Some time ago i talked with a machine designer - and he told me that the industry is moving away from complex mechanical contraptions , into microcontrolers coupled with smart motors(servo - either linear or rotary) which allow exact controlled positioning.
This is certainly true in general. I see a niche for the mechanical solution if reliability is a primary goal and there is a (not too complex) gear that can solve your problem.
About ten year ago I worked in project that designed a solar tracker. These trackers need to be cheap and reliable. Every hour an mechanic spends in a remote location is incredibly expensive and cuts into your yield very fast.
Interestingly there is a gear that can follow the path of the sun very well while being driven by motor with constant
speed [1].
Aren't mechanical and moving parts less reliable than
electronics, in general?
I don't dare to answer this in general, maybe someone more knowledgeable can offer his or her opinion. In our case the alternatives were:
1. Simple gear and constant velocity three-phase motor[1]
2. Two axis mounting and two stepper motors.
First option has less parts and should be more reliable in theory.
That being said: I only know of commercially available solutions of the second kind. Maybe this has changed in the
last ten years, but our solution never made it to market.
[1] Industrial three-phase motors are real workhorses, produced in large quantities since ages, relatively cheap and incredibly reliable.
You can think of a mechanical solution as a straight line program with no conditionals. The servo solution has a feedback loop that will ultimately face an upset in the feedback loop, a broken sensor, worn brushes on the servo motor, over heated power transistors, etc. Both solutions will suffer from fatigue in the long term, but an active solution with electronics and a servo will suffer from a element failing and possibly causing the active solution to destroy itself.
EDIT: I almost forgot that my old website had a page about a model I built back then. I never migrated it to the new site but it is still available[2].
Except for the mechanical watch industry; which might make a serious comeback? I mean it's still here, but interest has faded. I have weird feeling people will become interested, beyond a steampunk level, in finely machined/designed mechanical watch movements?
The Internet has made watchmaking/repair something a determined person can learn at home. I guarantee once you learn the basics, you will look at that old Seamaster sitting in the drawer in a whole new light. Taking apart an old watch, cleaning it, oiling it, and eventually wearing it on your wrist is a good feeling.
With me it went from an interest in automatic movements, to a hobby. Then it went to an obsession, but I'm weird? (I take things to far.) To maybe a building my own watch one day? I haven't lost money on the pursuit of this hobby though.
If you are young, their are a few watch repair schools still around. Rolex funds many of them because so many watch repairers are retiring, or died years ago. I would definetly go to one of these schools if I was younger, and could just pick up and move. That said, the right use of the Internet, and the right books can get someone pretty proficient in repair, and even design?
Think about all those rich dudes who wear complicated mechanical timepieces? All those watches will eventually need servicing? I've noticed rich poeple like a good deal, and take notice of watch servicing costs(cleaning, oiling, etc.) that are currently outrageous at the factory. I feel if a future watchmaker has the right tools, a portable clean room, and charged under $300 a service, he/she could make a good living?
It does seem like an uphill battle to get people interested in watches? When I was younger, I just liked what the watch looked like. My first watch was a Tag Formula 1 bought across from Macy's in San Francisco in the 90's. I like that Quartz watch. As I got older, I started to appreciate what's under the hood, and I really wanted to learn how to repair these mecanical complications. I can guarantee it's not as hard as some people make it out to be! I hope to have a few free instructional websites up in the future.
I used to be very interested in these. I really enjoyed learning about the various movements, servicing them, etc. When in college I worked to be able to buy a couple nice automatic watches and have always appreciated them. They're absolutely fascinating. But I kind of fell out of interest in favor of digital watches years ago. Love smart watches like the Basis and Pebble as they're like an extension of my phone. My old Tag and IWC have been sitting in a drawer for years and I'm torn between selling them for the thousands they're worth, or keeping them around in case I get interested again.
I think the age of passing down watches to your kids is over and generally they're simply status symbols,whereas before they were status symbols that served a useful function (that's now replaced with our phones).
One would be able to make a living learning to service expensive mechanical watches, but the industry seems to be dying and I'm reasonably confident it won't make a resurgence among the general population.
I think this is because manufacturing a copy of a software contraption is a lot easier than manufacturing a copy of a hardware contraption. But maybe automated fabrication can change that.
