The Haldimann Escapement

Almost 100 years after the last great word throughout the time-keeping horology had been spoken, someone came along and presented an escapement, which construction is so astonishing that there is a danger of falling into a deep and intensive philosophise about the time, the escapements and its great craftsmen.
Beat Haldimann,, a Swiss horologist from Thun/Switzerland has created an escapement, that can be matched with the best. (In the sense of precision-time-keeping-horology). An absolute uniformity of functioning matched with a genius, simple construction.

The roots
At first site, one could think, that this is the Graham escapement really, but it's not . Lever and escape wheel indicate that. But what about the power transmission towards the pendulum? "In-directly" it is transmitted via a spring and therefore, turns this escapement in connection with the banking-pin into a free one. The Graham escapement belongs to those ones, that have a frictional rest. Which means, that it is a completely different genus (type) of escapement. When looking at it again, one could then say: okay, then it is the Strasser escapement. A characteristic element of this escapement, created by Prof. Ludwig Strasser 100 years ago, is that, the impulse is delivered via a spring to the pendulum. Yet, when looking at it properly, one can also find a difference here. When the spring of the Strasser Escapement is tighten after unlocking, than it will withdraw energy from the pendulum until it has reached its end-position. Only when it has reached that point, the spring will release the stored energy to the pendulum. But the actual profit of energy for the pendulum is only carried out, when it swings due to the dead point. In the case of the Haldimann Escapement the energy supply takes place right after unlocking.
The preferences
Here the Haldimann Escapement combines important construction features of both predecessors - the Strasser and the Graham Escapement. The simple construction of Graham (no locking pallets as Strasser had them) and the spring of Strasser (no friction of rest as Grahams had it). Original construction features are still the adjustable banking pins and the coupling of the lever and spring via three magnets; in which case the repel-effect of the magnets is used. So there are always the same poles opposite and therefore the magnet in the middle "floats" between the once outside.
The most ingenious of the whole story
Beat Haldimann is a man of our time, which means, that you can talk to him, visit him or have a clock built by him. (Try that with Strasser or Graham) ;-)

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