201 replies to this topic

[dk36870]

sweet coaster

almost to realistic lol jk

can't wait to see more coasters from you!!

[Jogumpie]

Truly impressive coaster guys. How many circuits would you estimate that it completed?

Damn, I made an estimation back then, but I forgot. I believe it was around 2000 circuits.

[Maxlaam]

I believe it was around 2300 laps if it ran on full-auto continuously. However, it kept getting stuck the first 2 days so we ran a lot of manual laps and had to do some modifications. We also shut it of during the act that was presented every evening at 7, 8 and 9 PM.

[CCC]

One of the finest demonstrations of expert K'nex building to this day. Im very impressed. Tube supports are flawless and the smoothness is superb. I am looking forward to more coasters from you two.

[Maxlaam]

It's funny how there wasn't a single piece of k'nex from me involved in the original design
We only threw together a small bucket of parts at my home after the first day so we could install some brakes That's all I did, figure out a working braking mechanism. Oh yeah and Phase

[kingdaka876]

http://http://www.yo...h?v=UdqxQD6cFak finally its finished its awsome jogumpie nice work

[Maxlaam]

If people show enough interest I will be releasing more Raw Video files from the expo.

I'll start with the LED Sign, all patterns are shown.

[SuperTKDKid]

that is pretty good, you should use it again on another coaster

[Maxlaam]

Heh, I'm planning on making an Alphabet out of those letters, too bad I need atleast 2 letters and 2 of each colour. That would be 2*2*26 = 104 letters. I guess they will grow when I have money and actually need them. My current plans are to use this arduino with the light pattern code on it to light up the DD license plate.

[RollerManiac]

I can't believe my eyes! That's amazing!

[Maxlaam]

I tried to do my best to show the details and the ride cycle. However we never recorded a full view of the entire ride cycle, so just short clips stuck together.

Hope you get the idea, enjoy!

[phatpug77]

So was the whole thing automatic or did you have to sit there the whole time flipping the switches on the box?
BTW beautiful coaster

[Jogumpie]

^We had two operational modes: automatic and manual. If we wanted, we could manually dispatch the train, but we often just let it ride in automatic mode.

[ForgotToGrowUp]

Is that train unweighted? If so how do you maintains speed so well. If it is weighted, how did you hide them so well?

[Jogumpie]

The train has no extra weights. And if you ask me, the train loses its momentum fairly quickly. The first test run at the exposition failed, even after lubing. However, after wiping off all the debris from the track, the train started to gain more and more speed after each run. In the end we even had to increase the braking force, or the train would just rush back into the station! What I am trying to state with this is that the later elements are scaled down a bit to make up for the speed loss we initially thought there would be. This speed loss turned out to be far less than expected, so in the end the train rushed through the whole ride. The speed conservation isn't exceptionally high.

[Maxlaam]

The whole idea behind this ride is that it only needs the height for the loop, after that it's just a downward spiral.

[ForgotToGrowUp]

do you run unweighted trains on all your coasters or just this one? was it because you didn't think the supports could handle a weighted train?

[Jogumpie]

I usually use unweighted trains, so I force myself to improve the ride's efficiency. However, I also think I do this because of the tube supports. Tube supports leave much more room for the track to deform after intensive use and therefore it's better to use less heavy cars.

[ForgotToGrowUp]

ah thanks, something to keep in mind if/when I decide to try to use tube supports.

[Maxlaam]

After a whole week of continuous running you could see the track changed shape pretty badly, so unweighed trains was a must if you wanted to keep the original track's profile.