3D Printed Watch - Review

The other day I was getting the urge to buy a new watch, but I really didn’t want to spend any more money. So I decided to materialize one from spools of plastic filament instead! Here is a brief review of the 3D printed dive watch (uploaded by francfalco on thingiverse).

As far as specs, this watch wears nicely with a 40mm case diameter, but has a 51mm lug to lug that may make it wear a bit large for some wrists. The good news is, you can reduce or increase the scale of this watch before printing, so you can probably get a perfect fit. The bezel is bidirectional and is quite loose with no ratcheting and not much friction holding it in place. I ended up printing 2 bezels and gluing them together back to back, to make it a bit more substantial and look more proportionally correct. 

The crystal is very unique, being made of a fluid mixture of various molecules including oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen. It is extremely clear (almost as if there’s nothing there at all). The bracelet is not 316L stainless steel, but rather a high tech polylactic acid thermoplastic monomer. The case, bezel, hands, movement, and bracelet are all made of this material. As a result, the bracelet and clasp mechanism are not quite as sturdy as steel, but the latch works well and holds quite securely. 

The bracelet has quite nice articulation, and the links require no assembly, though the clasp parts do need to be assembled with pins also made of polylactic acid filament.

This watch offers grab and go convenience like no other. It never needs to be wound or set. Accuracy is usually not great, but it is spot on accurate at 10:10am and again at 10:10pm, which is pretty amazing for a 3D printed movement to achieve such accuracy at those times.

The overall style of this watch is very much influenced by the Rolex Submariner, including the indices, hands and the use of a cyclops (which will turn off many). I will say the cyclops does obscure the date pretty badly, and I’ve definitely seen them done better.

Overall, for the price, this watch is very good. It’s also highly customizable and can be printed in any color combination you like. Seriously, this was a fun project and turned out pretty nice. 

It would be fun to experiment with some more metallic looking filaments to see how that would look. A fun project, but printing a watch doesn’t quite satisfy the new watch urge. However, there are some amazing 3D printed working clockwork mechanisms that people have made. I might try making a working 3D printed mechanical wall clock at some point!