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Orion Construction Photos


IndyGuy4KI

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Glad to see Kings Island share a clip related to Orion's station.  I'm also glad they have not shared any POV videos or footage of anyone riding.  It would just be so cruel right now. 
The info about Flight of Fear and Drop Tower sharing power is so interesting.  I would not have pegged Drop Tower as a power hog considering it is a fairly slow lift to the top.  I suppose the gondola is pretty heavy and it is a vertical lift.

plz explain to me how it’d be cruel to send out a POV, it’d actually make me happy if anything...
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5 hours ago, Pagoda Gift Shop said:

Glad to see Kings Island share a clip related to Orion's station.  I'm also glad they have not shared any POV videos or footage of anyone riding.  It would just be so cruel right now. 

The info about Flight of Fear and Drop Tower sharing power is so interesting.  I would not have pegged Drop Tower as a power hog considering it is a fairly slow lift to the top.  I suppose the gondola is pretty heavy and it is a vertical lift.

I believe the reason that Drop Tower uses so much energy is because the magnetic brakes are rare earth magnets and are therefor always energized (you don't want to loose your breaks if the power goes out).  Therefore the elevator mechanism has to have enough umf to pull the ride vehicle up thru the breaks.  When you watch it cycle you will notice that the elevator speeds up once it clears the breaks.  

The Bat phone went away at some point and I believe it came back in one form or another (a phone or camera) when Banshee opened.  It may be gone now but I'm not sure indicating that they may have updated the power distribution for that side of the park.

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1 hour ago, hotrodyoda said:

While it wouldn't be *that* difficult to link the two ride systems in such a way, ultimately, a CCTV setup is easier and much cheaper to execute.

That might be a little cheaper but either way you would be running a wire which I assume would be the bulk of the cost.

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I really doubt it would be that expensive to have a raspberry pi sensor that detects when the ride is running and what part of the cycle it's in since Drop Tower's is fixed. Then that just can go over the park's private wifi to FoF to another raspberry pi sensor. Even installing 3 of them for a failsafe wouldn't cost more than $100

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So many interesting infrastructure questions!  I would think that using wifi (private or not) would not be very desirable for reliability reasons.  I would think the park would have a lot of fiber optic cable running all over the place in order to support a number of different things at this point (phones, points-of-sale, security cameras, etc.).

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I imagine that modifying the controls for either ride would require additional cost from the manufacturer or control system providers to interlock them as well as additional state inspections.  By making a phone call or providing a video camera to observe the other rides operation by passes all of this extra cost on the control system end since both rides still operate the same way as they were designed.  It is just up to the operators to manage the dispatches.  

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Some personal background here: I'm currently a student in a Mechatronics program down in TN.  Mechatronics is basically a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering/motor control.  So, can be directly applied to amusement park rides.

Amusement park rides are controlled by Programmable Logic Controllers.  The two biggest companies making this hardware are Siemens (German company) and Allen Bradley (American Company).  PLCs, while computers, are specifically designed for industrial settings and are streamlined directly for that use.  There's lots of different types of input/output modules that have certain wiring and programming requirements.  So, the first hurdle would potentially be, do the two rides utilize the same companies hardware?  If so, are they running the same model/level of PLC infrastructure?  Just like any other computer hardware, advances in tech are made, and those updates are not necessarily easily compatible with one another.

Then, if you've figured out a way to get around ALL OF THAT, you'd have to bring in a company like Irvine Ondrey Engineering to come and change the fundamental programming logic of the two rides and implement a new program, which costs money.  Unfortunately raspberry pi's (which I love, and can be used in simple arduino projects to function as a mini PLC), can't just be plugged into the system and go.  That said, a simple CCTV, and a 5 minute addition to ride-op training is by far the easiest and most logical way to go.

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28 minutes ago, hotrodyoda said:

Some personal background here: I'm currently a student in a Mechatronics program down in TN.  Mechatronics is basically a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering/motor control.  So, can be directly applied to amusement park rides.

Amusement park rides are controlled by Programmable Logic Controllers.  The two biggest companies making this hardware are Siemens (German company) and Allen Bradley (American Company).  

I've only had to deal with Siemens PLC for 20+yo CNC machines. There are so many "hidden" variables that need a separate laptop connected to view it's kinda crazy. 

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50 minutes ago, PatchesC said:

I've only had to deal with Siemens PLC for 20+yo CNC machines. There are so many "hidden" variables that need a separate laptop connected to view it's kinda crazy. 

Yup, precisely.  The job of connecting the two rides together was likely just a completely unnecessary headache.

 

10 minutes ago, teenageninja said:

Good news, they don't have to worry about it anymore, because they installed a different electrical grid.

Huzzah!  I didn't know this.  I'm sure there were other contributing factors to making that change, but that doesn't surprise me whatsoever.

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I watched the Kings Island part of that livestream. Mike Koontz said that he rode Orion twice in early March before everything shut down. He said the view was “spectacular” and that it’s now his favorite ride in the park.

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I watched the Kings Island part of that livestream. Mike Koontz said that he rode Orion twice in early March before everything shut down. He said the view was “spectacular” and that it’s now his favorite ride in the park.

AHHHHHHHHH
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On 5/28/2020 at 6:46 AM, goettablitz said:

because the magnetic brakes are rare earth magnets and are therefor always energized

"Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare-earth elements"(Wiki, 2020).Rare earth magnets require zero electricity, hence the permanent magnet part, which is exactly why they are used on rides.  The only way they would lose their magnetism is if the world stopped spinning, which as you can imagine brings on an entire new set of problems.  The magnets are not why the two rides had issues, it was the linear induction motors and the large 3 phase motor for Drop Towers lift.   Both need large amounts of power in short amounts of time causing a brown out on the grid they are connected to. A LIM is just a giant capacitor that releases all its energy at once, but most be recharged quickly between each launch. Drop Tower has a huge 3 phase motor that according to park mechanics has an under sized capacitor leading to too large of a draw on startup. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_magnet

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2 hours ago, PilotDude said:

"Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare-earth elements"(Wiki, 2020).Rare earth magnets require zero electricity, hence the permanent magnet part, which is exactly why they are used on rides.  The only way they would lose their magnetism is if the world stopped spinning, which as you can imagine brings on an entire new set of problems.  The magnets are not why the two rides had issues, it was the linear induction motors and the large 3 phase motor for Drop Towers lift.   Both need large amounts of power in short amounts of time causing a brown out on the grid they are connected to. A LIM is just a giant capacitor that releases all its energy at once, but most be recharged quickly between each launch. Drop Tower has a huge 3 phase motor that according to park mechanics has an under sized capacitor leading to too large of a draw on startup. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_magnet

I had originally thought of replying to him, but I was thinking he was saying that it required more energy to pull through the magnets, but I also may have misread.,

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21 hours ago, teenageninja said:

I had originally thought of replying to him, but I was thinking he was saying that it required more energy to pull through the magnets, but I also may have misread.,

Gravity does the pulling through the magnets though. The only energy expended by Drop Tower is the winch motor pulling the gondola and release mechanism to the top and a negligible amount spent on the sensors and servo's to move restraints and the like.  Everything else is done by the Earth.  The motors add the potential energy, just like the lift hill of a coaster and physics takes over from there.

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1 hour ago, PilotDude said:

Gravity does the pulling through the magnets though. The only energy expended by Drop Tower is the winch motor pulling the gondola and release mechanism to the top and a negligible amount spent on the sensors and servo's to move restraints and the like.  Everything else is done by the Earth.  The motors add the potential energy, just like the lift hill of a coaster and physics takes over from there.

I know, I'm saying when the motor is pulling the gondola through the brake portion, it is exerting a higher load, hence why it speeds up when it gets through the brakes.

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On 6/1/2020 at 12:54 PM, teenageninja said:

I had originally thought of replying to him, but I was thinking he was saying that it required more energy to pull through the magnets, but I also may have misread.,

That is what i was attempting to say.

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On 6/2/2020 at 11:36 AM, teenageninja said:

I know, I'm saying when the motor is pulling the gondola through the brake portion, it is exerting a higher load, hence why it speeds up when it gets through the brakes.

 

On 6/2/2020 at 1:15 PM, goettablitz said:

That is what i was attempting to say.

Ah, I see now.  That is a really good line of thinking, and they do apply some sort of force, but the amount of braking force is directly related to the speed of the object since they are eddy brakes.  With the gondola creeping up they exert little force, but with the gondola going at 91 mph it exerts a significant force at first that decreases as the gondola slows to a stop.  Below I have included a link, pdf warning, but it is a paper written by a couple physicist about how eddie current breaks work on roller coasters. They did some real world testing on Kanonen at Liseberg Amuesment Park in Gothenberg, Sweden.  For those who don't want to click the link, here is the TL:DR "The faster the train, the stronger the currents induced, and the stronger the braking force." "Since the speed of the train is reduced by the brakes, stronger eddy currents are produced in the earlier brake fins and more energy is absorbed than in the later break run." 

 

http://physics.gu.se/LISEBERG/eng/magn_brakes.pdf

 

 

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47 minutes ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

I drove past the park today around 2:00 and 4:00, and Orion was testing both times.

 

2 hours ago, KIghostguy said:

Orion was testing this morning. I could see it from my backyard.

Could you tell if the trim brakes were on?

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