How a Mechanical Watch Works
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2024
- Mechanical watches have no battery, microchip, or circuitry. Watch parts are machined to near perfection at microscopic sizes and tolerances and can produce accuracy within two to three seconds per day.
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I use Blender 3D to create these models. It's free and open source, and the community is amazing:
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Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:44 Crown
1:36 Mainspring
2:14 Wheel Train
2:57 Jewel Bearings
3:11 Motion Works
4:10 Escapement & Balance Wheel
6:38 Supporting Structure - Наука та технологія
Video corrections:
4:55 You can faintly see the ESCAPE WHEEL has a geared pivot underneath it that connects to the FOURTH WHEEL -- everything is connected all the way back to the MAINSPRING. I had a render error that made the gears not turn at the correct rate together, so they don't * appear * to be connected. But they are in a real watch.
Excellent representation. I have several mechanical watches and it's really nice to see the detail and get a clear explanation of the entire system. Thank you and congratulations on a lot of hard work.
Seeing the amount of detail you put into this animation is top notch. Kudos for a great job well done.
Am really tempted to screenshot each of the parts to try and make a physical copy myself, if you don't mind 😁😁
whoever CAD'd this, is a champion. Thank you so much.
Do you have a video for an automatic watch? Mine has a weight to wind the main spring and I'm curious how that part works as it's not in this video.
R,,,f,t.
The fact that hundreds of years ago someone’s mind was able to not only formulate this, but was them able to manufacture it by hand using archaic tools is absolutely mind boggling.
Must be special genius person
@@sakuraisp6974 Nah, it took hundreds of years to get to this point. Generations upon generations of artisans whose life was building clocks and other mechanisms.
in your mind there is a common bias in people, that our ancestors where dumb, they were not, thay had the same ingenuity since at least 200 thousand years
@@TheEdudoSeems weird to make assumptions about a strangers mind on the internet
@@CADClicker in general it is not
FINALLY someone explaining it with animations. Most Channels show expensive Shots of watches from the outside and start talking. Like it would help at all :/
i would argue that this will still leave people confused about how mainspring is releasing power... there is older video where its explained WAY better.... ua-cam.com/video/rL0_vOw6eCc/v-deo.html
@@Zoltan1251 I watched that old video to learn it too! It's great. I think where I shine is actually building real, working models of things. Educational models and visual metaphors (like the water hose example from that vid) are great teaching tools. But I've almost never seen educational videos that rebuild the real thing, outside of limited teaching mockups. We think sound waves are flat, squiggly lines and atoms are floating balls, where in reality they look quite different from the drawings used to teach them. My focus is education, yes, but I assume the viewer is smart and would enjoy seeing the real thing, which is something we rarely get to see.
@@animagraffs Your video creation is amazing! I can't even begin to conceive how much work and time you must have put into it! What I liked most (from the educational pov) is that the video really let's you understand and see the beauty, the art and the engineering genius that goes into watchmaking.
@@animagraffs dont get me wrong... video is amazing... i just watched many videos and i never understood how power is trasnferred from main spring...
i dont see it in this video either, so just for people to understand it better its always good to use education models... nobody will learn basic accounting from financial statement of megacorporation
@@Zoltan1251 Wow, that old video was amazing! Many thanks!
in case anyone's wondering, this is a Unitas 6497 handwind movement. this movement was originally designed for pocket watches. so it's quite big. it only fits into big watches (at least 43mm in diametre). that also means it's one of the easiest to take apart and study since the components are also proportionally big. and it's also one of the simplist in terms of complications. most watches nowadays have at least a winding rotor (an asymmetrical weighted rotor that winds the watch using the momentum of your wrist movement) and a date function (an additional 24-hour counter with 31 clicks per rotation). not to mention some of the more complex functions like chronograph (stopwatch), minute repeater (chimes the precise time to the minute) and tourbillon (a revolving escapement) etc. some more complicated watches can easily have 3 to 5 times more parts than the watch shown in this video. now imagine doing all those purely mechanically within the space of a wrist watch. then imagine these technologies existing 200 years ago. yes they did.
Hello Stan, I enjoyed quite much your explanation. I am an wristwatch enthusiastic, and I´d like to know a place where I can learn online this art. If you can help, I tnahks.
@@ruitrigo6273 you found your guy. Did he try to reach you?
A lot of the technology involving using gears to represent complex systems date back 1000 years or more. The Antikythera Mechanism from 200 BC used gears for an analog computer that showed eclipses and planet positions.
@@fallinginthed33p gears aren't what's ground breaking about watches. as you said complex geartrains existed ages ago. anotther example would be the ancient chinese inventing purely mechanical compass ("south-pointing chariot"}. that's a working differencial from 2 millennia ago.
what's amazing about mechanical watches is the invention of escapment for precision timekeeping, as well as miniturisation of parts enabled by precision manufacturing.
Totally agreed. 👍🏻😍
The only video explaining how an impulse from the tip of the escapement wheel is kicking the pallet fork and thus delivering energy to the hairspring. Good job guys.
I know a quartz watch is so much more accurate, but the artistry and engineering behind a mechanical watch is just so beautiful
Well the average quartz clock is more precise than the average mechanical, but I guess it is possible to make very, very precise mechanicals also - possibly beating common quartz clocks.
@@endreszatmari2302 only grand seiko's spring drive movement can get close to quartz accuracy
@@endreszatmari2302 Nope, not a correct guess. As said in the video, mechanical watches swing at about 6 times per second, give or take, but Quartz are measured in MHz (millions of oscillations per second), so a 5 dollar quarts watch is literally 1000000x more accurate than an average mechanic watch. Now how much more accurate can a “very precise” (and expensive) mechanical gear be? 100x better than the one shown in this video? I doubt it, but even then it’d still be 10000x worse than quartz.
@@Ahmetmhr Yeah it's basically a mechanical watch regulated by quartz
@@1c72 3-6 seconds off a day is what he said
Damn this is some complex engineering in such a small package on your wrist!!!
I can understand how this would appear complex to a simpleton.
Commander Fadds “simpleton” lmao ok we got a big brain boy over here
@@ushariblaeeq9428 I agree with Commander Fadds. How it works is not complicated. Basically everything inside a basic watch can be shown and explained in a 8 minute video. How it works is not complicated, but the engineering behind it, how it was designed, and how the manufacturing process was planned is probably mutch more complicated.
@@johnfadds6089 You've finished designing the spaceship to get us to Mars then?
@@johnfadds6089 Calm down, buddy. No one enjoys the company of an elitist.
I'm a amateur watchmaker. This is the absolute best and and complete description I've ever seen.
Well done
I am not a watchmaker of any kind but now I understand how a watch works and the job each part does in making an instrument that measures something that scientists are debating actually exists. wether time exists or not, time regulates our existence in this culture.
Any prove?
@@sakuraisp6974 some scientists say that time is only an illusion. other scientists say that time is the basis for reality. obviously, both can prove their point with logic but not with mathematics so no scientific proof. Very similar to a discussion between an atheist and a true believer regarding the existence of G(g)od. So does Time = God?
Other Expensive movements have only been modified a bit & have a better in its finishing for a reason to be more expensive. Except spring drive movement. it is a different one and specially created to be more precise and more softer in every second.
This is the best explanation/animation I've seen for the mechanical watch. thank you.
Here's one to challenge that:
ua-cam.com/video/rL0_vOw6eCc/v-deo.html
Totally agree, I've never seen a video explain it so well and so good with the pictures / video. For me the restoration videos make a lot more sense as well
I concur.
I’ve edited my comment 3 times, I’m that shocked by the clarity of this video.
I pray / wish our college demonstrators and lecturers were as lucid and simple as this demo.
4:54 the escapement is synced with the music
music ruined the video
So are the arrows at 0:48 :D
@@enguePlug are u an idiot
@@jaylovestesla1099 It did, if it was a slow watch
0:15 so is the Mainspring
My father was a watch mechanic since 1979 to 2021 (42 years)
While my childhood i don't have clue to know about his job. After seeing this video i realized he done a superb job as a successful watch mechanic👨🔧.
But the sad thing is we lost him two months before because of cardiac arrest.
Miss you so much daddy. . .
May he rest in piece
I’m sorry for your loss, he must’ve be an superb watchmaker
Keep those feelings about your Dad very close to your heart, Beautiful feelings and pass them on to you kids. Excellent
His heartbeat will be in harmony forever with the tick of his watches. When you take one of his watches you must feel him.
The correct terminology is Watchmaker
What a highly detailed and remarkably straightforward explanation. It is amazing that resources like these are free. Thank you Animagraffs
Nothing is ever free
Great vid! I'm a fan of mechanical watches and this provided a lot of good info on how the inner workings all come together. The precision to do this on such a small scale is unimaginable.
Precisely accurate.. this is what should be called smart watch or smart device.. it’s non electrical in any way, yet ticking like heart beats.
I have 3 questions
If I wind my watch today...than its run whole day? I mean how many times it's run if I wind 10time?
2nd questions is that....if I wind today...its properly work next day also but if I will wind agin so it's defects my watch mechanism???
3rd is that in some video first wind antilock wise and than clockwise.. why?? Every time do first anticlockwise and than clockwise???
This is simply one the best videos I ve seen anywhere outstanding job in all respects.
best video ever
The amount of work that went into making this video is mind boggling.
It always amazed me how a lot of tiny parts work in harmony.
That's the clearest explanation I've ever seen of how the mechanism of a watch works. Beautifully simple and elegant.
Engineering marvel that dates back centuries, has stood the test of time.
Literally!
How a mechanical watch worked had always remained a mystery for me. Main spring, hair spring, escape mechanism, balance wheel etc were mysterious terms for me. Many thanks for explaining the mechanical watch with superb graphics.
Same goes with how HDD works.
I've been into watches for some time now and had a pretty good understanding of how everything worked. This animation however brought the entire story to life and I could visualise the flow of forces, the precision and mathematics of gear ratios in my mind whilst you were explaining the mechanism. You slowed the animation down just enough to see each component transferring energy to the next, always changing and converting dynamically. It made perfect sense.
It's an entirely logical process and this presentation is the best that I've seen yet that truly helps you understand not only how elegant, but beautiful simple work of daring and genius we all still celebrate even after the general utility is gone. Watches are different because they represent time and the bumps, bruises and scratches on our beloved watches each have a story interwoven between the pinions and pallets.
Thank you my friend for explaining it so beautifully. Peace time ⏲️
This is a great animation of the ETA 6497. Perfect for demonstrating how a basic mechanical watch works. Thank you.
I was going to ask what movement this was... thought someone else might have asked or like you given me the answer! The person who posted should put it in the blurb... The movement here is much different than my Vostok...
This is basic? 😭
@@bobbye4731 one of the most basic
@@jordanjtbraun I have an Amphibia 710379 move about a lot with it in different positions and it keeps good time
@@bobbye4731 yupe this was only a watch with hour, minutes and seconds. There are minute repeaters, watches with moon phases, chronographs, perpetual calendars, ones that indicate the energy left, and so on ;)
Everyone: wow this was a really great explanation!
Random person: so now you know how a watch works?
Everyone: nope
Hahaaa thats so true 😂😂👌👌
@@rameesrahim760 I pretty much knew anyway but this helps. I would so love to spend some time in a watchmaking workshop and have a go at taking a watch apart and then successfully rebuilding it - imagine the sense of achievement.
True, but it starts to click watching it multiple times.
me: witchcraft
😂 😂 😂
Wow.. I'm a Mechanical Engineer and this is an excellent walk through.. Great illustration.
This explanation makes me fall in love more and more with mechanical watches every second I watched it, repeatedly, beautifully detailed
This was an awesome explanation. I’ve been a mechanical watch fan and owner for years and this is the first I have understood how all the pieces work together. Great animation and narration. Thank you!
Amazing! You’ve done such a service to the whole watch loving community by creating this 🤩 thanks so mich for undertaking the project and sharing
Exactly right.
it is so cool how the whole thing is powered by a single spring, no batery, nothing complex, just a spring
Hands down the best UA-cam video on how mechanical watch works. Thank you so much. What a treasure!
Watch is a piece of art, and it will last for generations, unlike smartwatches
This was both outstanding to view, and astounding in execution. I've watched repair and restoration of time pieces, but this was the first time it all made perfect sense. Thank you.
The fact that I've found your videos through multiple disparate subjects is a real testament to how great of a job you're doing. I love your stuff and they're incredibly informative.
So making or repairing a watch is definitely an art. Very satisfying.
I've seen a few watch animations, but this is the best I've seen.
I really have no idea how watchmakers were able to make such precision parts for hundreds of years. I know with modern CNC mills and tech you can make super close tolerance components but to be able to do it by hand on such a tiny scale is truly mind blowing
I could never visualize the movement or fully understand it until watching this, thank you
5:23 The most ingenious part of operation and why mechanical clocks/watches don't stall! I discovered that some years ago while repairing a springer/pendulum wall clock from the early 20th century, it blew my mind.
Outstanding animation. Thank you for the, probably hundreds of hours put into this work.
When servicing a watch, I never tire of putting the balance back and getting a heartbeat as it starts up, always makes me smile.
Makes me appreciate my automatic watches so much more now....
I've taken 3 watchmaking classes and this is the best
Thank you so much, i couldn't understand the way the balance wheel was given energy with other videos 👌
Working with 4D-Designers each and every working day I can confess that this by far is the best explanation animation of the mechanism behind a mechanical watch on YT. Thanks so much. I wonder why it took me 18 months to find your channel.
Most detailed and most beautifully executed animation of a watch mechanism. Thank you for creating this! Subscribed!
whoever CAD'd this, is a champion. Thank you so much.
Ah thank you for the breakdown and the transparent view. Finally a full explanation of how the mechanisms work. The way many people talk about the balance wheel and spring is very deceiving. Its not so much power being transferred to and from the balance wheel, its a tension put in place by the spring being released by the balance wheel and fork in the regular increments
Would be an interesting side show to know how the "shake to wind" mechanism works too. Great video!
My understanding of it is that it works the same way, but underneath the support structure, there's a metal disk weight that can freely spin around a central point which will works on the mechanism that powers the mainspring the same way that turning the crown does.
@@gnomeam And while that disk weight can turn both ways, it only winds the main spring one way.
You need to create more “how stuff work” videos! Thank you!
I just bought an Automatic Mechanical Watch and learning this has made me appreciate what i'm wearing more. Thank you
what a bizarre complex mechanism, absolutely mind boggling.
I like the background music, was bopping my head while watching. Thanks for the video, my first watch was a mechanical watch. I’ve loved them ever since.
The wristwatch is one of homo sapiens greatest mechanical achievment. The fact that it was invented so early makes it even more impressive.
Great comment
Invented so early?
@@rubbish9231 early in our history
@@bobsmithinson2050 this can not be any Accident invention. There might be right time and we have internet and phone is also a right time.
It is amazing someone came up with a mechanism that is so complex in the first place!
Mind blowing animations! Great production quality, keep em coming!
I'm a rookie watchmaker. Thank you for putting this together. It's a fantastic teaching tool and has helped me with questions about how things like the keyless works operate, without a doubt better than any book at showing how it all works.
0:37 - Excellent description, so the mainspring is what first causes the time arms to tell time while the an escapement controls speed.
Great thanks for your effort, this is really the best video I've ever seen about mechanical movement at all,
I found your channel because of the sewing machine video and now I cannot wait to see more stuff!
Good job, Jacob.
Superb video for a beginner watch enthusiast! Thank you so much.
Excellent work and graphics everyone who wants to understand mechanical watches should watch this many times over.
Thank you for your work! Beautifully animated and explained!
Watching this video is such a visual treat. I thank you for giving us, that wonder, the explanation as to how it works. If AP (anatomy & physiology) was explained this way, instead of in black and white, we'd have a better, and wider understanding of the human body. Thank you so much for this outstanding video that made me understand all the better! Awesome...!
You just earned yourself a sub because I've been wanting to know how a mechanical watch works but just seeing the metal parts doesn't help seeing it like this did a lot thanks
This is the most amazing visual breakdown and explanation of how a watch works. As my dad used to repair them for a hobby some 40 years ago, I've always wondered how they worked and now you have given me an insight. Thank you.
These animations are stunning. I’m just curious about how long it takes to produce one of these videos?
I am a freelancing 3D animator and I predict this kind of animation would take 2 weeks at the fastest to be completely done. Excluding the revisions.
@@atrudokht What are the apps he probably used in this animation?
@@atrudokht yeah and with high dedication and experience, it can be completed within 3-4 days.
Your productions are amazingly good.
I just obtained an automatic watch, and in my search to get a visualization of how it winds itself inside, I found this video, which isn’t exactly what I was looking for but was fascinating nonetheless. Please keep up the great work.
3:00 I bought a pack of mechanical watch parts on eBay once, it was advertised as pieces for a project, and those bearings are super small... a small red speck, about the size of a speck of glitter, was on the tip of my finger. Using a magnifying glass, I could see the hole in the bearing, which was so small none of my sewing needles nor strands of thread could pass through. It is awesome, knowing that many jewelers had hands steady enough to precisely assemble such pieces. I read somewhere that those kinds of jewelers have hands roughly 10x more steady than a surgeon.
This is probably the best explanation of how a mechanical watch works I've found on this platform. Thank you for uploading.
What an amazing explanation! I'm impressed by the quality of the content in this channel.
I would really enjoy if you make an animation of how some mechanical calculators work, especially the automatic ones like the Olivetti Divisumma 24. There are already a very good channel called Mechanical Computing, in which it's explained how many calculators work, including a 10 key machine. But I've never seen how an automatic dividing machine works, and how it knows how to subtract from the dividend and register how many times it has subtracted.
Again, this is a breathtaking explanation, and I really hope this channel keeps showing such high quality content. The animation is simply beautiful.
This is excellent! It's going to be my go to video to show friends why I love mechanical watches!
Thankyou for this animation. I was trying to understand how the keyless works actually set time while remaining in mesh all the way back to the barrel. Finally got it. Thankyou again.
I've watched a few watch restoration videos, but now I finally understand what all the parts do. Great video, thank you.
You are amazing man, we are so excited to see your next video, i didn’t have a time to say how amazing you are!
Keep going and i think this is a 5M channel ❤️
Thank you for sharing this. I’m a little smarter today than I was yesterday thanks to your channel.
Beautiful animation - it’s like a great movie that also makes you smarter. Imagine if going to school meant watching these kinds of animations, instead of just listening to someone droning on with words for an hour or more.
Just wow. Without any doubt you have the best 3D explanatory videos I've ever met on the internet so far. Beautiful and smooth 3D graphics, very well thought-out, explanatory, to the point. score 12 out of 10! The same goes to other videos (especially the engine one!)
Great video. What's amazing to me is that well before the the introduction of computers and computer aided design, they could machine these parts to the required tolerance. Watches from the early 1900's were able to have such high precision. Amazing.
Thank you for this very illustrative animation. It is really helpful. I'd like to see the self-winding automatic watch mechanism with weights though.
Me too! I'm wearing one right now, an A034 Juguar. I got it from an app called WISH. The Wings ones are nice too. Better yet you can save a ton of money by not going to a 'store'.
The down side is having to wait for it to ship esp. now with this virus stuff going on. Stay safe.
This makes rebuilding an entire car engine seem like a simple task in comparison
Ok this is incredible. What a beautiful mechanism. I was trying to find out how a balance wheel maintained a consistent velocity with such a fragile spring and strange movement and this video explains it perfectly. That little kickback from the pallet fork is ingenious. Thanks for this perfectly concise explanation!
This is beautiful, the best I've seen so far. Liked, subbed, and belled.
Why isn't this video trending???
It's so damn good!!
The visual capacity and micro engineering skill of the guy who first came up with this principle. 👏👏👏
Multiple men
Excellently narrated and super high quality graphical demonstration of how a mechanical watch movement works. Looking forward to new concise demos in the future.
What a great video. The best explanation since the old Hamilton film. Well done! I’m off to watch that again 👌👏
I don't understand how the spring on the balance wheel is kept in motion. What does the mechanism look like that attaches it to the mainspring? Does that energy transfer to the balance wheel through the minute hand gears, or are there other gears that linked everything together?
Hi. I'm not a watchmaker or anything, but it looks like it might be elastic potential energy. Elastic potential energy is "stored" energy that results from a material being deformed out of its original shape. In this case, the spring metal wants to be straight, but he winding force deforms it into a tighter coil until the escapement releases some of it.
Thx Mark for helping out here ... it also has to do with the power exchange I describe, where escape wheel teeth give the pallet fork a tiny push from the mainspring, which sort of "winds up" the hairspring for another half-swing each time. I've shown every part of this watch movement, there's no other significant hidden parts or otherwise.
@@animagraffs Perfect! Thanks for clearing that up. Makes sense why that part is so delicate now. Amazing work I'll add, I love all your content on your website. Is there any way for me to support what you do?
Congrats Jacob O'Neal ! I hope it adds to the conversation: ua-cam.com/video/G1XBb7kJJWg/v-deo.html
Thx for the upload, bought my first mechanical watch a Tag Heuer, makes me understand what a wonderful piece of art I have on my wrist
This was the best explanation I’ve seen
WOW ! I own an Omega Speedmaster and never realized how all these mechanisms worked. Thank you so much !
a new subscriber :-)
What's the background music?
Nice explanation btw
Dude, amazing work! I appreciate your effort to create the 3Ds and graphics. Congrats and keep it up.
That was a beautiful journey. Thank you.
The men who invented, then refined, then reinvented the clocks, to pocket watches, to mechanical wrist watches were geniuses...
I had no idea how these things worked. thanks for the video and sharing it with us at Facebook's Blender's Group. :D
I have a whole new level of respect for my 1962 Rotary Jubilee now as it ticks on!!!
That’s why we still love mechanical watches.
It’s a tiny precise motor on your wrist.
And this, my friends, is why we still appreciate and wear mechanical watches. No "smart" watches for me!
Ok boomer
ok boomer
I'm gonna use a galaxy watch until I can afford a Rolex
We have some real masters of comedy in here
@@Yallan ah yes the classic comedy of "ok boomer"
I had never been impressed with UA-cam videos, until now!
Excellent explanation. Very well articulated and animated. Thank you.
Tons of work and research poured into this video and surely helped a lot of people including myself understand how watch works in so short a time. Thank you. Can't imagine what kind of people could dislike this.
I came for the info, I stayed for the Disco
do you know the music name ?
Great video,I am a watch collector and do some hobby repair.