K'nex Cable lift idea

Well all you have to do is have a string and tie it around the gears and attach one of the K'nex chain piece's so the train can grab on. I have NOT tried this so if it doesn't work don't hold me to it.

As long as you can keep it from snagging on anything, it just might work! But getting it to return to the bottom will be very difficult without any weight on it...

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Jeff's Stalker
My K'Nex Coasters
Spring has arrived in Ohio...the Orange Barrels are blooming

It's a DC motor, right?

You need a collection of switches, a spool, and TWO ropes. One to lift the chain segment, one to pull it back. Put a switch at the top which, when tripped, will reverse the motor. A switch at the bottom should be set up to stop the motor. Your go button reverses the polarity and starts it back up again. So you pull it up with one rope, pull it down with the other, just as Intamin does it.

A little custom wiring, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Hmmm...you need a double-pole double-throw slide switch mounted along the lift to control the motor polarity, and a long slide-arm so that the lift mecanism will operate the switch. So when the switch is "up" the mechanism goes "down"; when it is "down" the mechanism goes "up". At the bottom you have a normally-closed lever switch so that as the mechanism trips the direction switch at the bottom, it hits the lever switch, which cuts power to the motor. A simple pushbutton bypasses the lever switch so that to dispatch the lift you push the button. It sounds more complicated than it really is. Hmmm...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Whose only K'Nex set at the moment is a Ferris wheel, but that is computer-controlled... :)

RideMan said:

Whose only K'Nex set at the moment is a Ferris wheel, but that is computer-controlled... :)

Why am I NOT surprised? ;)

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Jeff's Stalker
My K'Nex Coasters
Spring has arrived in Ohio...the Orange Barrels are blooming

Gotta keep the old ][e's busy doing SOMETHING! :)

Actualy the program isn't finished, and I'm having problems reliably detecting the spokes. I think I need to add flags to the spokes to give me a larger detection area for the optical sensor pair. I also found that my PWM speed control doesn't work as well with the wheel as it did with the swing ride. But the swing ride was no challenge...with the Wheel I have to be able to park the seat in the right place and keep track of which seat is coming up. The swing ride didn't have any sensors on it.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Nice to see those old Apple's being put to good use! :)

I wonder if an old TRS-80 could do the same thing???

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Jeff's Stalker
My K'Nex Coasters
Spring has arrived in Ohio...the Orange Barrels are blooming

The Apple is a nice choice for this sort of thing because the Apple ][, ][+, ][e and IIgs (not the //c) all have a 16-pin game controller port which includes four analog inputs, three digital inputs, and four digital outputs. There is some kind of expansion connector on the TRS-80 (I'm thinking specifically of the Model I), but I don't know what signals are available on that connector or what kind of an interface is necessary. It's at least got parallel data, as that's where a printer can connect, and it must be bidirectional data as you could get an expansion box for that port to connect floppy drives.

Back when I was working with one of those things, I was writing BASIC code, not building hardware. :)

Anyway, I threw together a couple of diagrams of what I am thinking of for a bidirectional K'Nex cable sled. You can see the diagram and schematic (REAL simple!) at http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-staff/dalthoff/knex.html . Within my site it's in the ride technology section.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
edit: Reflects changes made to the diagram page.
*** This post was edited by RideMan 4/4/2003 11:30:53 AM ***

I would say it's too early in the morning to be reading something that technical, but then I noticed that Dave posted his response at 2:17AM!!

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

I think you people are very smart and I hope to see pictures of your guy's cable lift! Also if you add more weight to the train it slows it down.
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Millenium Force- 1
Wicked Twister- 7
Magnum- 7
TTD- 0

When Dave gets an idea, get the hell out of the way!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

Scott: It wasn't early, it was LATE! :)

You posted your response about five minutes before I got out of bed this morning!

(I know, more information than you wanted to know...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Has anyone tried this idea yet?
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Millenium Force- 1
Wicked Twister- 7
Magnum- 7
TTD- 0