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You could probably build a movement yourself these days with one of those $500 SLA 3D printers, mostly-plastic movements have definitely been done before. Thou

by opencl 9y ago

You could probably build a movement yourself these days with one of those $500 SLA 3D printers, mostly-plastic movements have definitely been done before. Though it sounds like these people are using CNC mills for the cases, that is definitely not cheap equipment.

anfractuosity 9y ago
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221 is very cool - '3D-printed Watch with Tourbillon' (it does look pretty big though ;)
new299 9y ago
SLA printing services also provide a pretty cheap option (Shapeways or dirtySLA). You can also print (and then fire) ceramic parts printed with SLA printers (Vitrolite), I'm not sure very small parts would work well however. Milling services are also available (and not super expensive in China) but the parts are very small, and there are a lot of them so it might not be a easy option. The idea of printing the entire movement is certainly interesting though...
zokier 9y ago
While I don't doubt that clockworks can be 3d-printed, doing a watch-scale movement with even a $5k printer sounds pretty incredulous.
- opencl 9y ago
  Have you seen what the new cheap SLA machines can do? Several ~$500 machines out now with 47 micron X-Y resolution, using phone LCDs for the UV mask. Wanhao D7, Anycubic Photon, etc. Not sure if it's quite good enough for watch movements but they're certainly capable of much finer details than any FDM machine including the very expensive ones. In principle they should even be capable of finer details than the $3500 SLA Form2 which has 140 micron laser spot size.
  - zokier 9y ago
    > Have you seen what the new cheap SLA machines can do? I'll have to admit, I haven't seen what the state of the art is like. I did some googling of the printers you mentioned and the level of detail is pretty impressive (although most reviews were printing pretty figurines instead of engineering applications), so maybe 3D printing watch movement is not that far fetched after-all. That being said I'd still be quite impressed seeing a 3D printed watch movement. Even more so (and this is moving the goalposts) if the movement ran whole day on a single winding, demonstrating good meshing and low friction.
pipio21 9y ago
Not really. $500 SLAs gives you LCD SLA printing with medium resolution. You will need at least $1300 for a Moai kit(with Laser Galvoes): https://peopoly.net/ https://peopoly.net/ Or at least a $1500 DLP kit with a good resolution for creating small parts. Fo really small parts you need the strength of steel or titanium. But you can made then in plastic, metalize the plastic and use something like EDM(electrodischarge) to make your parts.
- opencl 9y ago
  What do you mean 'medium' resolution? The Moai has 70 micron laser spot size. Form2 is 140 micron. The $500 SLAs have 47 micron pixels. They have major disadvantages vs the expensive laser SLA machines but resolution is not one of them.

by opencl 9y ago

anfractuosity 9y ago

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221 is very cool - '3D-printed Watch with Tourbillon' (it does look pretty big though ;)

new299 9y ago

SLA printing services also provide a pretty cheap option (Shapeways or dirtySLA). You can also print (and then fire) ceramic parts printed with SLA printers (Vitrolite), I'm not sure very small parts would work well however. Milling services are also available (and not super expensive in China) but the parts are very small, and there are a lot of them so it might not be a easy option. The idea of printing the entire movement is certainly interesting though...

zokier 9y ago

While I don't doubt that clockworks can be 3d-printed, doing a watch-scale movement with even a $5k printer sounds pretty incredulous.

opencl 9y ago
Have you seen what the new cheap SLA machines can do? Several ~$500 machines out now with 47 micron X-Y resolution, using phone LCDs for the UV mask. Wanhao D7, Anycubic Photon, etc. Not sure if it's quite good enough for watch movements but they're certainly capable of much finer details than any FDM machine including the very expensive ones. In principle they should even be capable of finer details than the $3500 SLA Form2 which has 140 micron laser spot size.
- zokier 9y ago
  > Have you seen what the new cheap SLA machines can do? I'll have to admit, I haven't seen what the state of the art is like. I did some googling of the printers you mentioned and the level of detail is pretty impressive (although most reviews were printing pretty figurines instead of engineering applications), so maybe 3D printing watch movement is not that far fetched after-all. That being said I'd still be quite impressed seeing a 3D printed watch movement. Even more so (and this is moving the goalposts) if the movement ran whole day on a single winding, demonstrating good meshing and low friction.

pipio21 9y ago

Not really. $500 SLAs gives you LCD SLA printing with medium resolution. You will need at least $1300 for a Moai kit(with Laser Galvoes): https://peopoly.net/ https://peopoly.net/ Or at least a $1500 DLP kit with a good resolution for creating small parts. Fo really small parts you need the strength of steel or titanium. But you can made then in plastic, metalize the plastic and use something like EDM(electrodischarge) to make your parts.

opencl 9y ago
What do you mean 'medium' resolution? The Moai has 70 micron laser spot size. Form2 is 140 micron. The $500 SLAs have 47 micron pixels. They have major disadvantages vs the expensive laser SLA machines but resolution is not one of them.