[Joe Johnson]

There is absolutely no reason that the tophat was made from plastic other than we had a blank of plastic laying around.

In actual fact, I think the part is too complex. It would be much better to just make a flat washer with the ID of the motor shaft and the OD of the Tophat. Use washers to space it out from this washer back from the sun/carrier (though it is not a carrier any more since we've taken out stage 1). Use a simple clamp collar or another spacer to keep it the right distance away from the motor.

The only reason the tophat is needed is to keep the ring from tilting when it is shifted toward the motor (i.e. locking gear stage 2 - the ring, sun and planets all rotate in unison).

I just don't have time right now, or I would mock this up in CAD and make an improvement to the NBD paper.


Joe J.