New Haven Westinghouse Electric Clocks with Automatic Control
Related article - Arthur French Poole’s Relationship With Westinghouse & New
Haven Clock Company
In the early 1930's, New Haven Westinghouse made a self-starting A/C electric clock with
a device called “automatic control.” Automatic control is an enhanced power outage indicator. Many A/C
electric clocks from that era, such as Telechron, have a window in the dial that turns red if the power is interrupted.
When the power is restored, the indicator stays red until manually reset. Thus, a viewer seeing a clock with a red
indicator knows that the clock shows the wrong time, but has no idea how far off it is.
With automatic control, if the owner had initially set the automatic control to “1”
and set the clock to time, the owner knows this: If the clock is running, it is within one minute of the correct
time. Conversely, if the power is on and the clock is not going, the cumulative power outage time is greater than
one minute.
Automatic control clocks are operated as follows:
- Move the automatic control lever or knob to the desired maximum error;
- plug the clock in;
- set the hands to the correct time.
The clock will start running when it is plugged in. If the electric power fails, the automatic
control mechanism will start timing the duration of the outage. When the power is restored, the automatic control
stops timing and the motor starts running the clock again. Next time the power goes out, the automatic control starts
timing again. If the power is off long enough for the automatic control timer to time out, it will lock the wheel
carrying the seconds hand, and the clock will not start again when the power is restored.
Two examples of automatic control clocks are shown below. The first has an automatic control lever
through the dial, with calibrations from 0 to 3 minutes. The second one has a knob on the back that is rotated to
set the automatic control timer. The back of the movement has calibrations from 0 to 3 minutes, but the back of
the clock has no calibrations visible to the user!
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Above and below: A New Haven Westinghouse automatic control electric clock in a Bakelite case 7 3/16" tall with
a 3 1/4" metal dial. The back and base are wood. The dial has the “Automatic Control” lever protruding
through a slot in the dial, with calibrations from 0 to 3 minutes.
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These clocks are very interesting when they run. The second hand is not a continuous sweep like regular synchronous
electric clocks, instead they step in increments of one second. They make a distinct click at each step, and
sound louder than the tick of most windup clocks.
The copper rotor has 36 poles inset into it and rotates at 200 RPM or 3 1/3 revolutions per second. The rotor
has a pinion of 15 teeth driving the fiber wheel of 100 teeth, causing the fiber wheel to rotate once every
two seconds. The fiber wheel's arbor carries a lantern pinion with only two pins. (On first glance it appears
to have some pins missing, but there are no holes for the missing pins). The two pins are diametrically opposite
each other. The two-pin pinion drives a ratchet toothed wheel whose arbor carries the second hand. Once a
second, a pin in the pinion picks up a tooth in the ratchet wheel and carries it forward. A weighted lever
acts as a detent so the wheel moves one tooth at a time, ensuring that the second hand makes one-second jumps.
The patents on the label are all issued to
Arthur F. Poole
and relate to alternating current synchronous time systems.
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Top view of the movement. The escapement of the automatic control timer is shown at the lower left in the above
photo. It is a recoil escapement with a strip verge, carrying a small pendulum.
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Above and below: A later New Haven Westinghouse electric with automatic control. Wood case 7 11/16"
tall with a 3 1/4" dial. The back is metal. On this clock a knob on the back operates the automatic
control. The knob is turned counter clockwise to wind up the automatic control spring. There are no
calibrations on the metal back of the case, but the back plate of the movement itself has a circle with
calibrations for 1, 2, and 3 minutes (unfortunately this does not show well in the photo). Notice that
this movement is nickel plated. This one has a hand set knob on the back, whereas the above example
is set by turning the minute hand. (Courtesy of Barry Wheeler).
Note that this model is named Inca.
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I want to thank Dr. Snowden Taylor, research chairman of
NAWCC
, for his article on these clocks in the August, 2000 Bulletin, pp. 523 - 525. Also, thanks to my friend Richard
Tjarks for motivating me to study the clocks shown above.
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New Haven Westinghouse
