3D printed horology | Hacker News Reader

3D printed horology

nicholasmanousos.com

This is an extremely cool project, but calling it a tourbillon movement is disingenuous at best. With a tourbillon movement, the escapement rotates relative to the rest of the movement (the front plate, back plate, drive train, etc). This is only an escapement, lacking even a mainspring. In fact, in the displays pictured, the escapement rests on the framework in such a way that the escapement remains stationary when powered externally. This is, unquestionably, no where close to a tourbillon movement.

Kudos to the author for building a 3D printed escapement, but he's abused the language of horology in a way that really put me off.

The project owner contacted me over Google Hangouts after I commented similarly on the YouTube video. It's difficult to see in this first example, but this is, in fact, on its way to becoming a full fledged tourbillon movement. It's much easier to see in this Instagram video of the next revision:

http://instagram.com/p/uRAeIImfNx/?modal=false

In the first revision, the movement rests on its cage, but if you look closely, you can see that the balance wheel, escapement wheel, pallets, and lever are all mounted internally to the cage (on separate plane). This is what makes this a tourbillon escapement. In a non-tourbillon movement, any of these components might be mounted to the front or back plate. This would prevent them from rotating.

The key distinction is that this movement can be held by its fourth wheel and operated by applying pressure to the cage. This is how most tourbillon movements operate. The barrel from the mainspring actuates the drive train, which in turn drives the cage. The fourth wheel remains stationary, which you can also see in this video from the author:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSGHKRrkvFg

Here are the STL and Blender files for a different 3D printed clock designed by Christoph Laimer in case you'd like to print your own:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:328569/#files

This 5-minute video is really worth watching as he explains how it was designed, how it functions, shows a time-lapse of it being assembled, etc.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgZBPYJ2Y-w

This other plastic clock with visible mechanism is not in the same league and not 3D printed, but I think it's pleasant. Its dozen or so circular gears and pendulum make a clear contrast with the masterpiece that Manousos has built. http://www.happypuzzle.co.uk/products/the-amazing-clock-kit....

3d printed & extreme limited availability seems contradictory to me.

Well, small production runs are sensible with 3D printing.

I suppose what you're noting is that the 3D model is not shared with you.

That web page doesn't mention the mechanism being protected by any current patents. Maybe there's no need. This is a mechanism resulting from substantial engineering work. It has significant tolerances, proportions, and curves. If you're not capable of creating it yourself, then it's also unlikely you'll reverse-engineer it just by looking at it.

Someone could laser-scan it. If using a visible-range laser, that person might have to take the mechanism apart first. Then I would hope that person would give due credit for any results, as well as consider what other legal and ethical barriers may inhibit reproducing this work.

You probably can reverse-engineer it from photos, too. Projections aren't nicely frontal, but there are quite a few parts that you know are circular, so you can straighten out the photos fairly easily.

Getting the small details right will be problematic, but there are plenty of photos around on the net that will allow you to average multiple shape reconstructions.

For example, http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/the-tourbillon-1000-3d-printed-... has detailed photos of parts. It also says:

"While 3D printing is getting much more advanced, and very quickly, it's not an exact science yet, so Manousos does have to fine-tune components as he creates each tourbillon"

Price is less than I feared, at $3000,—. If it were a real clock, that would be a bargain, compared to the typical designer watch, but considering what needs to be added to produce a clock, I guess that a complete watch will be comparable in price.

Could they have made the video any more pretentious?

In what way is it pretentious?

Compared to how watches are presented in the industry this is very mild.

Here a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlcizTLksdo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boZjuk8Dq20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPLttQyFxZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OFSEzIz8A0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3eeHarkOw4

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