Fascinating reasons for a Erwin Sattler clock
Erwin Sattler – Research and Development
Many months, our clockmakers, technicians and engineers worked on the test-bench.
To determin the influence of temperature and pressure to different length of the pendulum, the size and shape of the pendulum weight and our barometric compensation, it was necessarry to create an hermetic tank, that keeps its preasure and temperature over a long time (several weeks) with very minor alterations.
[ Pendulum Test-Bench ]
Christian Schaffer and J.Münch have done most of the work to establish the testrack.
The massive foundation of concrete pics up the airproof glas cylinder.
[ Sideview of the dome]
The removable ring of solid brass is the only possibility to install the pendulum.The 3 bearings enable a precise orientation of the complete tank. Wind-Up Motor and Light Barrier. Never ending Wind-Up of Huygenss.
[ Wind-up motor and light barrier ]
Between the plates the winding motor with the polished pinion and the gold plated gear is visible. From the side you can see the cables, witch lead to the light barrier for the control unit of the winding mechanism.
[ Never ending Wind-up of Huygens ]
To provide energie to the clock works without disturbing the results of the measuring, a never ending wind-up, designed by Chrisstian Huygens, was installed. So it is possible to wind up without opening the tank.The installed system provides allways constant force to the movement.
[ Light Barrier to measure the exact frequency ]
The very precise time signal calculated from 11 GPS - satellites is used to control the frequency of the pendulum with the help of 2 light barriers.
[ Air preasure valve ]
With the help of a vacuum pump the airpreasure can be adjusted in a wide range to test the influence of air pressure to the pendulum' speed.
