Category: functional prototype (hands), probably production (movement)
Description: White coloured prototype hands for the Speedmaster X-33. Mounted on isolated cal.: 1666. All white seconds hand with broad tail attached by a thin bridge to the mounting tube, slick arrow shaped tip. Broad ‘spade’ shaped minute hand with skeletonised tip and inserted lume tube. Missing hour hand.
Dimensions: 30mm (movement diameter)
Movement: Cal.: 1666 (unclear if preproduction or production)
Additional info: According to an article about the development of the Speedmaster X-33 in a Japanese magazine, the prototype hands shown here would have been made in 1996. The said magazine shows a picture of a complete version of this prototype featuring the spade hands with lume tubes and a titanium case with a ‘compass’ bezel, which was also not adopted. Additionally to the complete prototype, the magazine also shows the technical drawing for the hands. (2)
Although not a complete prototype watch, the piece shown here shows the willingness of the Omega R & D department to listen to their professional test wearers and adapt the slightest details in order to offer the best performance possible. Suggestions and requests from field testers included an improved and larger digital display with greater contrast for better legibility, improved analog hands that did not obscure the digital display but were easily readable at night, and larger and improved pushers to facilitate operation while wearing gloves (1). The prototype presented here shows one of the Omega engineers answers to the lack of visibility of the hands in dark environments, namely to integrate a 3-D lume tube into the hands, as seen in the minute hand presented above.
Although augmenting the visibility due to the bigger amount of lume, the thickness of the hands would also increase the danger of the hands touching each other wich would require a new calculation for the inter – hand – distance and the fabrication of new hour wheels and minute hand tubes. These hands with the lume tubes will not be introduced and this optimisation will remain in prototype status. The skeletonised tip of the minute hand is thought to avoid blocking the view of the LCD dial, also this feature was not adopted. The content of the lume tube is up for speculation.
Concerning the time period when this prototype was made it should contain ‘luminova’ (strontium-based non-radioisotope luminous material) compound, although it is known, that for certain specialised industrial and military instruments ‘tritium’ is still used for their superior ‘self-charging’ performance during extended periods of darkness as they do not require any external light source to charge. ‘Tritium’ might even have been a better choice for use aboard spacecraft when the wearer might not see significant sunlight for extended periods (1).
The commercialised X-33 model was sold with ‘Superluminova’, perhaps because in case of the sapphire crystal shatter or the case integrity otherwise becoming compromised aboard a Space Shuttle or ISS mission, the health hazard posed by tritium in a closed atmosphere could be especially hazardous as it would could not dissipate (1).
References.:
- I already have a watch
- Green Arrow Graffitti #49, Alpa Magazine, ISBN 4-7663-3295-5
Omega Prototypes 