OT: Balancing Act

Add weight to the light ones ?

My first thought, but there's no place that wouldn't be visible.

Isn't there a nice tidy mathematical solution ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson

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Trial and Error? Or average of adjacent globes? (Gn-1 + Gn + Gn+1)/3

Maybe move that 12.4 around.... Don't forget to number them;)

Cheers

They're already tagged by weight ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Is the chandelier level with no globes installed?

I'll bet it's faster overall to let the CPU crank through the duplicates than it is to write the code to skip them.

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Out of the box mode: Use christmas decorations to balance things.

What the hell does "1#" and "2#" mean? Six globes, six weights. Ah, "lbs".

Fix (any) one of the weights at (0,1) -- call it W0. (radius is immaterial -- assume all weights are point sources equidistant from a center at (0,0) -- for easy math!)

For each permutation of the remaining 5, assign the weights to (0.866,0.5), (0.866,-0.5), (-0.866,0.5), (-0.866,-0.5), and (0,-1).

Compute the center of mass as ( sum (Xi * Wi), sum (Yi * Wi) ) = (X,Y) ignoring the constant scale factor (but don't forget W0 @ (0,1)!)

Score this as X^2 + Y^2 (no need to take sqrt) to determine it's "off-centerness"

Minimize "score" over the set of possible permutations.

High school programming assignment. (Have I missed something obvious?)

Maybe Sparky Larkin can impress you with his POWER BASIC prowess!

:-/

Probably ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Have any extra wheel weights? :)

Maybe, as a starter: D B A F C E

Or turn on the heavy ones to make them lighter??

yes, due to the symmetry (which is 12) you only need to try 60 combinations.

Hey, we can be *sure* he's got plenty of solder!

Best regards,

Bob Masta DAQARTA v7.40 Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

Probably got answered already, but two ways...use octave and 'play' with formulas, or...wade in.

Just like packing a box, start with the largest and work your way to the smallest.

Ah, ha! I see the problem now. There's a vector torque in there. This requires a 2D distribution solution. So then think in terms of trying to 'uniformly' distribute the 'mass' over the 'area'. Thinnk largest to smallest single then in pairs, then in 'sheets' of 3 etc. Wow, tougher then it first seemed! Screw it, go buy bulbs all the same weight!

Jim,

Just went through it, can't get there from here, at least not without quite a bit of unbalance! Sorry.

You'll have to put an unobtrusive 'ring' wieght around each bulb. Each weight cosmetically the same, yet each weight has a 'different weight to make each 'bulb system' the same weight.