The Hawk Eye: a 3D-printed three axis tourbillon project | Hacker News Reader

The Hawk Eye: a 3D-printed three axis tourbillon project

techcrunch.com

69 pointsevo_914 comments

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Very nice! Here is a watch that has one:

http://www.swisstime.ch/en-watches-CABESTAN-Triple-Axis-Tour...

And this is what another watch with one looks like in motion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TveIl2whXY

You can't afford not to have one.

At 190,000 I definitely can afford not to have one.

Also - http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/eu/en/watches/master/master-...

It's a little pricey though ;)

Good grief: a chronograph too. As if the tourbillon isn't complication enough. Imagine how much it would cost to service.

If you can afford that watch the servicing costs will not be your main concern in life.

Neat and impressive. Its bit difficult to estimate the scale from the video, anyone venture a guess how big this thing is?

It's interesting that even the balance spring appears to be printed, I would not have guessed that to be feasible. In watches custom speciality alloys are used to get the performance needed, and afaik it is also one of the bigger contributors to the accuracy of the whole movement.

Which brings to the big question, how well does this tourbillion actually perform? I get that it probably is intended as a show piece rather than practical timekeeping, but still it would be nice for understanding the state of 3d printing.

Beyond accuracy other interesting "metrics" would be friction/energy efficiency and longevity.

I just viewed the stl-files, It's about 300x300x170mm

i don't know a lot about the physics of it, but won't this run into power loss issues because of the constant changes in angular momentum of the main spinning gears?

I always thougth the point of those cages was to keep the wheel in its steady angle, but it seems it's rather the opposite -- to spread the angle around. I think you're observation is right, and I suppose that's the compromise. If it's a good compromise is besides the point I guess, as with mechanical watches in general.

There’s no inherent reason that would happen. If you hold a gyroscope and try to change its axis, it feels like it’s fighting back and that you’re therefore doing work. It’s not, though. It’s fighting across, applying a torque orthogonal to the way you’re trying to turn it, and that doesn’t involve any energy transfer.

Another way to understand this is that the rotational speed of the innards of the tourbillon is unaffected by turning the whole contraption. The angular momentum changes, but not the energy.

You can find a gyroscope to play with in a toy store, your local science museum, or (carefully!) in the form of a 3.5” HDD that’s powered on.

I want my wrist babbage engine !

If mechanical computers are your alley, then you might enjoy perpetual calendar complications; they are the closest thing to computer in watchmaking, and competes in complexity with tourbillions. Here is one interesting example:

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-mb-and-f-legacy-machin...

many much thanks

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