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Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Charles K. Aked, Electrifying Time, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Science Museum, 15 December 1976 - 11 April 1977, A.H.S., Ticehurst, 1976
Dr. Matthaus Hipp of Neuchatel, 1813-1893, invented the famous Hipp Toggle system for maintaining a pendulum in motion. He actually stated that he first thought of the idea in his student days in 1834 but it was not until 1842 that he made the first clock using his famous system.
The arrangement consists of a freely pivoted trailer mounted on the pendulum which moves over a notched steel block fixed to a spring blade carrying an electric contact. When the amplitude of the pendulum swing falls below a fixed amount the trailer falls into the notch, and as the pendulum swing reverses the trailer is pressed down and the electric contact on the spring blade touches a fixed contact. Current then passes through an electromagnet mounted beneath the pendulum and attracts an armature fixed to the pendulum. Just before the vertical position the trailer is released from the notched block, the current ceases and the magnetic field from the electromagnet collapses, thus allowing the pendulum to pass freely after receiving a powerful impulse.
It was an ingenious and reliable system that was used, copied and reinvented by many eminent electrical horologists.
The May 1869 patent refered to on the pendulum probably relates to the system of distribution of impulses to slaves. This is facilitated by means of the contacts behind the dial which reverse the polarity of the current every full minute, a system that on the Continent came to be known as 'minute jumpers'.
Charles K. Aked, Electrifying Time, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Science Museum, 15 December 1976 - 11 April 1977, A.H.S., Ticehurst, 1976
Dr. Matthaus Hipp of Neuchatel, 1813-1893, invented the famous Hipp Toggle system for maintaining a pendulum in motion. He actually stated that he first thought of the idea in his student days in 1834 but it was not until 1842 that he made the first clock using his famous system.
The arrangement consists of a freely pivoted trailer mounted on the pendulum which moves over a notched steel block fixed to a spring blade carrying an electric contact. When the amplitude of the pendulum swing falls below a fixed amount the trailer falls into the notch, and as the pendulum swing reverses the trailer is pressed down and the electric contact on the spring blade touches a fixed contact. Current then passes through an electromagnet mounted beneath the pendulum and attracts an armature fixed to the pendulum. Just before the vertical position the trailer is released from the notched block, the current ceases and the magnetic field from the electromagnet collapses, thus allowing the pendulum to pass freely after receiving a powerful impulse.
It was an ingenious and reliable system that was used, copied and reinvented by many eminent electrical horologists.
The May 1869 patent refered to on the pendulum probably relates to the system of distribution of impulses to slaves. This is facilitated by means of the contacts behind the dial which reverse the polarity of the current every full minute, a system that on the Continent came to be known as 'minute jumpers'.