Figure 4.1Pentagon of Power

Any machine you make, inherit, or maintain needs a source of mechanical power. Something has to spin or push or pull to make the machine do the work of moving scenery on stage. In the simplest form, you could be the source of mechanical power turning a crank on a manual winch or pulling a rope wound around a turntable. But this is a book on automation. Manual machines, though useful in some productions, aren’t interesting in automated shows. So each of our machines must have a prime mover that creates the desired motion of the machine whether it’s spinning a winch drum, ...

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