Details

For equal cable lengths, a force balance in the direction is done to determine the cable tension:

,

rearranging to solve for tension:

,

where is tension (N),

is the angle (degrees),

is the mass of the ball (kg) and

is acceleration due to gravity.

When the cable lengths are unequal, force balances in the and directions are done to calculate the tension forces in each cable:

,

where and are the tensions in the left and right cables (N), and and are the angles of the left and right cables (degrees).