/fa/ - Fashion

>>15765413
To try and keep this short: The purpose of the co-axial escapement is to eliminate sliding forces (and therefore friction) in the transmission of power to and from the balance wheel. This allows you to eliminate lubrication from the escapement which then significantly extends service intervals and reduces the effect of the watch having its rate change over time between services as the lubricants in the escapements age and gum up over time.

Daniels implementation of the co-axial escapement uses gold for the co-axial gear teeth which gives them enough flexibility to be able to operate without any lubrication or cushioning, and he (and Smith) use an 18,000 bph beat rate (with lots of hand adjustment for accuracy).

When Omega tried to implement the idea at industrial scales there were some problems. First, because they made the co-axial gears in steel rather than gold, they had to add microscopic amounts of oil to the ends of certain microscopic co-axial gear teeth to act as impact cushioning or else the impacts of the movement operating would eventually damage the co-axial gear teeth. Secondly, this effect was worsened because Omega wanted to run their co-axial movements at higher beat rates than Daniels and Smith do.

The problem with this solution is that it makes Omega's co-axial movements dependent on very precise microscopic amounts of oil being put on those co-axial gear teeth, and that oil dries up over time, meaning that their co-axials eventually become prone to wearing the microscopic co-axial gear teeth unless they are serviced regularly. This basically throws away the whole advantage of a co-axial escapement in the first place and turns it into more of a marketing meme than a functional benefit.

And before anyone says "oh that was only the first gen 2500 series co-axials" current Omega co-axials still require oil on some co-axial gear teeth and so still ultimately have the same issue, if less severely than the 2500s did.