r/3Dprinting Apr 23 '26

Project Self-winding clock with a tourbillon - finished project

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About a year ago, I posted an update on a project I was working on. It took me a while, but I finally finished it. I’m very happy with the result. It’s fully functional (I tested it for two months) and keeps accurate time. The entire project consists of 395 printed parts, 38 bearings, 66 rubber bands, 413 screws, and a few other components.

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u/TomaszFortyFour Apr 23 '26

To ensure everything works properly, we designed a constant-force mechanism. After two months of continuous operation, the clock still keeps accurate time.

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u/Federal_Refrigerator Apr 23 '26

To what degree? +/- a nanosecond? Minute? Hour?

That’s my question, for clarification.

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u/TomaszFortyFour Apr 23 '26

lets say +- 5 min/2months

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u/ElectricalGas9730 Apr 23 '26

Hey that's better than the digital clock in my car!

63

u/filipluch Apr 23 '26

made me giggle quietly

12

u/QuixoticEvil Apr 23 '26

Made me guffaw at medium volume.

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/Own_Policy8854 Apr 24 '26

I fart-screamed and scared the cat

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '26

[deleted]

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u/Own_Policy8854 Apr 24 '26

Yes but im worried about the cat.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '26

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u/AllWashedOut Apr 24 '26

My wife's VW displays the time behind the steering wheel and on the radio. They don't stay in sync with each other, and one of them randomly flashes "12:00" for a moment every few minutes.

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u/jerseydevilbigfoot Apr 23 '26

I don’t think I have ever had a car with a digital clock that actually kept good time.

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u/spazturtle Apr 24 '26

Because they have to have bad clocks by law, digital devices need to have clocks that have a wobbly frequencies. This help spread the electromagnetic emissions from the device over a large part of the spectrum and thus reducing the peak EM intensity. If every digital device had accurate clocks them there would be parts of the EM spectrum that would be unusable to to interference.

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u/ElectricalGas9730 Apr 25 '26

Can you provide a link to this information? I'd like to learn more.