This will make sense later when I explain the idea of an escapement, the core a mechanical clock. Mechanically, a tick is an escape event, while a tock is a capture event. The tock is the sudden impact of an edge landing on a surface. The tick is an edge sliding against a surface. There is an irreversibility linked to friction at the very heart of pendulum clocks. There really is a difference in the sound the pendulum makes on the forward versus reverse swing arcs, because different things are happening. I now get why it’s tick-tock as the onomatopoeic phrase for the sound of a mechanical clock, rather than tick-tick. Here’s the wave form of the tick-tock (notice the slight irregularities and the clear difference between the tick and the tock)…Īnd finally here’s a short 10s clip of the visuals, with a bit of a close-up of the innards… ROKR clock Getting to Tick-Tock While I was tweeting about this, a few people mentioned they’d bought and abandoned this kit halfway, or built it but failed to get it running, which is a pity, since it is a very satisfying build. I’m going to walk through the highlights of the build in this post, mainly with an eye to interesting appreciative reflections, but I’ll also share a few frustration-avoidance tips for those who might want to actually build this kit. Having built this clock, suddenly the Big Mood of that era feels a lot clearer. I highly recommend this kit if you are in a mood to grok the headspace of the early scientific revolution circa 1600-1660, between Galileo and Huygens. So I am going to lead with a tick-tock sound clip, the hello world of this clock… hello world dot clock It strikes me (heh!) that the default identity of a clock should be the signal it generates, translated to a sound or flow, rather than what it looks like physically. Makes me feel a bit like a GOD who created LIFE out of lifeless bits of matter! □□. It makes a pleasantly organic tick-tock sound that I’m now addicted to. Fully wound-up it runs for about 5-6 hours before friction defeats it. Well, I finished building my ROKR kit clock, and it works. This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Clockmaking
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