What is the working principle of a mechanical watch?

　　What is the working principle of a mechanical watch? Let us take a look together.

　　The working principle of a mechanical watch

　　The mainspring is the component that provides energy for the watch and is coiled inside the barrel. The mainspring is wound using the square milling slot on the arbor. The square slot of the arbor is driven by the winding mechanism. Without rewinding, the watch can run for about 36 to 50 hours. Because the mainspring is subjected to significant stress, it can frequently lead to breakage; therefore, alloy materials are currently used so that the mainspring almost never breaks. The mainspring stores a certain amount of energy, which is distributed evenly and in small amounts to the oscillator. To achieve this, the supplied energy passes through the gear train, which reduces the transmission force by the same proportion while increasing the number of turns. This gear train includes 4 wheels and 4 pinions, with the last 3 wheels riveted onto the first 3 pinions.

　　A diagonal line indicates the meshing between moving parts, while a horizontal line indicates that the moving parts are riveted on the same axis. The first wheel is the circumferentially tooth-milled barrel arbor. The last wheel is the escapement gear, with the escape wheel riveted onto it. The escape wheel belongs to the distribution mechanism and counter. The barrel arbor rotates about once every 6 hours, during which time the escapement gear and escape wheel rotate about 3600 times. This figure represents the rotation frequency ratio between the first wheel and the last wheel. This ratio always stays within this numerical range. An effort is always made to keep the gear and minute wheel in the centre of the watch, rotating once per hour.

　　Hand-wound mechanical watches rely on manual winding, and the thickness of the movement is relatively thinner than that of average self-winding watches, making the overall weight of the watch relatively lighter. On the other hand, self-winding watches utilise the power generated by the swinging back and forth of the oscillating weight at the bottom of the movement to drive the mainspring and generate energy, but the thickness of the watch itself is relatively thicker than that of average hand-wound watches. The advantages of mechanical watches are that through regular servicing and cleaning, they can be used for a very long time; the disadvantages are that their margin of error is larger than that of quartz watches, due to variations in manufacturing quality and the internal movement being susceptible to the influence of gravity. The error of mechanical watches is usually calculated in terms of seconds gained or lost per day, whereas the error of quartz watches is calculated in terms of seconds gained or lost per month.