Gears Not Moving With Weight Attached
Hi Steve!! I love all your designs!
I built the easy-build wall clock, but the gears won't move freely when the weight is installed.
I reversed the Pendulum just to see if the gears would budge with no interference. No luck.
I have taken the clock apart and rebuilt it several times now. All the gears on the left side work great on their own. All the gears on the right side work great on their own. When all together, it takes a ton of force to get anything to budge.
Please help! I look forward to having your other clocks built. But need this one working first.
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It takes a surprisingly small amount of friction near the escapement to stall the gear train when there is around a 500:1 gear reduction. My guess is to look on the right side close to the escapement.
The debug steps should be listed in the assembly guide. Here are the important ones:
Every gear must be drilled to be loose on the arbor.
Every gear needs to have some end shake after assembly into the frame.
The gears that pass through the frame need to rotate freely. This would be gears 6 and 9 on this clock.
Gear 3 behind the escapement is connected solidly to arbor, so the arbor must rotate freely inside the frame.
If all of these checks pass, then start removing gears one by one to see if you can identify the trouble spot. Start with the escapement, then gear 2, 3, and 5. You may need a spacer to hold some of the gears in position along the arbor for some of the steps.