interval, while devices that do the opposite, measuring elapsed time by counting upwards from zero, are called stopwatches. A simple example of the first type is an hourglass. Working method timers have two main groups: hardware and software timers. Most timers give an indication that the time interval that had been set has expired. Time switches, timing mechanisms that activate a switch, are sometimes also called "timers". Hardware Mechanical Mechanical use clockwork to measure time. Manual timers are typically set by turning a dial to the time interval desired; turning the dial stores energy in a mainspring to run the mechanism. They function similarly to a mechanical alarm clock; the energy in the mainspring causes a balance wheel to rotate back and forth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alarm Clock
An alarm clock (or sometimes just an alarm) is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of individuals at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they are sometimes used for other reminders as well. Most use sound; some use light or vibration. Some have sensors to identify when a person is in a light stage of sleep, in order to avoid waking someone who is deeply asleep, which causes tiredness, even if the person has had adequate sleep. To turn off the sound or light, a button or handle on the clock is pressed; most clocks automatically turn off the alarm if left unattended long enough. A classic analog alarm clock has an extra hand or inset dial that is used to specify the time at which the alarm will ring. Alarm clocks are also used in mobile phones, watches, and computers. Many alarm clocks have radio receivers that can be set to start playing at specified times, and are known as ''clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munition
Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapons that create the effect on a target (e.g., bullets and warheads). The purpose of ammunition is to project a force against a selected target to have an effect (usually, but not always, lethal). An example of ammunition is the firearm cartridge, which includes all components required to deliver the weapon effect in a single package. Until the 20th century, black powder was the most common propellant used but has now been replaced in nearly all cases by modern compounds. Ammunition comes in a great range of sizes and types and is often designed to work only in specific weapons systems. However, there are internationally recognized standards for certain ammunition types (e.g., 5.56×45mm NATO) that enable their use across different weapon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
