How Does the Hourglass Work?

The hourglass is timed based on the amount of sand leaking from one container to another. The western hour glass sand timer consists of two glass spheres and a narrow connecting tube. Time is measured as the time it takes for a glass ball full of sand to flow from above into the bottom glass ball through a narrow pipe.Once all the sand has flowed to the bottom of the glass ball, like the 1 minute sand clock can be reversed to measure time. Generally speaking, the nominal running time of a mini hourglass sandglass timer is 1 minute. The factors that affect the sand watch of time include: the amount of filler, the curve shape of the inner wall of the glass ball (the length of the sandglass timer is slightly different from that of the inverted hourglass), the width of the neck tube, the type and quality of the filler.

Generally speaking, the error of 30-minute hourglass can be controlled within 1 minute, and the error of 60 minute hour glass sand timer is about 5 minutes. Of course it cannot be compared to modern timekeeping machines. But it also doesn't need to be, because its value is more in decoration, games, etc.