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Subject: 
Re: Roller Coaster runs on Monorail Track
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.technic
Date: 
Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:49:16 GMT
Viewed: 
10086 times
  
In lugnet.technic, Jason J Railton wrote:
  
   In lugnet.technic, Jason J Railton wrote:
   I’m interested in anything that can reduce the size of a roller coaster and make it more reliable. This was my mini one from LegoWorld last year. Whoever took these shots got a good close-up of the lifting mechanism:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2179993

In lugnet.technic, Chris Phillips wrote:
   That is a cool design! Definitely the most compact working design I’ve seen. I’m surprised that I never noticed this before. I bet you could eliminate a lot of friction by using a layer of SNOT for the rail bed. I also used plastic wheels (no rubber) because I don’t mind if the wheels skid all the way down the hill. All the better if they do!

It was designed to be modular - each section is 16x16, and drops either 2 bricks (straight) or 4 bricks (corner). I carried it all in flight luggage, each part wrapped in tight cling-film (plastic food wrap) and I’m amazed the curves held together. A good Samsonite case helped.

Samsonite!

   Funny thing was, if I had tiles all along the straights, the cars would drag against the sides. By having some tiles then dropping onto studs, there’s a little jolt to keep them going. The same is true of the placement of tiles on the steps in the corners.

The corners are where you get the most sticking though, and it’s hard to design a smooth (and shallower) bed through the turns. If the cars pick up too much speed, they will tip over the next corner as they are quite tight turns.

Speed is your friend, and friction is your enemy. If the cars are tipping in the corners, you could try using thin Technic tubing (the stuff that can clip into a minifig hand) to build guard rails. I also use that stuff very heavily for GBC.

  
   I want this to be very reliable. Our amusement park displays are expected to run continuously for at least six hours at a time, and I don’t want to spend the whole weekend picking up after derailments and answering minifig lawsuits.

Mine ran 8 hours a day for 6 days at Legoworld, but you did have to watch it pretty much constantly for cars tipping on the lift or in the corners. I also needed to completely service the mechanism and the karts every morning - wheels off to dust the axles, brush the tyres and clear the plastic dust from the lift gearing.

Very impressive! The NELUG amusement park area usually has a lot of ABS dust blowing around by the end of a weekend, too.

   Still, I had mine working on the first day, whereas the other coaster in the hall (a very large hanging one) was still being built on the last day!

Yes, another design criteria for my coaster is that it be sturdy and portable. I plan to display this at least twice a year on NELUG’s train layout. I have a pretty decent way to connect track segments that will be somewhat modular - at least as modular as one might hope to be with a setup that requires this much tuning. But I want to be able to throw it together in an hour or two at most.



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Roller Coaster runs on Monorail Track
 
(...) It was designed to be modular - each section is 16x16, and drops either 2 bricks (straight) or 4 bricks (corner). I carried it all in flight luggage, each part wrapped in tight cling-film (plastic food wrap) and I'm amazed the curves held (...) (17 years ago, 29-Mar-07, to lugnet.technic, FTX)

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