Electrically rewound regulator, 1905

Overview

This is a mechanical clock movement driven by a spring that is tensioned electrically, once per minute, using a solenoid. It was made by Swiss clockmaker David Perret, who had been born into a watchmaking family in Le Locle c.1848. Perret patented his twin contact system in 1900 and started a factory making clocks to this design in the same year. The pair of electrical contacts are arranged in series—one opening slowly and closing quickly, the other the reverse—to reduce sparking before modern spark-suppression methods were developed. Many of his electric pendulum regulators were adopted in the Neuchatel Observatory. He died in 1908.