Designed and built as a one-off by Nigel Loller.
Constructed from welded stainless steel and acetal.
The clock is designed to be wall mounted or can placed on a table or stand. It may also be used outdoors.
Description — Photos — Videos
General Description of the Clock
Water clock, made from polished 316 stainless steel and acetal.
The power for this clock comes from a laminar flow water jet which ‘arrives’ in the collector with an overflow bypass tube, and is then directed onto the right hand side of the escapement pin wheel. The foam band around the escapement wheel holds the bypass corrected weight of water (30 grams) to allow the clock to run easily, but not to supply so much power that the escapement is ‘hammered’.
The shape of the clock is arranged to catch any splashes, to support the lam-jet, and to fit the pump and 10Ltr of water all while having to look beautiful !
The escapement wheel has 15 pins and rotates twice every minute … the escapement wheel drive pin engages and moves the 60 tooth gear therefore twice a minute needing only a 2 to 1 reduction for the minute hand spindle, from which is driven the hour hand with a further reduction of 12 to 1.
The laminar jet needs an air filled expansion chamber to dampen the significant ‘pulses’ that come from the pump, and is visible on the LHS under the jet.
This is my second clock, and was an engineering challenge to say the least, taking me over three weeks to construct.
Description — Photos — Videos
Videos – (with transcript below)
Transcript of video commentary:
“Here is my new clock. It is powered by a laminar flow water jet. The water is guided down onto this escapement wheel, which has a foam ring around it, and the fact that the foam is absorbing the water on the heavy side makes the whole clock run. The weight difference between the water jet side of the foam and the dry side is what supplies the power. It is about 40g of weight which is plenty, in fact I had to bring the jet size down a little bit, as you can see. The rest of it is similar, but not identical to my previous water powered clock. Being designed with a slightly more conventional clock movement it needs a longer pendulum. The water is held in the bottom of this “C” shaped, or moon shaped tank, and the rest is as we see it, all mirror polished stainless steel, with acetal gears.
“The escapement wheel drives the clock from the single peg drive, rotating once every 30 seconds, so from then on I had to make a 2:1 gearbox to get to the front set of gears which is 12:1.
“The laminar jet is a 2″ stainless tube with approximately 200 small straws in it, and the tube is all welded apart from the removable bottom end cap. It has also got a centre light tube fitted so that with an optional small led light, at night, a flash of light pulses through the laminar jet of water, which looks remarkably good. The collector has a baffle in it to stop any splashing, as you can see it is dry. Interestingly because of that peg drive, the minute hand moves half a minute every 30 seconds, in one movement, because the rest of the clock is motionless until that peg is driven.
I’m very pleased with it. It’s a big technical step to try and marry everything up – it works reliably and keeps excellent time.”