I’ve been curiousily investigating transparent electrodes to try and develop a larger touch display for my Tissot T Touch, in hopes of one day being able to develop it into pocket watch dimensions. I love my T Touch, though I tend to use it mainly for adventuring and rarely ever pull it out for daily wear, sticking to my manually wound pocket watch instead. It’s a pretty hefty wristwatch, and I like to keep my wrists fairly light and nimble when I’m at the watchmaking bench. Not having a watch on my wrist also keeps me from getting stressed over what time it is. For me, a pocket watch sits just right. There are days, though, when I’m not on the trail that I wish I had the T Touch’s weather trending or compass features readily at hand. That said, the idea of outfitting its mechanism into a handsomely sublime pocket watch still stands a few lengths short of being a pipe dream. Today, though, marks at least one experimental step closer to making that dream a reality.
Graphene shows incredible promise as a potential electrode, but mainstream adoption is still a few years off. I’ve been banking on the fact that Tissot has likely been using the presently much more common indium-tin-oxide, or ITO for short. It’s the same thin film substrate that’s been driving electrons across liquid crystal displays for near on half a century now. That fact in mind, I ripped apart a defunct, old calculator, which boasted a rather large display that I then proceeded to shatter in order to procure myself a suitably sized piece of ITO coated glass.
Don’t Try This at Home:
Battery locked and loaded, shard in hand, and the naked T Touch movement under my loupe, I poised my finger above the glass and made my first contact. Results of that first touch were a bit questionable, so I repositioned, and every one thereafter sang sweet success. Downright magical, this indium-tin-oxide.
Stage II: learn how to sputter.
Watchmaking Books on Lulu
9 Comments
That’s cool stuff. I’m a fan of T-Touches as well. It is my dream watch for adventuring, just as you mentioned you use yours. I remember the first time I held one I fiddled with it for about 30 minutes playing with the compass and examining the crystal under the microscope trying to figure out how this thing worked. I don’t think I would want a pocket watch version, but I do want one for my wrist. Keep up the great posts.
Thanks J.Peter. Having one for the wrist is fantastic when you’re out and about. I love having mine. Being a big fan of pocket watches though, I’d just happen to love having one in that form factor as well.
I am a watchmaker for swatch group ..
please more research …
I just going to say ..
Glad you enjoyed it Richard. Thin Film Deposition is on my list of books to acquire. I want to investigate the process online a little further, though, before making the investment.
If there are any particular aspects of the T Touch that you would like us to investigate in more depth, let us know and I will see what we can swing.
Very interesting post! I’m just getting in watchmaking/restoration as a hobby, but my day job is ‘thin film scientist’. I develop TCO coatings like ITO. If you’ve got any questions email me and I’ll do my best to help out.
Thanks for the offer K.Burrows, I’m glad you enjoyed this post. Very interesting to hear that you specialize in this field for a living! I’ve sent you a short email, with a few questions.
Hey there. Sorry about the comment on such an old post. But I was wondering if you could help me. I’ve got one of these early T-Touch watches. It’s a few years old now and the watch no longer responds to any on screen touches. Any idea on how to fix it? It’s old enough now that I don’t really want to spend any money on getting it fixed.
It’s not likely something than can be fixed without investing at least a little bit of money into. You’re likely looking at one, or a combination, of four problems:
1. A low battery
2. Contaminated contact between the crystal and the movement
3. Thermal degradation of the ITO coating on the crystal
4. A defective movement
Thanks for your reply. I actually removed the capsule from the watch the other day to see if there was any dirt or grime in it. It appeared very clean. So I guess I’ll get a new battery put in it and see if that fixes the problem. Thanks again.
Post a Comment