I've seen several different fake torsion pendulum systems. Fake because the pendulum is not used for keeping time. The best one that I have worked with is shown below. It uses only one battery to run the clock and It's hard to damage. Your grandkids can spin the pendulum around like a top without any damage to the mechanism.
It's rotation also looks like the real thing. It slows down at each end of it's rotation. I've seen some that rotate at a nearly constant speed and then abruptly slow down and reverse direction.
There was no maker shown on the clock. When I took the cover off of the movement I saw that it was made by Haller.
The worst pendulum drive mechanisms that I have seen look like a generic quartz movement with a black plastic case. They take a single AA battery and have a shaft on top to drive the pendulum. They must wear out quickly. I buy used modern quartz anniversary clocks to get the glass dome for use on older mechanical clocks. I've not yet bought a used clock with this type of pendulum drive that was still working. The quartz movement is OK but the pendulum drive was dead.
I was also going to post a picture of one of those junky pendulum drive mechanisms. I can't find one. I think I tossed them all in the trash...
It's rotation also looks like the real thing. It slows down at each end of it's rotation. I've seen some that rotate at a nearly constant speed and then abruptly slow down and reverse direction.
There was no maker shown on the clock. When I took the cover off of the movement I saw that it was made by Haller.
The worst pendulum drive mechanisms that I have seen look like a generic quartz movement with a black plastic case. They take a single AA battery and have a shaft on top to drive the pendulum. They must wear out quickly. I buy used modern quartz anniversary clocks to get the glass dome for use on older mechanical clocks. I've not yet bought a used clock with this type of pendulum drive that was still working. The quartz movement is OK but the pendulum drive was dead.
I was also going to post a picture of one of those junky pendulum drive mechanisms. I can't find one. I think I tossed them all in the trash...
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