I have written a free book about Lego clocks!

[Davidz90]

1 hour ago, nerdsforprez said:

This is awesome.  Truly.  If this were offered in book form, I can 100% guarantee I would be picking up a copy. 

Thank you very much!

[kolbjha]

So very, very comprehensive! Not only including a lot of theory to explain the different aspects, but also fully packed with experience and practical knowledge, as well as experiements with resulting data! I really like your approach of discussing pros and cons, not only stating them, but also explaining why. And for me "why" is equally important to "how". A true masterpiece of a book indeed!

If I should be nitpicking on anything: In the end of section 2.2 you write: "Finally, note that the gravitational acceleration g varies from place to place. Since Earth is not perfectly round, g varies from 9.78 at the equator to 9.83 at the poles." In addition to the fact that Earth is not perfectly round, you also have the effect of "centrifugal force" that is strongest at equator. But this is a minor detail.

Congrats with such an amazing piece of work! And like others, I would for sure be picking up the book in paper form, if available 

[Davidz90]

1 hour ago, kolbjha said:

A true masterpiece of a book indeed!

Thank you very much! 

You are of course totally right about centrifugal force, in fact I think this is a bigger factor than non-roundness of Earth. I'll add that. (and while we are at it, a short section on Coriolis force and Foucault pendulum would fit there as well)

After so much encouragement, I'll definitely look into publishing this on paper after more polishing and expansion of some sections.

[shroomzofdoom]

A truly impressive body of work. This will be useful to clock builders and all Technic builders.

Since you've already posted it... it's now 'out there' and will unfortunately be a bit difficult to earn money on.

Might I suggest replacing the Google drive version with an updated version, adding a donation address on the first page? Example: 'If you appreciate my work, please consider buying me a beer/coffee via PayPal, venmo, BTC, etc'

I'm not sure if others are the same, but I tend to donate a few dollars to anyone who puts something like this out whether I use it or not. It ain't gonna buy you a house, but will likely get you a few dollars here and there in perpetuity.

[kevin8]

Wow! Many thanks, really interesting!

[JaBaCaDaBra]

This is really great work.

is there a way to download this as one file? fa as pdf

[Davidz90]

1 hour ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

is there a way to download this as one file? fa as pdf

Here's the link to the pdf:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13KHG4cGL_pBnUNBb77ap_iJrk3VJtqkI/view?usp=sharing

[JaBaCaDaBra]

On 8/1/2024 at 2:57 PM, Davidz90 said:

Here's the link to the pdf:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13KHG4cGL_pBnUNBb77ap_iJrk3VJtqkI/view?usp=sharing

Great and many thanks
I have a Bonus grandson that is addicted to clocks, this will be a dream for him.

[dr_spock]

Great work!

One can self-publish through Amazon.  I believe they offer print-on-demand too. 

[idlemarvel]

On 7/31/2024 at 11:49 PM, shroomzofdoom said:

A truly impressive body of work. This will be useful to clock builders and all Technic builders.

Since you've already posted it... it's now 'out there' and will unfortunately be a bit difficult to earn money on.

Might I suggest replacing the Google drive version with an updated version, adding a donation address on the first page? Example: 'If you appreciate my work, please consider buying me a beer/coffee via PayPal, venmo, BTC, etc'

I'm not sure if others are the same, but I tend to donate a few dollars to anyone who puts something like this out whether I use it or not. It ain't gonna buy you a house, but will likely get you a few dollars here and there in perpetuity.

You're right, if one's intention is to make money from a publication then offering it as a free download is not going to help. 

I offered my book as a free download to Eurobrick readers, with a link at the end for readers to make a donation to the charities that Lego supports if they wish.  People still buy the paper copy though, although in my case in miniscule numbers! 

 

[Davidz90]

10 hours ago, dr_spock said:

Great work!

One can self-publish through Amazon.  I believe they offer print-on-demand too

 

22 minutes ago, idlemarvel said:

You're right, if one's intention is to make money from a publication then offering it as a free download is not going to help.

Thanks! I'm looking at Amazon self-publishing right now. To be viable for print on demand, some tweaks to margins etc. will be needed. Also, there's some material I haven't covered in the book yet, possible Amazon version will be at least 50 pages longer. But that will take at least a month, I'm pretty busy with other stuff now. Any suggestions about what to add will be appreciated.

Don't intend to make any money from it.

Edited August 4 by Davidz90

[JoKo]

A few month ago I started my first attempt to build a lego clock, not a great success.

No doubt that I will put it back on the workbench soon!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[2GodBDGlory]

One question for you, @Davidz90

I was hoping to convert the PDF to an EPUB file (e-book) to read on my phone using the Google Play Books app. I found online file converters for doing that, but when I had finished that, I had an EPUB book that was ~150 MB in size, when the limit for upload to Google Play Books is 100 MB. To get around that, I was hoping to split the book into two halves, but I haven't had luck  yet with online PDF or EPUB splitters. Would splitting the book on your end and uploading it somewhere be reasonable? If it's a lot of work, don't feel like you need to do it, since this is probably a pretty niche thing I'm looking for, but if it'd only take you a few minutes I'd appreciate it!

[Davidz90]

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

I was hoping to convert the PDF to an EPUB file (e-book) to read on my phone using the Google Play Books app. I found online file converters for doing that, but when I had finished that, I had an EPUB book that was ~150 MB in size, when the limit for upload to Google Play Books is 100 MB. To get around that, I was hoping to split the book into two halves, but I haven't had luck  yet with online PDF or EPUB splitters. Would splitting the book on your end and uploading it somewhere be reasonable? If it's a lot of work, don't feel like you need to do it, since this is probably a pretty niche thing I'm looking for, but if it'd only take you a few minutes I'd appreciate it!

I tried this page:

https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf

and the tool worked wonders. From 200 MB to 7 MB, with acceptable loss of quality. Here's the link to compressed file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14UGLVgzmjaSFc9WcAOOROEmHh8wI8irh/view?usp=sharing

[TeamThrifty]

I have just downloaded a copy of this wonderful piece of work. Every time a clock is posted i always look and marvel, but limited building time means immersing myself in a complex area just isn't an option! However i now have a gateway into this fascinating area - thank you!

I'm also really pleased to see the equations for pendulums etc.. Some i recognise from school, some are new to me. The learning something new is far more powerful than just instructions alone. Understanding (hopefully!) something new is what makes a day special.

As others have mentioned, publish this. You deserve some revenue and recognition. 

Thanks again for your generosity and one of the most interesting posts in years!

[Davidz90]

2 hours ago, TeamThrifty said:

I have just downloaded a copy of this wonderful piece of work. Every time a clock is posted i always look and marvel, but limited building time means immersing myself in a complex area just isn't an option! However i now have a gateway into this fascinating area - thank you!

I'm also really pleased to see the equations for pendulums etc.. Some i recognise from school, some are new to me. The learning something new is far more powerful than just instructions alone. Understanding (hopefully!) something new is what makes a day special.

Thank for your kind words! Indeed, my goal was to start from familiar, middle school-level topics and then expand on that slightly without making it too extreme. Books on "real" clocks tend to be quite intimidating on the math side, I wanted to avoid that. 

[2GodBDGlory]

6 hours ago, Davidz90 said:

I tried this page:

https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf

and the tool worked wonders. From 200 MB to 7 MB, with acceptable loss of quality. Here's the link to compressed file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14UGLVgzmjaSFc9WcAOOROEmHh8wI8irh/view?usp=sharing

Awesome, thank you! I didn't think about trying to compress the pdf first, but that should work great!

[EDIT]: I've got it all converted and on the phone now! The formatting might have gotten a little weird in the conversion process, but it should be usable, and anyways that's on me for doing strange conversion anyways!

Edited August 4 by 2GodBDGlory

[glowytheglowbug]

After reading most of the book, you did a great job sharing and explaining the ways environmental factors affect the timings and the DIY photogate is a very interesting thing, I didn't know that an audio jack can be used for so much more (very interesting paper!). Before reading, I never even thought about the temperatures affecting and different designs out of Lego to compensate for that. Thanks for letting us view it for free too! 

16 hours ago, Davidz90 said:

 Any suggestions about what to add will be appreciated.

 

For the PDF version (not sure if it's only me) I can't seem to be able to click the links in Adobe Acrobat reader. Aside from that the book is amazing! 

[Davidz90]

8 hours ago, glowytheglowbug said:

For the PDF version (not sure if it's only me) I can't seem to be able to click the links in Adobe Acrobat reader. Aside from that the book is amazing! 

Not only you, and fixed this. In next edition of the book, links will be clickable.

[vascolp]

On 8/4/2024 at 1:26 PM, 2GodBDGlory said:

One question for you, @Davidz90

I was hoping to convert the PDF to an EPUB file (e-book) to read on my phone using the Google Play Books app. I found online file converters for doing that, but when I had finished that, I had an EPUB book that was ~150 MB in size, when the limit for upload to Google Play Books is 100 MB. To get around that, I was hoping to split the book into two halves, but I haven't had luck  yet with online PDF or EPUB splitters. Would splitting the book on your end and uploading it somewhere be reasonable? If it's a lot of work, don't feel like you need to do it, since this is probably a pretty niche thing I'm looking for, but if it'd only take you a few minutes I'd appreciate it!

If you are on Windows I suggest a tool called PDFill.

Also very good to manage stud.io generated instructions.

[Davidz90]

My book is now available on Amazon!

Link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DDQ7ZJDS

 

And here how it looks in print:

20240826_095518

20240826_095534

20240826_095525

[2GodBDGlory]

Ooh, nice! And cheap, too! I recall you saying you were going to sell it at cost, and that price definitely reflects that!

Also, I recently finished reading the ebook, and found it quite educational! I've built a few basic Lego clocks before, but the book introduced me to much more advanced things than I knew existed!

 

[Davidz90]

8 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Ooh, nice! And cheap, too! I recall you saying you were going to sell it at cost, and that price definitely reflects that!

Thanks! Yes, the book is sold with 0 royalties. Printed edition is a little more polished and somewhat expanded (extra 26 pages).

I'm glad that you could learn some new things from the book, that is the main goal 

[1980SomethingSpaceGuy]

Kudos on this amazing work!

[Davidz90]

20 hours ago, 1980SomethingSpaceGuy said:

Kudos on this amazing work!

Thanks!

A little update, now the book is available as e-book too.