This Halloween-themed top kinda made itself from parts laying around on my workbench. With a mass of 243 g and max radius of 168 mm, it may be my highest-AMI top ever. Also one of the dirtiest aerodynamically.
Between the huge AMI and severe drag, hard to start this top by hand, but a 1:4 planetary starter does the job. Initially, the top stayed up all of 9 s from a starter launch at ~200 RPM. But spin time doubled after adding side-fairings (see 1:30) to reduce air flow through the spoke structures.
Significantly less drag after the fairings, to be sure, but still severe — enough so that you can feel the top's wake at arm's length! The AMI added by the fairings effectively took it out of finger top territory.
As a final tweak, I lowered CM height from 36 to 30 mm. Spoke strikes got harder to avoid during spin-up — especially by hand. But speed at fall dropped from ~90 to ~70 RPM despite the reduced ground clearance, and spin time with the starter bumped from 18 to 23 s.
OK, not exactly a Simonelli-class spin time. But hey, do any of his tops have pumpkins and ducks on huge spokes? I think not!
