35 replies to this topic

[Maxlaam]

Yes, you deserve that title. Your flatrides are the best.

Not a huge fan of the title, there are so many builders out there that have build fantastic rides. But if you all insist I will accept it, haha. Cheers

[Jogumpie]

It's better than 'tracing Tyrant's steps'.

[Maxlaam]

It's been a while, but here we go again!



I've pretty much finished this ride's walkways and decorations. The first thing I did today was build the ticketbooths on either side of the ride. I've decided to keep everything very simple underneath, so the ticketbooths are only attached with 3 long rods on the underside. Which is more than plenty to keep it in it's place.







After I built both the booths I extended both walkways on the sides, they were too short and they would lead straight into the tubes and the side of the ticketbooth. I made them a bit longer so they would end up just in front of the ticketbooths.



After this I made the floor that leads from the platform to the exit.



Then the main stairs were build, including some 'skirts' around the catwalks on the front side of the ride. The real one has more, all around it, but I've not felt like adding those yet.

Here are some in-action shots.









I'm really getting to the end for this ride, all there is left to do is some minor detailing and finding the right motors for this beast.

Cheers and enjoy!

[SwimZONE]

Very nicely done, I always love seeing the "station" work you do for these rides. Can't wait to see a video!

[Maxlaam]

The model is in storage now untill I find the motors. It comes in quite a neat package; all the walkways and decoration fits in a plastic tub and the main ride construction just folds down.

[DDRman732865]

This turned out fantastic. Your carnival rides are the best.

[Turtle Man 24]

I agree. I've always enjoyed following your flat rides.

[Maxlaam]

Because this machine is too heavy to create a reliable automatic program I've been looking at more analog ways to control the motors. It just so happened to be that today Make Magazine published a great compact motor control device. Perfect for my applications.

The Dial-a-Speed: One Motor Controller to Rule Them All | MAKE

Once a set of these is built I can look at the motors I need to power this puppy.

[TheSUCKCrew]

That should be doable, wouldn't you need it to turn both ways though? That will complicate things quite a lot, because you would need an entire H-bridge.

[Maxlaam]

That should be doable, wouldn't you need it to turn both ways though? That will complicate things quite a lot, because you would need an entire H-bridge.

If I wanted it to change direction with the potmeter then yes, but a H bridge is as simple as a DPDT switch. Just put it between the motor and the potmeter board.



Just don't be an idiot and change direction when the motor is running. But since the machine is so heavy and slow the prettiest movements come from slow accelerations.

[maarten12]

Changing direction when the motor is running would be bad, very bad ! Looks like you've got this entirely thought out! You don't need any sliding contacts on this ride, do you?

[Maxlaam]

It's not really a model to play with, once it goes it keeps going. The motor for the seats needs a darn high torque though, although I can rotate it in the same direction as the main arm and there will be a lot less friction whole system for the gears.

Because it's so big the main arm only needs a slight push to keep rotating so I'm not worried about that.

Edited by Maxlaam, 04 April 2014 - 05:10 PM.

[Maxlaam]

Humpity Bumpity Update!

Alright, so some of you may know that I managed to get this puppy to work and it was on display during the summer at an expo. Well, that's when the problems arose. The way I stacked the models in the trailer wasn't optimal. I nearly crashed on the way to the expo and I had to brake hard, very hard. I survived but the Air, not so much. The folded down ride fell over because of it's own weight, causing the top of the ride (aka where the axles are) to explode into many many pieces. I managed to repair it on the spot and added a bunch of extra zip-ties to secure the top of the main arm. It worked, but not for long. The way the star shaped gondolas were attached through the arm to the motor and the entire gearing involved put a lot of torsion on the top of the main arm.

Eventually the swaying became worse and worse to the point that one of the gondolas got snagged on the wire going to one of the lights I added to the front supports. It dragged itself down, destroyed half of the floor and the entire thing came crashing down... I managed to repair it again but was too afraid to let the main arm rotate, so I just put the whole thing upside down and had just the gondolas spin. One night I decided I was so afraid of the whole thing that I decided to put it in it's normal position for the night. Oh how stupid of an idea this was, gently supporting the arm when it rotate down slowly still caused a lot of strain on the top of the main arm and it came crashing down again... I repaired it and just let it upside down for the rest of the expo. It sat there perfectly for the remaining days, the gondolas just casually spinning round and round... I took the ride down and took extra care of transporting it, but it fell over in the trailer again... The entire hub was torn to pieces and I decided to just put the model away for a while until I could think of a good way to fix it.

The fix happened this weekend. A few things had to be addressed:

-Finding, collecting and fixing all the broken or missing pieces.
-Bracing the main arm and the top of the arm near the hub.
-Remove the motor that powered the gondolas and use it as an extra motor for the main arm
-Mount a motor inside the arm to power the gondolas
-Add a slip ring to power the motor inside the arm.

So here are the pictures of the upgrade and bracing done:



I bought a few metal brackets used for fence posts, they're quite thick and heavy duty, but they had pre-drilled holes in them which allowed me to easily mount them to the main arm, again using zipties (because it just works :/). One of the holes perfectly aligned with the hole the axle goes through! I did have to bend the bracket back a bit, which I simply did in a vice. I'll talk about the copper circles later.





I also bought a flat piece which had perfect mounting holes for the motors. Again zipties, it works brilliantly!



I reinforced the back of the main arm using a polystyrene angled profile, simply hot-glued into place, this stops the main arm from bending and also deals with a part of the torsion going down the arm causing strain on the base.



I also cheated a bit and used wooden dowels to brace the tube supports. They did tend to bend after a while, so this should help them a bit.

Now onto the real interesting part. My custom (extremely frugal) slip ring.





I bought a copper plate, usually used to etch custom PCB's onto, drilled the out using a hole saw and used my dremel tool to sand away a circle in the middle so I had two copper rings that did not have a connection between them.

For the part on the arm I used some big zip-ties I cut of from the previous mount, wrapped them with copper wire and secured them with hot glue on the back before gluing it to the hub. Securing them a bit extra with hot glue. It's important for them to be able to bend a bit so they press against the copper circles.
It's incredibly make shift and definitely not what I was going for when I started out.

My first idea was to grab the spring from a old pen and solder wires to it so they would make proper contact. However the metal from a pen spring is not suitable to solder to.

It looks frugal, it's incredibly make shift but it works like a charm! Just enough pressure against the copper pads and they always stay in contact, so no wacky power to the motor!

Which bring us to the next point, hacking up a red motor and quite literally shoving it down the arm. I cut the wire and soldered headers to it. I snipped of the plastic tabs on the motor unit as they didn't fit in the arm. (I bloody hate snipping stuff I don't have a lot of, but the model is too much fun to play with...) I don't have pictures of this, simply because the transparent case of the motor isn't really noticeable in the arm!

Which brings us to the last thing, a build log! I'll post picture of the way I build the model on the spot and explain what happens when, where and why.

Oh, and if you're tired of reading already, there's a video on the bottom of the page. (I do consider you a lazy bastard if you skip these pwetty pictuwrz.)



First we gather all the main parts around. The decorative elements are still in the tub at this point.



We connect the two runners for the front supports, this makes the whole thing a lot more stable, it's really quite heavy with the motors like this and the counterweight arm.





We connect the front masts and connect the hub at the top. This is definitely not the way it's done in real life, but the way I modded the whole thing it has to go this way.

When that is done we bend it back ever so slightly to make room for the main arm, so we can pull this up.



Which the hub slides through and is secured on the other side.



Boom, taking (star)shape!

You'd expect me to add the arms at this point, but I prefer to work with room underneath the model so I can add all the floors and decorative elements. In real life this would be the point they add the arms though...



The runner for the drop floor are installed now. Most pieces are colour coded in the base, when the ride is complete you can't see those colour coded pieces, but dear, does it make a difference when you are building it. A monkey could do it this way And considering how long this model hasn't been fooled around with it's a godsend I did colour code them.



The drop floors are installed now.





They work beautifully simple.





Next up, the walkways that lead to the back of the ride and also make up the queue. (They also give an excellent view of the ride, the gondolas fly over them really close in real life, which also explains why the walkways are lower in the middle.



Ticketbox and operator house time!



And the front floor and exit path. Slight detail, the red part is meant to look like a STOP sign. Yeah yeah, get imaginative here



Again colour coded.



Time to step it up (no, no, no, that's a terrible pun *smacks head against table*)



Love this shot though



Some skirts are added then, just tidying up the underside a bit, no-one needs to know of my shitty construction under there (HEY! If it works it works!)

Now to the fun part!



We add the gondola arm first and plug in the motor in the slip ring as shown here. Unplugged.



Plugged.

We also connect the pull-bars that limit the bending of the arms a bit.



Since the gondola part is always slightly heavier it's wise to add those first before we add the counter weight. (Again, definitely not the way it's done in real life.)



And we add the counter weight arm.



And finish it with the iconic white ball on top.



Boom, done!











And of course, the control panel.

I'll plan on shooting a video next week (same goes for my Carrousel), no idea on when it'll be finished but stay tuned, for now, a video!

Edited by Maxlaam, 09 February 2015 - 05:10 PM.

[ACBread]

This is amazing, Fantastic job man! Truly amazing!

[maarten12]

Looking great Max! I like how you used the custom motors, I bet they are a lot stronger than the K'nex 12V motors .

[-=Zach=-]

Absolutely incredible. The mechanics are spot on, and it really shows with the smoothness of the motions. Very nice.