Jonathan,Jonathan wrote:I'm not sure what you're asking about the math Ralph. But here is an illistration of what I guess is what winkle is seeing. Red and blue are each arms, orange are hinges, and the parts labeled d (unaltered) serve to limit their motion.
The purpose of the math was to get an idea of swing amplitude.
when I visualize two rings I see both hanging down when at 12 and 6 o'clock, you end up with a bottom heavy pendulum. If this is so then ganged mutiple phase wheels would be the only thing to keep it moving.
Second purpose of the math is that in a four quarter configuration the hinge point has to run trianguly from 12 to 3, 3 to 6,etc. to install the hinges on a 4 quartered ring as visioned in your drawing, it would be like mounting door hinges with one on the vertical jamb and the other on the header or top of door. This of course will not work.
Even with 4 sections you will end up with an even centered vertical balance point, so now one may consider an odd number of rings as desribed in my Odd-Even topic thread.
In closing I will throw in that this design could be seen as pertaining to the Bessler quote "It has a rim but then it does not" or how ever he said it.
Ralph