Fans Build Full-Size Millennium Falcon Cockpit

You have to be really devoted to Star Wars to do things like cosplay, or build your kid a cool Star Wars themed room. You have to be completely devoted and also obsessed to build a full-scale replica of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit. That’s just what these fans have been doing, and it looks completely amazing.

For the past six years Greg Dietrich, Jake Polatty, and a group of other Star Wars fans have been building this insane full-size version of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit. All of the details are spot on. And believe it or not, it was built entirely in a garage in Alabama. It’s the ultimate adult Star Wars playset.

This thing has lights and sound of course, because you have to add lights and sound if you’re building the Falcon’s cockpit. It has over 500 lights.

None of these guys admits to dressing up as Han and Chewie and sitting in the cockpit, but you know it had to have happened by now. All I know is that these guys rock. And that if they ever do decide to build the rest of the Falcon to go with this cockpit, it’s going to take a long long time. And they’re gonna need a bigger garage.

This three-axis tourbillon movement is a 3D printed marvel

The three-axis tourbillon is one of the most complex watch complications in the world. Originally based on a design by watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, this type of tourbillon – literally “whirlwind” – rotates the balance wheel of a watch in order to ensure that gravity doesn’t adversely affect any part of the watch. It’s a clever, complex, and essentially useless complication in an era of atomic clocks and nano materials but darn if it isn’t cool-looking.

Based on this original, simpler model, this new three-axis tourbillon is available for download here. It consists of 70 potentially fiddly parts and runs using a basic motor.

As you can see, the main component is the balance wheel which flips back and forth to drive the watch. The balance wheel is contained inside a sort of spike-shaped cage that rotates on multiple axes. The balance wheel controls the speed of the spin and often these devices are used as second hands on more complex – and more expensive – tourbillon watches. Tourbillons were originally intended to increase watch accuracy when they were riding in a vest pocket, the thinking being that gravity would pull down a watch’s balance wheel differently when it was vertical as compared to being horizontal. In this case, the wheel takes into account all possible positions leading to a delightful bit of horological overkill.

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