Intamin Ball Coaster

Intamin used to present their new "Ball Coaster"-Concept at the European Amusement Show 2005 in Vienna.

Its a very compact coaster-esque ride which looks like a bastard child of an Impulse-coaster, "X", the Wonder Wheel a "Zipper" and...oh, the "Frequent Faller". Duh!

Currently, the report is only available in German (might be translated later), so just look at the pictures. It sure looks odd.

http://coastersandmore.de/rides/eas05/eas1.shtml

That Looks Crazy! I wonder if the cars are free spinning or controlled (X). Looks like a thrilling ride! Here is the translation:

The current best seller with Intamin is the Hydraulic Launch Coaster. After Cedar POINT with new hydraulics propulsion technology could 2003 into new Top THrill Dragster, the Six flag group with Kingda Ka gets itself the world Record this year . With a Gesamth?e of 139 meters the course in the Six flag Great Adventure the "competitor" Top Thrill Dragster in the Cedar POINT becomes by eleven meters?erbieten. 206 kilometers per hour ?

hstgeschwindigkeit are ben?igt, in order to?erwinden the perpendicularly up-rising up rail thing. Follow the structure of tower a speed H?el with magnetic brakes installed in the departure. The first distribution to Europe k?nen in H?e and speed do not compete, offer however more varied layouts. The building of cannons in the Swedish Liseberg with two inversions lies before the schedule, so that start-up could already take place. At the end of April is the course f? the park visitors to be released. Far also the construction work in the English Alton Towers progressed, where Rita offers starting from at the beginning of of April a winding layout. Further plants f? the europ?schen area are at present in the Gespr?h. The newest development within the range of rail-bound attractions is the ball Coaster. Its rail verl?ft vollst?dig in a vertical level, whereby the ben?igte Grundfl?he is very small. The smallest plant model ben?igt only 36 front meters and 10 meters of depth. The single cars consist of four rows f? ever two persons, who are arranged beside the rail on the left and on the right. At each side are two rows R?ken at R?ken. The span of the vehicle betr?t four meters.

The cars become synchronous by means of LS one impulses, so-called linear engines, which are inserted with Katapultcoastern since 1997, use diagonally rising distance segments accelerated and reach after an increased height one lower, which serves as block partitioning and is out-accelerated from that the cars again by LSM. Since the passenger carriers are swivelling stored around a central axle, coincidental schaukelbewegungen arise up to the estimate as a result of accelerations. The car rotation can be affected by magnetic brakes in the distance process additionally. Momentarily Intamin presents three studies different size. They have all together that as conclusion element a kind turned omega is intended. The car falls first into a valley, ascends again, over-drives a crest and falls a further mark, this time back into the station. The largest study with six vehicles and a route distance of 211 meters offers a final head of 20 meters. The maximum speed is with 70 km/h. Depending upon arrangement pitch attitudes are intended of more than 90 degrees. As test track in Luzern a plant with an upward gradient was established, which offers according to driving reports already an extremely unusual and dynamic experience. In the case of the presented studies optical dynamics result, there itself at least three vehicles on the distance up swings also for the spectator.

By the essentially vertical expansion of the rail the ball Coaster needs not only little place, but also only few foundations. Beyond that it is expandable in the unit construction system. It is even possible to arrange magnetic brakes deliverably and activate or deactivate it thus. Thus the driving dynamics can be adapted at short notice. As alternative to the LS one impulse also studies with a chain elevator were developed. Over distribution of this new concept is so far still nothing admits become.

obviously it is not perfect but you get the jist. *** Edited 2/23/2005 12:20:08 PM UTC by The Elf*** *** Edited 2/23/2005 12:20:43 PM UTC by The Elf***

Looks very compact... the prototype is definately weird, but the other optional layouts look fairly decent.

I can't translate it with this computer here, but do you think that this goes through just one circuit? I guess it'd have to unless it has more of a train and less so of just a single car. If it's just a single car, there's no way you can do more than one circuit. If it's a train, then I could see this being a little more popular because it looks like on the smaller circuits, it'd take no more than 30 seconds to complete.

Interesting, but definately weird.
I'd like to see it in action.

[EDIT] Looks like someone already translated... guess I replied too quick [/EDIT]

*** Edited 2/23/2005 12:23:41 PM UTC by DawgByte II***

Wow that's insane, I'm liking it though, only thing that I don't understand is how is the prototype traveling through the track ? Is it using LIM's ? of some sort.

I wont translate it all, but here are the essentials:

The gonodolas consist of two freely, independent swinging cars for four people (back to back, one car on each side of the track).

The cars will be accelerated via LSM (compare: Impulse coasters). There will be several sets of LSMs throughout the track to propel the cars to the next higher level. The valleys in the layout, combined with the LSM will work as a block section. In case of a block violation, the car will swing back and fourth in a valley before it is accelerated over the top of the next hill.

There are options to have additional magnetic brakes on the track which can be switched on and off to enhance the swinging/looping of the cars.

The largest of the three models can have six cars, with three cars on the track simultainiously. The whole concept is modular/expandable.

People who rode the small test-ride in Luzern said it was a very unusual and dynmaic experience.

Top speed is 70 km/h with a vertical drop from a height of 20 meters.

The more I think about it, the better it looks.

*** Edited 2/23/2005 1:10:36 PM UTC by tricktrack***

Interesting concept....looks like a cross between the 4D & an invertigo to me.

I wonder how on earth they managed to get around Arrow/S&S's patents on the 4d,because basically that's all this new design is,now hopefully they'll have worked out all the bugs that Aroow/S&S has had & maybe we'll see one of these in the states soon but with a more traditional layout.

Imagine how insane riding an impulse with this seating design would be.

Notice the key difference in the cars compared to the Arrow thing: The seats are very narrow to the center. I think the Arrow trains were just too damn wide, and that's why they reportedly suffer from the vibration.

Keeping the CG in towards the rails IS critical...lesson learned, LOL....;)

@Batwing Fan SFA:

Arrow have a patent on the mechanism thats spinning the seats in a controlled movement.

The Ball Coaster uses freely spinning seats. There´s nothing to work around the Arrow/S&S patents.

If you think about it the concept isn't much different from Interactive Rides’ Frequent Faller.

I wonder what the sticker price for one of these things are? It's probably pretty reasonable, but the the LSMs will probably bump it up a bit.

I like this concept. I was intrigued by the Frequent Faller and was a little disappointed that it fell through. Hopefully we see one of these Intamins soon. The concept of a Chaos/Zipper/Rock-o-plane car on rails sounds fun.

But what about the capacity issues? Seems to me this would not be high capacity at all!

I agree moosh, I think this is more of a kiddie coaster than a full blown impulse type.

looks cool, but can it do anything else? like do turns and everything, weve been getting a good amount of these "verticle" coasters lately, would be nice to see a different/larger and more varied layout for something like this.

How many vertical coaster concepts are there, really? S&S's Screaming Squirrel, Interactive's Frequent Faller (which this DOES remind me a lot of). Arguably Togo's old Ultra Twister. Any others?

Personally, while it could have some serious capacity issues, I think this new Intamin looks like it could be a fabulous ride.

Well, GregLeg, there's also the impulse, which this seems to have a lot in common with.

Said coasters do seem to have had their day in the sun, but there are a number of them out there, and nothing to say that there could not be more.

Also of note is that giant topple tower, crazy germans

and Colorado needs one of those alpine coasters pronto

I know these are just the prototypes, but any plans for a large model? 25m still isn't all that much... even though its the "large" model.

The idea is nice, but I think the layouts suck. X actually wasn't that bad...

I really like how they get on the ride. The little lifting car ( don't remember what their called).

I hope this isn't the way you always have to get on. ;)

Interesting. I think it looks fun and sort of funky, but not so intense. I am intrigued. :-D

Now THAT I could fit in my backyard easily. lol.

-Tina