You can enter the desired Ball/Sphere diameter, and the entire design scales proportionally to fit! Right now it’s set at 300mm, but you can change that to any number you want, large or small! Within reason, of course, at the extreme small end of the scale the slots will not work right.
You can set any number of support legs you like. When you change that parameter, the number of slots in the support ring will update automatically.
Material thickness is parametric and drives the width of the slots
Here’s the nifty trick, scaling the model does NOT also scale the thickness of the pieces, nor does it mess with the width of the laser cut slots for assembly!
You set your Ball Diameter, number of legs, material thickness, the full Kerf width for the particular material you’re using, and BAMM-O! Ready to burn!
Just like I did in the Box file, there is a second model called “Laser Paths”. These are the shapes for laser cutting with the kerf already built into them.
Notes about the design itself: The legs have two round “nodules” that make contact with the sphere/ball. The slot in the legs is actually slightly wider at the opening than at the deepest section, this is to allow the legs to rotate just slightly to meet the contour of the sphere. The legs fit on the “inside” of the ring, the weight of the sphere presses the legs against the ring while also rotating the legs slightly, and once it’s set down on a table top, it becomes stable.
Seriously, you should do a tutorial on this, for me… So much I could learn from this. It is 100% parametric, most of my work is about 30-50% and breaks if you go too far afield.
Oh man, it’s beautiful out there (did a couple of research trips out there in college) – I’ve always wondered though, how is it to live in a radio quiet zone?
Not trying to answer for @rpegg, but I’ve been there many times, it’s a beautiful part of the country. Tom Scott did an excellent video about some of the interesting aspects of living and working there:
Hadn’t seen the video before. It’s accurate. My place is in a corner of the quiet zone and the only restriction relevant would be if I wanted to put up a ham radio tower or the equivalent. Mountains create sort of a bowl in which NRAO sits. The restrictions are significantly relaxed outside of that.
Edit: Not sure what the future of NRAO will be. It was created and has grown due to the support of former Senator Robert Byrd of WV. He was a chair of Senate Appropriations for a long time. Byrd passed while in office not that long ago.
