Davidz90

Yes, this! My dream come true would be Bugatti type 35 or some other 20's-30's race car in the 1:8 supercar scale.

Thank you!

I have recycled the best elements of the clock tower into something more manageable in terms of size: The form resembles turret clocks commonly found inside the clock towers. The mechanism will rest at the top. Unlike the previous design, here I have plenty of space to add many extra functions such as chimes.

Thank you very much! The fact that You find the book useful is all the payment I need, really :) Knowledge should be free, and my goal is to share the knowledge.

Anyone else having invisible white text on white background on the Technic subforum? Same for me. Dark theme works, other subforums work.

Printed version is available! As promised, now in larger format. Some old chapters have been updated with better layout too, to make pictures bigger and clearer. However, larger format and more pages also means higher price, unfortunately - it doubled from $10 to $20. Initially, I also wanted to make a hardcover version with "premium quality" images, whatever exactly Amazon means by that, but that yielded $40 price tag, which feels unreasonable. Link to Amazon page is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6YQPJ6W

Traditionally, Merry Christmas :)

The second edition of my book is here, with almost double the length! Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u2hjSavIkEeW3qnAZkPk7qt0ar5UKe-d/view?usp=sharing The biggest additions are two new chapters about balance wheel escapements (like in wristwatches) and computer simulations. Physics section got expanded as well. I'm working on a printed version. I'm not fully satisfied with the book size and image quality, hopefully I'll manage to make the second edition slightly larger and nicer without inflating the price too much.

I had an opportunity to showcase my clocks at a science festival :) Few lessons learned: -A full-sized grandfather clock sure attracts attention, but kids couldn't really see the mechanical bits at the top -On the other hand, the most ornate parts of the clock tower are near the bottom, where most adults couldn't see them -The new tower is not as rugged as the green clock, it was constantly losing small bits and pieces; transporting it intact was also challenging (it only divides into three large sections) I already have some ideas how to address above issues; new project will start during winter break

Congratulations on a fantastic achievement! I'm really happy I could help, and that there are so many enthusiasts of this somewhat niche hobby The accuracy is truly astonishing - under a minute per week is up there with the best of the best. You have already beaten: -best mechanical wristwatches -average "real" grandfather clocks -cheapest quartz watches Fantastic! Next step would be thermal expansion compensation, but that would most likely need non-Lego parts. (however, you might check Kei Abe on youtube, he has built 100% Lego thermal compensation)

Very interesting! Great job recreating it. For the real thing, I have some doubts regarding the durability of the ratcheting mechanism in automotive applciations. Nevertheless, this is a really clever solution.

A few more photos. The tower is in the same scale as Notre Dame cathedral (approximately 1:300), making it 570 m high. That would be second tallest building in the world and most massive one by far. The lowest level has interior, visible through the main entrance The clock mechanism is on a "balcony" below the face. Two driving weights provide pwoer for about 80 hours on one rewind. General layout is basically two towers connected with bridges, creating a sturdy H-beam like structure. Near the top, there are two knobs for rewinding and setting the time. One can also see one of the two large diameter wheels that support the driving weight. Nylon string unwinds from the central, white spool and goes around these wheels. This way, each driving weight is supported by a single, large diameter wheel, reducing friction.

It's done. That was a lot of work.

Wow, fantastic!

It's alive! Finally got to the clock part of this build. Pendulum (well, ugly placeholder) hangs in front, escapement is powered by two weights hanging in the recesses of the H-shaped structure of the tower.

Wow this thing is massive!

Progress...

Unfortunately not. However, the general idea is the same as here: Magnet is used to close/open circuit. What gear ratio are you using? With 2 meters to the ground, runtime of 24 hours should be straightforward to do with something around 1:50.

Wow, this is absolutely fantastic! Beautiful use of Lego as a decorative element. Great job, and I'll wait for a full video :)

Recently I bought the Notre Dame cathedral set and noticed how good value per piece it has (granted, most of the pieces are rather small). I already had a substantial collection of tan pieces thanks to my clock tower that I wanted to improve. So, one irresponsible financial decision later: Armed with that (and a few separate brick orders), I have started a truly grand project. This clock tower will be more like an actual building, standing on a cliff. I want to strike a balance between a tower and a cathedral. The spike on the "balcony" at the front will point to identical spike at the end of the pendulum. This will be an easy way to make sure that the tower is leveled properly. In addition to a working clock mechanism, the tower will also have lights. Here's a sneak peek at the electrical system and initial tests The complete tower will be about 170 cm high. This is the lowest (and most massive) of three sections it will divide into for easy moving. Two weeks of building so far, this is gonna be a loong project.

Whoa! This is extremely impressive. Probably not healthy for axles, but impressive nevertheless

Wow, very cool! Impressive that it can reach 500 rpm without falling apart.

Some time ago, I came up with an idea to encode numbers 1-12 in a compact manner: With this "crown wheel" I could realize a striking mechanism with a counting mechanism that is rigidly connected to hours hand and cannot get desynchronized, unlike chain-based solutions. Normally, this is called "rack and snail mechanism" but a sufficiently precise snail cam seems to be almost impossible to build. So here's the thing: There is a gear rack that gets dropped on the crown wheel shortly before full hour. Then, at full hour, mechanism is activated and lifts the gear rack one tooth at a time until it reaches predetermined upper position and stops the mechanism. How many rotations (=bell strikes) will that take, depends on the position of the crown wheel (and so, hours hand).

Chronograph with two hands seems to be rather problematic to do and I don't know how to make such a mechanism reliable. Besides, I have never seen chronograph with two hands. What exactly is your goal?

Looks fantastic!