Gravity Ratchet

The gravity ratchet that I have designed actually came about because little Seth would run away and cry whenever it was time to wind RB2 (the first picture on this Blog). The original ratchet was incredibly noisy, especially in our tiled floor house. I had heard of a gravity ratchet before, but never seen one, but the name suggested to how it worked.

In the picture above, you can see the yellow teeth which engage the ratchet barrel. In front of that is the barrel for the weight suspension string. The barrel for the weight suspension string is joined to the front plate (below) of the ratchet and the ratchet teeth hinge in their middle on that plate by the 3 small holes you can see.

If you can imagine, when the suspension barrel is rotated anti clockwise, the front plate and the ratchet teeth also turn anticlockwise with it and the ratchet teeth step over the ratchet barrels indents.

When it is turned clockwise, one of the ratchet teeth will always have rocket by its heavy side, so that it the ratchet tooth will engage into one of the indents of the ratchet barrel.

The weight is then rotating the the suspension barrel clockwise, which turns the ratchet clockwise, the ratchet teeth engage and then turn the Maintaining Power in a clockwise direction. The springs load up till they cannot stretch any further, transferring that power through the gears through till it gets to the escapement.