Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 4:17 PM
Ignatz,
The deployment of the lantern gun looks interesting. I had a thought: what if the lantern doesn't sit on the end of the arm? The arm unfolds on its own, then it acts like a train rail; the gun, which normally resides inside an armored portion on the drone, rides up the arm, going "hot" only when it reaches the end and powers up. The thin arm wouldn't have mass or stability issues when unfolding if there was no heavy gun swinging around on the end of it. Just a thought.
-David
Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 5:21 PM
David,
The idea of the lantern gun riding the rail out to position is a bit confusing to me... not impossible, just implausible. It is your universe and things work as you like, but nevertheless it would seem to be unnecessarily complicated and begs the question of how the gun would make contact for power transfer of the necessary high energy draw and so forth. Or do these things carry their own charge cells?
Too, I seem to recall that you had mentioned in one of your earlier mails that the lantern gun is really not much more than a 'projector' of energy particles. As such I'm envisioning a fairly light collection of aerials with focusing discs. But then, I'm not the one who made the things.
If the lantern gun were 'mobile' along the length of the extended arm it would beg the question of method of mobility. Driven wheels?, Electric field technology? Compressed gas jets?
At the same time I wonder if the lantern gun could even work at all if one of the arms failed (even slightly) to straighten out thus presenting a slight 'kink' so that a straight and unbroken path along the arm was impossible. Would the lantern gun then never be able to travel out to a safe operating distance? If the lantern projectors are already mounted at the arm's end then even if the extension of same were not 100% the lantern gun might still be at a sufficient distance away from the mass of the cargo to be useful. Again, not the designer here, so just posing questions.
Think about what is best. If need be, the boys down in engineering can probably come up with a solution. A small sketch from your end would set them straight.
Late here, going off to bed.
Transmission out,
- Ignatz
Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 7:01 PM
Ignatz,
I think your arguments make a lot of sense, especially regarding a kink in the arm: you get an arm they doesn't extend correctly, for whatever reason, and the gun is offline, even if there's no real damage to it. Good thinking!
I'd say your arm design works well. I know NASA has figured this problem out, regarding space construction, but I'm having trouble finding the images I have in mind.
Another approach could be something like a scissor lift? I don't know. I'm no engineer, obviously.
Let's go with your design. I think it would definitely work.
-David
Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 12:35 AM
David,
Many possible solutions present themselves in this situation. I'm trying to see it as a balance between mechanical efficiency (in an at least somewhat real and possible sense) and the amount of excess mass that the solution would require which would be a definite minus point in that sense that one is transporting dead weight with only a small chance that this mass usage will be of any importance (during a pirate attack).
I had considered a scissor lift arrangement. As a full answer it seemed large and clunky. Perhaps I can make a melding of the scissor lift idea with the current arrangement... at least in the first three or four arm segments (?). Don't know, but I think R&D can come up with something... or else I'll know the reason why (says the spec four sharpening his already sharp pencil).
I'll also start putting together the lantern end, itself. We shall see...
- Ignatz