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Weasley Clock

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The various magic-tech objects in the Harry Potter books + movies are often ingenious and imaginative (omnioculars, Dumbledore’s Pensieve). Few stand out in my mind as vividly as the Weasley Clock. This build from maker lakeprojects turned out great (cool to see it done in German, too!). Via Instructables: I can not remember when exactly, but at one point I thought it would be very cool to have a proper working Weasley. It sholuld be a gift for my mom, who loves Harry Potter and is a huge fan of Molly Weasley. So I designed and produced this clock, which can display the location of 5 people, ever via GPS tracking or by using an app on each users phone.

The ATMOS from Jae­ger-LeCoult­re is a uni­que mecha­ni­cal clock. This pen­dulum clock has been available for purcha­se sin­ce the ear­ly 1930s and is still sold today, almost iden­ti­cal in construction, by JLC.

The ATMOS clock uses the smal­lest tem­pe­ra­tu­re fluc­tua­tions to con­ti­nuous­ly gene­ra­te ener­gy and main­tain a power reserve. Behind the extre­me­ly smooth-run­ning move­ment is a her­me­ti­cal­ly sea­led pres­su­re can fil­led with ethyl chlo­ri­de, which reacts extre­me­ly sen­si­tively to tem­pe­ra­tu­re fluc­tua­tions and thus gene­ra­tes move­ment via a metal bel­lows: if the tem­pe­ra­tu­re rises, the gas in the pres­su­re can expands and vice ver­sa. This pres­su­re dif­fe­rence dri­ves a mecha­nism that in turn winds the clock. A tem­pe­ra­tu­re chan­ge of just one degree can gene­ra­te enough ener­gy to keep the clock going for two days. The clock the­r­e­fo­re does not need to be wound by hand and will run almost inde­fi­ni­te­ly as long as it is expo­sed to the natu­ral fluc­tua­tions of the ambi­ent temperature.

Jae­ger-LeCoul­tre’s ATMOS is not only a tech­ni­cal jewel, but also an aes­the­tic one. It com­bi­nes tra­di­tio­nal craft­sman­ship and inno­va­ti­ve tech­no­lo­gy to crea­te a tim­epie­ce that mea­su­res time natu­ral­ly and delights clock lovers around the world.

The fol­lo­wing is an over­view of the evo­lu­ti­on of the Atmos clock. Sin­ce its inven­ti­on in 1928, the legen­da­ry Atmos clock from Jae­ger-LeCoult­re has been rede­si­gned again and again. Its spe­cial fea­ture: an almost “eter­nal move­ment“ that is powered by the breath of the world. It has always been a dream of watch­ma­king to con­s­truct a clock that requi­res no exter­nal forces to run, a per­pe­tu­al moti­on machi­ne, so to speak. The trick: a her­me­ti­cal­ly sea­led capsule, the so-cal­led pres­su­re box, reacts to tem­pe­ra­tu­re fluc­tua­tions and thus winds the watch, without human inter­ven­ti­on. The very deli­ca­te move­ment, which is desi­gned to be extre­me­ly effi­ci­ent, can thus run for many deca­des. A tem­pe­ra­tu­re fluc­tua­ti­on of just one degree Cel­si­us is enough to keep the watch run­ning for 48 hours. A mas­ter­pie­ce of engi­nee­ring! In the fol­lo­wing, we will try to take up the histo­ry of the models and go into the tech­ni­cal dif­fe­ren­ces as well as the aes­the­ti­cal­ly tim­e­l­ess com­bi­na­ti­on of clas­sic and modern. I hope you enjoy get­ting to know and explo­ring the dif­fe­rent cali­bers and variations…

Alexander Heeg Burkarderstraße 36 97082 Würzburg Tel.: +49 1788170215 E-Mail: info@atmos-atelier.de

Rüdiger Heeg Wilhelmstraße 59 63741 Aschaffenburg Tel.: +49 1759371074 E-Mail: zz-zahnraedchen@hotmail.de