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How the phase shifter works
Here's a clip of how the phase shifter works, which enables the wheels to "swap" their roles for encoding and decoding.
Detailed Explanation
The encoding and decoding mechanism of Cipher Machine relies on its ability to alter the phase of the output wheel by 180˚ . Due to the special arrangement of the letters on the cipher wheel, this makes the wheels "swap" their roles.
The mechanism used to achieve this is a phase shifter. A chain is looped around 4 gears and pinched in the middle by two pins. The pins are mounted on a sliding carriage that can move up or down.
When the carriage is up, the output shaft exactly matches the input shaft. When the carriage is moved down the top pin takes extra chain with it, lengthening the 'distance' between the two top gears. The bottom pin moves down in unison, giving up the same amount of chain, thereby shortening the distance between the two bottom gears. This action 'rolls' the output gear by 180 degrees.
The output phase can be changed by any amount from 0˚ to 180˚ depending on the vertical position of the carriage. So to ensure the machine only uses 0˚ (to encode) and 180˚ (to decode), which is what is required by the cipher, there is a spring on the switch to lock it in one position or the other.
By
Norders
Help your fellow builder by leaving your feedback based on these three criteria:
- Originality: How original is this - never seen before?
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Your feedback is only shown to the creator as well as yourself. It is not available for other users to see. The creator won't see your user name.