Atmos clock

The Atmos is a Tischuhrmodell the watch manufacturer Jaeger- LeCoultre. It gains its driving energy from the expansion and contraction of a filled with the gas chloroethane pressure cell when varying the ambient temperature or air pressure. The energy is stored in a spring. According to the manufacturer satisfies 1 ° C difference in temperature to wind the clock for about 48 hours.

Because of the low achievable energy a torsion pendulum from the metal alloy Elinvar is used with a half-wave period of 30 seconds, the machine shop has a few parts that do not require oil lubrication. Because of the low available energy, there is no Atmos with second hands or with signal bell. However, it is because of the slow circulation no problem to operate a display of moon phase, as it is installed in some models, Atmos.

Also due to the low driving energy would any dust particles disrupt the course of sensitive or bring to a halt. The works are therefore always glazed. The average achievable accuracy is specified with about a minute deviation per month, carefully regulated specimens should differ less than 30 seconds. The manufacturer was recommended in previous years, to be carried out at the latest overhaul after 20 years. The expected life was given as " several hundred " years.

The clock was invented by Swiss engineer Jean -Léon Reutter around 1928. The first drafts were still working with the expansion of a mercury column. In the 1930s, the Swiss watch manufacturer Jaeger- LeCoultre took over the draft, had patented the clock and building them since then in series.

One of the first atmospheric watches was the Cox's clock, which was built in the 1760s by James Cox and Jean -Joseph Merlin and issued by Cox as perpetual motion.