Moreno

Pneumatic and/or electromagnetic clock.

Pneumatic clock built in 2002, then modified to be also available in electromagnetic version since 2010. It integrates a lot of disparate elements diverted from their initial function. The basic principle is quite simple: the fall of a ball per hour blows against the pendulum in the direction of the oscillation, the rest of the movement being ensured by the pendulum’s inertia alone. As the order to release the ball was given halfway through the pendulum’s passage, it had to follow a path that made it lose half a second, otherwise its force would have acted as a brake rather than a motor. Every half hour, a motor lifts the ball by means of a chain and a magnet. The ball eventually drives a fork which lifts a soup spoon into which the ball falls at the end of its travel. The spoon then descends, releasing the marble which completes its half-second journey before falling into a teaspoon and then into a glass tube. As it falls, it pushes down a lever that pushes a piston blowing against the balance wheel, which then starts again for an hour: it’s as simple as that. The components themselves sound no better than a Prévert poem: Stainless steel medical device piston, oxidizing torch, 1800s gas chandelier, 1900s sewing machine, soldering station regulator, bottling line labeling bronze, camera optics, copy machine chain, bedside lamps, balance transmissions, pressure gauge, car horn from the beginning of the 1900s, cryogenic pump piping, bicycle stem, hydraulic pressure reducer, various plumbing fixtures, a piece of trumpet rescued from the Grenette lamp as well as other less avowable pieces. Many of them were offered to me by a second-hand dealer (Moreno for his friends) who used to come to my place to get rid of what he couldn’t sell… Among the pieces that were not retained are a petrol pump nozzle, a denture and an old parking meter: one can therefore easily imagine that we escaped the worst.
Since 2010, it can also be operated in electromagnetic mode for reasons of reliability and accuracy.