Grasshopper escapement to Harrison were poor, messy and short-lived. This meant that conventional clocks had to be stopped frequently for cleaning and oiling. Using his clean and absolutely stable grasshopper escapement Harrison began a series of long-term investigations into the performance of clocks, leading to his invention of the gridiron pendulum which counteracted the effects of expansion and contraction with changing temperature. The performance of his improved clocks in turn gave him an accurate, convenient standard against which to test his marine timekeepers. Harrison developed the grasshopper escapement from a conventional anchor escapement which he built for a turret clock to go
Escapement was recognized as a disturbing influence on the isochronism of the balance. Purchasers no longer buy mechanical watches primarily for their accuracy, so manufacturers had little interest in investing in the tooling required, although finally Omega adopted it in 1990. Although a highly ingenious escapement design, the Daniels coaxial nevertheless still needs lubrication to the lever pallet pivots. In addition, because of its geometry the impulse wheel can only have a limited number of teeth, thus it is necessary to have an extra wheel and pinion in the wheel train the pivots of which also need lubricating. Therefore, the advantages