Watch the clock

ADDIFACTURE

L u k e p h i l l i p s

The boom of Three Dimensional Printing is revolusionizing the world of design. It began almost three decades ago, but with the growth of technology we are able to push the limits of 3D printing to find its true capabilities.The application of 3D Printing within the manufacturing commu-nity means there is a substancial re-duction in the constraints design-ers have to consider.

This is applicable to an expanding variety of materials including, met-al, plastics, ceramic and even elastic polymers. Now I don’t know about you, but from the perspective of a design student this is exciting stuff.

achange

in design

Additivemanu

facturing

This studio focuses on the emerg-ing rapid prototyping practice of additive manufacturing. Lead by Scott Mayson and Nigel Brock-bank, it’s the most beneficial studio I have participated in over the last five semesters. The studio revolves around the use of 3D printing and how we as de-signers need to utilise the benefits it possesses. One of the biggest ben-efits is potential to customise each design to the users needs. The ‘big ‘picture’ was to design a product to enter into the crowd funding com-munity Kickstarter. To design for 3D printing we need-ed to learn an array of new pro-grams .

As a side component to the studio we were given the option of buy-ing and constructing our own 3D Printer. It would be crazy to turn down the assistance of Scott and Nigel so 40 of us jumped aboard the 3D printing comunity.

timemindmap

This mind map explores the meaning and importance of time. I was trying to visually map down what makes up a watch and what defines the good from the bad.

3D PrintingMindmap

Here is my exploration into the benefits and limitations of 3D printing. To visually map this down gives a good reference point for my initial thoughts later on in the design process.

3D PrintingMindmap

These sketches illustrate my in-itial thoughts of 3D printing a watch. What is it? What could it be? I was keen on combining a tradition medium with the modern technology of addi-tive manufacturing. There are also some exploration of forms that will link nicely together as a band.

3D PrintingMindmap

Here are a few potential de-sign outcomes from my initial thoughts. It has three different takes on displaying time. My favourite is casting a shadow on a rotating pin. I think the triangular form would prove its not your average watch. Its something new and different.

3D PrintingMindmap

These are a few sketches I drew for in class presentation. They show a few concepts i was working on to try and re-de-fine what a watch really is.

infographicposters

After some initial research of 3D printing I decided to pro-duce a watch. Although there is speculation that the watch is a dying breed, I beleive with the help of additive manufac-turing it will be here to stay. These two infographic post-ers represent my research into the use and potential for a 3D printed watch.

WristWatchth

e

howdoweReAdTIMe?we have this basic idea of how to communcate time effectively, but what if there is easier more efficient ways than hands and numbers?

?

one third of phone o w n e r s dont wear a w a t c hA study conducted by ‘Social Statistics’ with an online survey

70% of internet users buy goods

online

WATCHSALES?

IS THE iPHONEKILLING sales in watches have been decreasing over the past several years due to the recent reliance on smart phones. but it will take a more powerful enemy than phones to kill the watch. for almost a century it has been a neccesity for many professions and individuals

services is on the

R ISE

demand for online

TOKYOFLASH

20:50this watch uses LCd to display. this confusing watch is regarded as an ‘easy to read‘for tokyoflash

LuxuryorNecessity

iPHONE W

ATCH

Technologies are s ti l l b eing developed and refined to be able to produce the most elegant and reliable watches. This is backed by the large global demand for high end watches.

The future of the watch may lie with its biggest rival, theiPhone. If these two joined forces (wrist phone) it could revolutionise both industries.

uses

9 out of 10 people wear their watch

on their left hand

100yrsAfter almost 100 years, the watch is looking strong. It has developed into more than a timepiece, but into an item of status and individuali ty.

us e s

Alarm Symbol of status Timepiece

cookoo watchkickstarter projectRA ISED

$300,000proving there is still high demand for quality watches

lunatik watchiPod nano wristband

$69.00e

lyke collectivefully custom watch

$8,500pledged

this watch comes with endless

customised colours. they reached their

pledge goal with two weeks to go

ideagenerationI found the initial phase of idea generation hard to focus. My goal for what I wanted to pro-duce wasn’t clear which made it hard for me to focus on uti-lising the beneifts of 3D print-ing. Here are some sketches on substitutes for glass faces and standardised wrist bands.

ideagenerationAfter some more research I had a better sense of direction behind me and started focus-ing on the potential for an in-terlocking wrist band. Explor-ing different forms that could fit together as a single printed part. My favourite concept is the 2-part printed watch. it re-volves around one OEM watch mechanism and utilises the strengths of print lines.

mock uptwo part print

Using foam core and masking tape I made a quick mock-up of the two part print con-cept. The left photo shows the OEM component it is designed around. The idea is the band is printed on its side, then stood up and the face printed ontop of that.

ideagenerationAfter some wise words of wis-dom from Nigel I went back to my reasearch into the origin of time and its use throughout history. The idea is to throw away any preconcieved ideas on what a watch should be and design it from the ground up. This process was a lot of fun and I produced some interest-ing designs that needed further development.

mock uphandless watch

The round mock-up is again made from foam core. The concept was to eliminate the need for glass in a watch. This concept moves the hands to the outside where they are pro-tected by the rim. All that is ex-posed is two small ridges that indicate the time.

ideagenerationThis page focuses more on the capabilities of 3D printing. I tried to utilise the benefits of additive manufacturing to dis-play the time. The use of light tunnels to prgresively slide up a number slider was my fa-vourite. Also the incorporation of ‘Nixie Tubes’ I really enjoy but didn’t have sufficient time to produce this for exhibition (to complex).

ideagenerationThis page is a collaboration of different concepts, my favour-ite is the printed shell around the OEM parts. This leaves the mechanics for the eye to see. The bottom half is an exten-sion of the light tunnels con-cept. Rather than having light run through the tunnel I have used bands with 1-12 and 1-60 on them. These rotate within the tunnel and are exposed to show the time.

ideagenerationThis is some extended gen-eration of the band concept. It looks at different forms the band can wind through and ways to indicate the correct time. The main problems faced with this concept is the space of the mechanics involved and the need to get it on and off. I wanted to take the complex-ity 3D printing and combine it with a minimalist way of tell-ing time.

mock upwatch bands

To help get my head around the form I made a mock-up from metal, papaer and foam core. The foam core represents the mechanics (which after some research I found is near impossible to fit into an ergo-nomic design). It was coming to the closing weeks of the se-mester so I had to make a deci-sion ASAP. Then.....

redesignAfter the progressive realisa-tion of the limitations of 3D printing I made the decision to simplify my design. The tolerances and area to insert OEM parts are to complex for the time frame I have to work within. So I have changed my brief to a clock. I feel with the clock i can take a lot of what i have already learnt through my watch processes and apply them to a larger/simpler de-sign format.

ideagenerationMy first page of clock designs is focusing is based around an OEM clock mechanism. This gives me a lot of direction and structure for my design (that i didn’t have with my watch). I want to explore the com-plex structures of 3D printing and incorporate them into the clock. I would like to carry on the theme of eliminating the need for glass on the clock.

ideagenerationI was determined to find a way to separate the tow hands so they dont overlap. This simple idea could be very effective if executed in the right way. It leaves so much room for cus-tomization for the user; they could adjust the width, the depth, the colour, the form and density of the geometry. This sketch incorporated LED’s onto the hands but facing the issue of getting power to the moving hands left me to streer clear of this.

Conceptdevelopment

Using Photoshop and Illustra-tor I put together a basic visual of what my end product might look like. I think the neutral white with bright hands be-hind the pattern is a nice way of distinguishing the hands form the complex geometry. The idea of running the hands through separate channels

test model 1cad

I chose to do my first CAD model in SolidWorks. It’s in quarters that snap together with the OEM inside. This form utilises the strengths of 3D printing with undercuts and hollow interior. This de-sign would be very complex to manufacture with tradi-tion methods such as injection moulding.

test model 1print

These four sections are the results from my failed CAD model. The form has far to many undercuts to be pro-duced on my OrdBot. It could be done on a dual head printer but not with mine. Although this test was a failure I did learnt more about the capabili-ties of my printer and what it’s limitations are.

younggrasshopper

I’m not going to lie. Looking at the way Grasshopper oper-ates scared me a bit, but after watching countless tutorials I began to understand the way it functions. This is some screen shots of my ‘Young Grasshop-per’ tutorial on producing a voronoi square.

grasshopperAfter some hours on YouTube i found a channel of helpful tu-torials by a tutor from Ameri-ca. I followed a few of his posts and then found exactly what I needed. His tutorial on box morphing different geometries was extremely helpful. This is what I based the majority of my Grasshopper experiements off. Here is one using a simple box.

grasshopperThis is the file for my final clock face. The large form in the foreground si the base ge-ometry I used to morph into the grid around the quarter circle. It’s set up so all extrudes run off one number slider and both box morphs run off a sin-gle geometry. Although it runs off one geometry, each hand channel can be customised to different grid patterns.

grasshopperUsing Photoshop and Illustra-tor I put together a basic visual of what my end product might look like. I think the neutral white with bright hands be-hind the pattern is a nice way of keeping clear separation be-tween the two.

test model 2cad

This is my re-design CAD model. I constructed the face in grasshopper (screen shots on previous page) and the body in SolidWorks. The body consists of three parts; the face (complex geometry and the two shelled forms to encase the hands and OEM’s. I like the look of this design, with the right colours it could come to-gether as a nice piece. The issue with this is joining the parts to-gether.

GrasshopperBox MorphThis is a bake of my first test print. The geometry is rather simple but repeated accross a circular grid pattern. As the geometry shrinks into the cen-tre it creates a lot of small tol-erances. It will be interesting to see how the printer handles these. To get the size of the clack face I want I will need to divide it into four. Here I am just after an overall indication.

test model 2print

My first test print of the clock face. This is a scale model to get an indication of how the geometry looks and how well you can see the clock hands behind it. Although my printer had some issues with the STL file when printing I am happy with the end result.

test model 2drawing

Here I quickly added some col-our to my SolidWorks assem-bly to get an indication of how visible the hands are behind the mesh. It shows the density of the mesh doesn’t affect the visual of the hands. The use of bright colours also helps dis-tinguish between the two.

acetonetests

After researching some dif-ferent ways to finish prints I decided to try my luck with an acetone wash. Simply sand down the edges and drop in acetone for 3 seconds. The pro-cess is simple and worked well on my white print but the col-oured one (black) washed out. It left white washes around the edges. But it does give a nice glossy finish to the piece.

testinghands

This is my second attempt at printing the hands. The first print was a fail due to printer issues. I simply measured the width of the clock shafts and pucnhed it into CAD. The end result is to small due to the overlap on the printers extru-sion. But this way I can file down the holes so they fit per-fectly.

VAR�IATION

testsTesting different geometries and variations was an inter-esting process. I found it very hard to get the tolerance right on the inner part of the circle. The printer would move but not slow enough to extrude the filament out effectively. This is the reason for the two on the left. They are a single layer with to small a tolerance. As I played with speed and extru-sion I began to get some good results. The right image has a raft beneath it, this eliminates any warping but is almost im-possible to remove from the part.

loft wallThis loft is the wall for the hour hand. It serparates the two hands without leaving a no-ticable seam. It lofts from one rail of geometry into a circle on the below plane. The elimi-nates the need to have a part or join line in the mesh.

grasshopperI was unable to find an effec-tive way to apply the loft wall to all variations of geometry so I added in this part line. I think it could be used as an advantage by having a clear distinction between the two hands. This is my final file from Grasshopper file for the clock face. It is divided into quarters to gain a bigger surface area, while the channel separates the two hands it also allows for the second part to join on without

variationstation

These six screen shots show the possibilities for variation with geometry and density. Each face can be altered in ra-dius and thickness. The density can be altered using slider bars while the geomety is the users choice. The slider bars allow the user to choose the amount of repetition within each chan-nel. This leaves the option for anything from an open face to a thousand different sized holes.

Final PrintTest

This is a smaller print than my final size and I a great level of difficulty with it. I couldn’t fin how to join my mesh to my geometry in Grasshopper so it printed as 3 parts. This also caused it to break easily. Other than that the tolerances han-dled better than the last tests and the infill is working a lot neater. Time to get the final on the road.

printingprocess

After several tests I increased the scale a diameter of the ge-ometry to gain better infill. This worked wonders. The prints were coming out with ease and relatively good qual-ity. The edges match up well on joins and the 3mm thickness is a strong, thin weight.

printingprocess

These four quarters provide the base backing for the lock. Idealy they would have been laser cut but due to time res-tictions I printer them out in-dividually. There as a degree of warping but with the hellp of a hotter heat bed I was pleased with the result.

oemcomponents

This is the single Oem part with several pieces. The nuts and washers help possition my base form (seen on previous page). They are very useful for locating and driving hands and attachments.

partsassembly

The assembly of the parts was relatively simple. I got some zap gap glue and ran it along the edgesI needed to join and bound them together. The hardest part was matching the faces up evenly when gluing. The glue takes a while to dry so it can be an extensive, boring prcoess.

finalproduct

I am very please with the re-sult of my model considering a few days earlier I wasn’t even printing. Then in one seshion i managed to pump out this bad boy. Although I’m not over the moon about the colours i still like the general apearance of the design. I think a white clock with green hands would have been most preffered.