Partnership - Nice looking Electonics "Skeleton" wrist watch.

[Chris]

Hi Guys,

I want to make a great looking Electronic "Skeleton" wrist watch, with a analogue hand movement. It would be nice if this could be set by radio signal so that the time is always right.

The reason I'm posting up here is that I have zero Electronics Engineering experience and could do with someone who would like to have a similar watch who has the Electronics experience to make this happen.

I have been a PCB Layout Engineer for 12 years so I'm confident I can make the board layout look good and I know a mechanical engineer who will be able to help with fixing the PCB into the watch casement. The plan being to buy a cheap skeleton case and replace the inside with some lovely green and gold PCB goodness.

What do you think? Fancy a pretty watch?

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Sorry Chris
Can't really help with the Skeleton wrist watch, but It sounds like something my son would like.
Just intrigued as to how you could be a PCB Layout Engineer for 12 years and have zero Electronics Engineering experience. What sort of stuff do you layout?

ps. Prepare for an onslaught if people suspect your bonifides.

[Chris]

I say zero it's a little more than that - I know what I need to know to be able to layout PCB's, how to calculate and layout impedance tracks, high power DFM DFT matched lengths... etc etc blah blah blah. But as to actually starting from scratch and Engineering something - I have no Idea...  It's magic to me.

By the way what do you mean by - "Prepare for an onslaught if people suspect your bonifides"

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I guess I meant that occasionally people can be a bit harsh and judgemental on this forum sometimes. I am thinking of one thread where somebody wanted help with the design of power supply for a Laser.
And then I was thinking of how you could do good layout without much electronic knowledge, how do you know what layers to use and what to place where and what is a reasonable compromise for noise, crosstalk, cost etc etc etc.
Whereas I find doing the layout hard and I have quite a lot of electronic knowledge.

[Chris]

All I can say is Experience, I use the schematic as my guide a well designed schematic can tell us layout guys what should be close and what should be seporated. In reality you get all sorts of crap... and have to use experience and recognise certain blocks of schematic - switch mode power supplies = noise! think about component seporation and not running tracks directly under. Don't mix analog and digital components seporate where possible, Buffers need to be placed on the right end of the trace... if there's something new a placement review will throw up most things and it can be put right fairly quickly.

Like I said I don't know how it works but I know how to place and track components to make sure that the board will function properly.

I did the layout for a 10KW Battery Charger recently with no input from the engineer and he was surprised how good my first pass placement was and we only needed to tweak a few component which I did in about 10mins while he was there. The way I see it a good layout guy can interpret the engineers intentions and get something 80-100% right most of the time. Let face it you engineers have better things to be doing with your time, like adding extra LED's 

[nctnico]

I'd get a display like this:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/541876433/color_small_round_lcd_display_1.html
and then display the clock on it. Maybe add a speaker so it can say the time knight-rider style 

[Chris]

That's a pretty neat idea - not exactly what I'm after, though

What I am after in the electronic version something like this - http://www.orientalwatchsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/watch.jpg

Simple and elegant, with a layout that shows that a green thing doesn't have to be boring.