Trilobe Domey... Things

[galacticprobe]

Once again while poking around on the net looking for a piece for my telescope, I happened to take notice of something that might be on the right track for IDing those trilobe thingies on the 2005 console.

The trilobes:

The console rib with two trilobes on it. The lower trilobe used to have a clear, plastic "caster cup" covering the center hole. Caster cups are those things with small spikes on one side that are designed to grip carpeting and hold furniture legs in place.

The Caster Cups...

...and a (not-so-great) image from the Eccleston run showing those two trilobes with the lower one still wearing its Caster Cup (spiky side out). The upper one always just had that nylon bushing insert in it.


Then we had the other console rib with only one trilobe on it (next to that turbine-looking thing and the car radio with CD player, installed to accept the 'control disc' in "Blink"):

And another view from a different angle.

This trilobe used to have one of those small hard disc drive motors in it...

...and here it is next to that turbine thing (no car radio) from the Eccleston run, when the old girl had all of her pieces still on her.

I've always had the suspicion that these were some sort of tripod hub because of their three "legs" sticking out and how they looked, plus that hole in the center kind of lent itself to having some sort of instrument pivot in there, especially the one with that nylon insert; that would make for smooth pivoting. And then in my searching I came across this:

a tripod hub with an uncanny resemblance to the base of the console's trilobes! All this thing needs is a hemi with a hole in it attached to the top, given a little detailing, and you could very easily have one of those trilobe things.

So I'm still of the mindset that these were tripod hubs for something - possibly some sort of surveying equipment? I still have no idea on that, but I still think they are some sort of tripod hub. And since I found this hub (and we have quite a few new members among us), I thought I would post the image of the hub with some of the trilobes to see if anyone has more ideas on what they may have come from. (I know Bob's Bits probably provided them, but what were they before they found their way to Bob's Bits?)

Ideas? Thoughts?

Dino.