Quick geometry help

Roland of Gilead

Hey all, I know there's some smart people in here, and I was wondering if anyone could help me out real quick.

I need an easy way to figure out the diameter of the points on a hexagon. If I know the distance between the flats,(Say it's a 3/16" hex) then it shouldn't be too hard to figure out the points right?

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch.

Daenris

The diameter of a regular hexagon is twice the length of a side.

Roland of Gilead

Right. I don't know the length of the side though. I only know the distance from the center to the sides.

Daenris

Ah, sorry. In that case, you can treat that distance (flat to center) as one side of a right triangle, with one angle of 60 degrees and one of 30. You need to use some trig at that point.

You have all 3 angles, and 1 side, and need to solve for the hypotenuse.

sin 60 = opp / hyp
And you have the opposite side (your flat to center distance, we'll assume 3/16").

sin 60 = 0.866

so 0.866 = 0.1875 / hyp
0.866 * hyp = 0.1875
hyp = 0.1875 / 0.866
hyp = 0.2165
so your diameter would be approximately 0.433

LoveIsUnity

It's even easier than having to do trig with a 30/60/90 triangle because the sides are in proportion to each other: x / x (square root 3)/ 2x

Edit: I fucking hate how using colons means I get smilies... Jesus that's obnoxious.

wonderpug

LoveIsUnity wrote: »

Edit: I fucking hate how using colons means I get smilies... Jesus that's obnoxious.

Hit 'go advanced', then hit 'disable smilies in text.'

LoveIsUnity

wonderpug wrote: »

LoveIsUnity wrote: »

Edit: I fucking hate how using colons means I get smilies... Jesus that's obnoxious.

Hit 'go advanced', then hit 'disable smilies in text.'

You're my hero. Thank you so much for telling me this.

wonderpug

FYI the power only holds for your own posts. If someone quotes you everything smileys up.