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@ramani-VR4O43 • Jan 12, 2015
The TTK Group in India had a collaboration with Westclox of USA. The Big Ben spring wound alarm clocks were made and marketed by TTK. I had my own in college in 1957. With all the modern devices the India unit was closed and all workers disbanded. I know one of them who is still around. Shall check if he has anything to say. Shall attempt to link you both up. -
@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 12, 2015
Excellent. I knew you going to be my Guru lol Thanks -
@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 12, 2015
Ok I spoke to a couple of clock works rebuilders or builders and they said I was crazy. But I do not think the application is. They were focused on the basic design application instead of the type of escapement I was asking them about. They shouldn't of done that. So now I start the search over . You see if you asked an engineer in 1960 if a car could travel 30 or 40 miles on a gal of gas he would of said no and that you were crazy in believing it to be. But we can go 30 miles easily on a gal. of gas today. See what I mean. I believe it can be done. I believe it's in new composite springs. Where the weight and retention is superior to whats presently out there. So I will keep going and looking and learning.
Any info on superior springs out there? -
@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 12, 2015
Ok one person returned an em from the NAWCC clocks and watches.
Quote:
I did some calculations. A clock spring holds about 0.01 w-h of power,
based on a similar weight driven clock.
It does this in a spring that is about 85 cm^3.
Now scale that up to a 42Kw-h storage to meet the 6 hours a day for
7 days of 1Kw.
That would be a spring of about 7.25 m^3 or in US terms,
about 220 feet by 220 feet by 220 feet.
As for regulating the power usage of the spring, an escapement
like piece would be very inefficient. Something like what is used
in a fusee clock would be more practical ( also quite large ). Another
way to deal with it would be to let the generator run at different
rpm, depending on the torque of the spring. Then throttle the
the load with something similar to a light dimmer ( only more voltage
and amperage ).
Still, we are back to the size of the spring, it will be quite a bit too much.
If there is a location that has hills near it, a more practical power
storage is to have reservoirs at the top and bottom. Pump the
water up for storage and let is run a turbine running back down.
This is a method used by power companies here, in the USA.
Tinker Dwight -
@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 12, 2015
Ok Here is his Fusee You see what needs to be learned here is a preconceived notion of what the goal is. A fusee evens the torque out. I didn't ask him about that. I didn't ask him to calculate the spring tension. I asked him for the best escapement design that could handle the large torque. He missed the cue. Be careful not to be blind as to what's being asked of you or you will miss the opportunity placed before you I fired him.
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@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 12, 2015