Watch technology has been improving year upon year and in 2016 we’re expecting some unbelievable releases. Not only is the Apple Watch 2 coming to a store near you this year, but Casio are bringing out one of the most exciting smart watch releases of all time. An Android Wear watch produced by one of the worlds most popular watch manufacturers.
But amongst the smart watch releases we expect to be seeing this year comes something we definitely didn’t expect to see. In this post we will take a look at the first ever fully functional 3D printed pocket watch which was created by Christoph Lamer, a Swiss engineer, on a consumer level 3D printer. It is incredible that a 3D printed pocket watch works at all, but when you see the specifications of the watch it will blow your mind!
The First Ever 3D Printed Pocket Watch
The first fully functional 3D printed pocket watch is impressive not only because of the way it was created, but because of the watchmaking techniques used in the watch. The watch is a manually winding mechanical watch and everything other than the 3D printed casing was put together by hand – which is a brilliant tribute to classical watchmaking alongside modern technology.
The watch is way too big to fit on the wrist at 98mm across the face and at a height of 93mm it will fit comfortably in most pockets. While the size might put some people off, those who like the idea of a pocket watch will be very impressed by the fact it features a functional tourbillon. The tourbillon is one of the hardest watchmaking techniques to master and is only found in the ultra expensive watches. For this to be included by a watch made at home on a 3D printer anyone can buy is absolutely unbelievable.
How Was The 3D Printed Pocket Watch Made?
Creating a watch using a 3D printer has been attempted by a number of people now. We covered the 3D printed alcohol sensor wristwatch back in August 2015 and the homemade smartwatch in our 8 Extraordinary Watches Which Will Make You Go ‘WOW’ also featured a 3D printed case. But a functional classically styled watch using either a quartz or manual winding movement had never been completed using a 3D printer.
Nicholas Manousos of Hodinkee had come close, designing a watch which also included a tourbillon. But his “Tourbillon 1000%” did not work on its own and is not yet a completed watch. Manousos explained that Lamer managed to complete his watch by arranging his gears in a vertical stick rather than arranging them horizontally. This means that all of the pieces are arranged on top of each other – with the tourbillon on top of the mainspring. This was how the earliest watches were designed, but not the way that watches are usually created today. His design made the watch incredibly bulky, but also meant that it could be completed – and it worked!
Conclusion
Christoph Lamer is planning on selling a small number of his 3D printed pocket watches from his own website. There will only be a small number of these watches developed and they are unlikely to be cheap! But what is exciting is that Lamer has released everything you need to know how to make the watch yourself. This means that people can use his designs, build on them and hopefully, one day, develop a 3D printed wrist watch.
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