Hello, I haven't build anything for five years, but time to get building! This ride is supposed to be modeled after gravity group woodens such as Hades, Ravine flyer, Voyage, etc. Right now I am working on that hill that looks semi-finished. I feel like the shaping is decent so far, but conserving speed is becoming difficult as it crawls over that last hill. What do you people think? (I will probably post a test video soon).
That looks really good but you must be having some problems with your trains. You should be able to conserve a lot more speed with that! Are your cars weighted, and are the wheels lubed properly? I would think that for each element you should lose about 2 granites in height and in the latter part of the ride 1 granite. Your speed loss seems more indicative of something with the trains.
The overall build looks wonderful. My only thing woild be the top of the first hill looks pretty sharp. But it is a nice, classic layout that is always appreciated. Good work.
I love woodies so this is nice to see! Overall, this is a great start. The top of the first hill does look sharp like ^ pointed out, and I feel like the exit of the 2nd hill and entrance into the third should have more of a curve to them rather than being somewhat straight slopes though that's just personal preference for how I like to make hills. I think the turnaround is taking all your speed, because it does look pretty small. It might help if you made the radius of that a bit bigger and increased the turning angle, though you'd have to curve the hill right after in the opposite direction to keep the trackwork after it.
I agree on the speed loss, just give your cars a once over - carefully take them apart and clean them of any dust or hair and lubricate the axles. Bet you'll see a good increase in speed
yh, clean, weighted trains with a smalla mount of lube / oil on the axles of the wheels will be good enough, unless you have accses to a 3d printer and some ball bearing XD i mean johonny sells the assemberlys and bearings but im not sure how busy he is rn. and with shipping how it is rn, over seas shipping is so delayed and messed up lol.
with the track though, i found that using at least 5 but if you can 6 cross ties for eatch flexi, and useing a 2x2x2 patturd where i put the full 6 cross ties on the first inner flexi, then moves one of the outer flexies along by 2, so a 4 cross ties overlap, then the final flext along by 4, a 2 crosstie overlap, and then carrying on the patturn for the rest of the ride seems to be the best amount of crossties fro streanth.
Well, you absolutely nailed the first drop shaping! I mean, the first airtime hill is a bit tight at the top, but I don't think its too big of a deal. The turn exiting that hill is a bit tight, but again, not a huge deal. I would suggest a bit more banking towards the bottom of it. In terms of speed loss, I agree with what others said. Just try and clean out your axles of any strands of hair or dust / gunk, then give it a nice spray of some silicone based lubrication. If you don't notice a difference after doing that, it could be the track / supports causing the issues. The shaping looks good, but the cross ties do appear spaced out a bit. Instead of adding more cross ties everywhere, try adding more to the high positive G areas such as the turn or bottoms of drops. The aesthetic is nice when the entire track has consistent cross tie spacing, but if pieces are short, then just adding them in those areas works just fine. I did this on my X2 build. If i used the most crossties i could do per track rod, i would've been out of crossties halfway through the layout, but if i used less ties, I would've been able to complete the layout, but the train likely would lose too much speed. Modern roller coaster manufacturers use this same practice as well to help prevent structural fatigue in high stress areas as well as cut costs in low stress areas, so it's just added realism.
That looks really good but you must be having some problems with your trains. You should be able to conserve a lot more speed with that! Are your cars weighted, and are the wheels lubed properly? I would think that for each element you should lose about 2 granites in height and in the latter part of the ride 1 granite. Your speed loss seems more indicative of something with the trains.
The overall build looks wonderful. My only thing woild be the top of the first hill looks pretty sharp. But it is a nice, classic layout that is always appreciated. Good work.
Thank You! I have experimented with weighing the train, and I did lube it, but I think it might have something to do with the sharpness of the hill or turn.
I love woodies so this is nice to see! Overall, this is a great start. The top of the first hill does look sharp like ^ pointed out, and I feel like the exit of the 2nd hill and entrance into the third should have more of a curve to them rather than being somewhat straight slopes though that's just personal preference for how I like to make hills. I think the turnaround is taking all your speed, because it does look pretty small. It might help if you made the radius of that a bit bigger and increased the turning angle, though you'd have to curve the hill right after in the opposite direction to keep the trackwork after it.
Thanks! Woodies are cool! I agree with what you are saying about the turn around because it is very sharp, but I will probably have to do something different than the turning box supports if I want to get a larger radius, but I will definitely figure something out.
I agree on the speed loss, just give your cars a once over - carefully take them apart and clean them of any dust or hair and lubricate the axles. Bet you'll see a good increase in speed
I'll try cleaning them more next time I lube them. Thanks!
yh, clean, weighted trains with a smalla mount of lube / oil on the axles of the wheels will be good enough, unless you have accses to a 3d printer and some ball bearing XD i mean johonny sells the assemberlys and bearings but im not sure how busy he is rn. and with shipping how it is rn, over seas shipping is so delayed and messed up lol.
with the track though, i found that using at least 5 but if you can 6 cross ties for eatch flexi, and useing a 2x2x2 patturd where i put the full 6 cross ties on the first inner flexi, then moves one of the outer flexies along by 2, so a 4 cross ties overlap, then the final flext along by 4, a 2 crosstie overlap, and then carrying on the patturn for the rest of the ride seems to be the best amount of crossties fro streanth.
Haha, ok. I use a little less than that but I could try increasing them.
Well, you absolutely nailed the first drop shaping! I mean, the first airtime hill is a bit tight at the top, but I don't think its too big of a deal. The turn exiting that hill is a bit tight, but again, not a huge deal. I would suggest a bit more banking towards the bottom of it. In terms of speed loss, I agree with what others said. Just try and clean out your axles of any strands of hair or dust / gunk, then give it a nice spray of some silicone based lubrication. If you don't notice a difference after doing that, it could be the track / supports causing the issues. The shaping looks good, but the cross ties do appear spaced out a bit. Instead of adding more cross ties everywhere, try adding more to the high positive G areas such as the turn or bottoms of drops. The aesthetic is nice when the entire track has consistent cross tie spacing, but if pieces are short, then just adding them in those areas works just fine. I did this on my X2 build. If i used the most crossties i could do per track rod, i would've been out of crossties halfway through the layout, but if i used less ties, I would've been able to complete the layout, but the train likely would lose too much speed. Modern roller coaster manufacturers use this same practice as well to help prevent structural fatigue in high stress areas as well as cut costs in low stress areas, so it's just added realism.
Thank you! I will try lengthening the hill and adjusting the banking on the turn radius. I will also try adding cross ties at the positive G areas.
Thank you every one for responding! I haven't made any progress since my first post because I've got school work, but I will have a lot more time in a week or two. Here is a test video (Nothing changed Since first post, I also lubed the trains with silicone spray a couple weeks ago)...
I'll consider everything that you guys told me. For the most part, I plan on smoothing out the crest on the first air time hill, and I will try making the turn radius wider. I think the tight turn radius is the main source of speed loss. Next time I lube my trains, I will try getting more dirt out of the axels and I will experiment with weights.
One trick that I do with my individual cars is that I rubberband a AA battery to the top-side of each car per seating. It fits perfectly. I have noticed that loading the train with a ton of weight does a lot more than an unweighted, lubed train. You should see wonders!
You can see in this picture what I mean with the AA's:
You have 5 cars for the train, which is 10 batteries. That is a ton of weight. You can feel it if you hold them in your hand.
Also, your wheels sound pretty loud and loose. For me, this is an indicator that it isn't lubed well. I use a motor oil and it creates a roaring sound instead of a rattling sound.
Don't get disheartened by your build because it looks great. I think once you put a lot of work into your train, you'll see a lot of improvement (and maybe some over-achievement).
Edited by Mister Piglette, 04 May 2020 - 01:21 AM.
I don't think the turn radius is quite so bad - maybe if you're going to redo the turn make it more sweeping, so the radius increases the further through the turn? - that way was the train is moving faster, it is doing less turning etc?
I definitely think look into cleaning/lubing/weighting your trains first though - the building is amazing, and i want to see you to be able squeeze more building out of it!!
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