I just joined this group after finding it while searching for something else. I have a long history with Bud Trinkel and his family, so I'm probably best qualified to comment.
Bud wrote these and other books as educational aids for his classes when he was an instructor at Alcoa. After he retired from teaching, he started a website (Hydrapneu Consulting) as a fluid power training resource and to provide an outlet for his books. Bud printed the books himself using a color printer. At the time, at was expensive to print a lengthy book on a color printer, so he sold the book at his cost. Bud was very unselfish in this regard. His passion was to provide useful information to help people learn about fluid power.
Anyway, years ago I recognized the need to find a way to promote Bud's books to the masses, so I approached him about publishing them as ebooks through
Hydraulics & Pneumatics. (H&P ceased publication a couple years after I left, but that's another story.) Bud's books contain great information, but I felt we needed to improve the writing. So Dick Schneider (retired former editor of H&P) edited Bud's writing, and Mary Gannon (now chief editor at
Fluid Power World) oversaw the project.
Even though Bud was not in this for the money, we paid him for each chapter and had the edited version copyrighted. We allowed Bud to continue selling his books himself under his original copyright — but I don't think he ever applied for a copyright. I don't believe H&P every applied to renew its copyright, so the versions edited by Dick Schneider and Mary Gannon may no longer be protected by any copyright.
When H&P began publishing Bub's books as ebooks, we sold sponsorships for each chapter. We were short staffed when this occurred, so it never panned out as much of a money maker. My hope was to print each book once all chapters had been published. That way, users could either download and print their own copy, or buy a printed copy. But again, we just didn't get enough support for this to happen.
H&P published two of Bud's books as ebooks:
Fluid Power Basics and
Fluid Power Circuits Explained. A post at the beginning of this thread has a link to download
Fluid Power Basics as a PDF. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a PDF of
Fluid Power Circuits Explained. H&P once have both versions on its website, but I have not been able to access them on the subsequent website (
because the links are broken. But if I do find the material, I will post a link to the PDF here.
I stayed in touch with Bud, and when I called one morning, his wife, Sharon, told me that Bud had died suddenly and unexpectedly earlier that week. I continued working with Sharon for a couple years, and, eventually, I began dealing with their daughter, Julie. Julie, of course, wanted to keep her dad's legacy alive, but she didn't want to be involved in all the details. So she sent me two of Bud's hard drives, which contain all the material Bud was working on. In addition to the two books previously mentioned, I saw two other books Bud apparently completed: one on troubleshooting and another on fluid power application.
I didn't have time to do anything with this material when I was working full time. And I haven't gotten back to exploring what's on the hard drives since I retired. In addition to enjoying my retirement, I'm doing some freelance technical writing about 12 hrs a week. But I I plan on getting back to the project once I get motivated or have a compelling reason to do so.
I tried to upload a PDF of Fluid Power Basics, but, apparently, it's too large (20.5) MB.
Feel free to contact me directly by email at bighitch80@yahoo.com.
Alan Hitchcox
Anna, Texas
