TTD Most Unreliable? - CoasterBuzz

Wells its like brakin in a new baseball glove, it will take some time for it to run at full strength, and have no breakdowns. Like every new ride, its going to take a couple months to break in, and run every day.

I was there all last week and it was up MAYBE half a day total... But man, what a ride. Got on it Friday afternoon and was terrified. But anyway... What I was told while waiting in line Wednesday night when it went down forever was that the main problem is with the blocking and the software. Its supposed to have 2 trains in loading, 2 in unloading, and 2 on the course (1 running or braking with 1 getting ready to launch). What happens is when they move the pairs of trains, they don't move exactly together and the computer reads a blocking error and shuts down. For example, 1 train in unloading starts to move into the loading station before the other starts to move and the CPU reads it as a lost train or too many trains in the loading area. Its a safety "feature" to prevent too many trains being on the course at a time. But as for the actual launch, they can send trains all day long. Its in the blocking software the problems lie...

PS- Edit due to my dog hitting "Enter" before I was done typing.
*** This post was edited by CoasterShane 6/22/2003 11:42:30 AM ***

haha, Coastershane I read your post when you just posted it. Got me confused.

Anyway, Thats good to hear that its just plain old blocking and software problems and that its nothing hydraulic. Hopefully It'll be up very soon. No i understand why they took the trains off the track and on to the transfers so they can work on the censors and the wireing or whatnot.

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-Dennis
www.Drinkduff.com

Well there were a few other slight problems, than blocking...Ok here are the reasons for TTD's downtime, none of which could have been foreseen/prevented by CP to my knowledge- (some of the days are wrong)

1st major downtime- May 17th
The now famous wheel incident, it was the 1st downtime inducing problem that they had. Yea it looks like a pretty dumb mistake, but they were probably worrying about other things and the theming wasn't checked, hence it got loose and fell right off.

2nd major downtime- May 22nd (?)
Cable goes snappy. I’m sure they knew it'd happen eventually, but not this soon. Again, not really something they could have foreseen. Note that it wasn't even down for a full day I believe, it reopened before park closing the very next day.

3rd major downtime- June 2nd (?)
The hydraulic fluid inside the turbine had accumulated alto of debris (probably stuff that didn't shave off in the forging process), the fluid had to be completely drained and filtered.

4th major downtime- June 7th
After the fluid had been drained and filtered, a valve was had plugged due to all the debris that sent the ride down a few days earlier. The valve was so badly plugged; they had to get a new one. Well since huge valves like that are custom things, it took awhile to manufacture another one. When it was delivered and installed, it was found to be defective, which has sent the ride down for the time being. The valve often gets stuck open or closed, causing those 20 foot short shots, my belief is that it's probably a malfunctioning injector in the turbine...

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-Ray
Coaster Simulators v2.0 Webmaster
http://www.coastersimulators.com

Check out the newly redesigned site Coaster Simulators v2.0 NOW OPEN!
*** This post was edited by Xbox4414 6/22/2003 1:49:24 PM ***

You gotta love all of our CBuzz Junior Investigators/Engineers. We are blessed to have you in our presence.

--Ryan

Absimilliard said:
How about Test Track? Supposed to open in 1997... opened in 1999 and is basically a gamble to ride it.

I disagree- Test Track is mostly reliable recently (even as far back as 2001). Once they realized that the design car load of 30 at a time wouldn't work and they dropped down to 26 (or 27... or 28? I can't remember) their zone stop problems were solved, even if it did result in sealing off a loading station in the loading bay almost permanently.

Not to mention that TT is quite possibly the most technologically advanced ride in the world behind Spiderman and Mission: Space. You are aware that each car has more computing power than a space shuttle, right?

Test Track's uptime by *far* outnumbers its downtime.

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- John
I snap flyers.

About the speed... hasn't it been clocked at 127, maybe even more, WITH riders?

I've heard of 123 but not 127, but hey who knows?

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B Rad

TTD's "little software issues" are what had me in line for almost 5hrs before closing for the night.

Oh well, cant be mad forever. Hopefully its running much better by the time i go back.

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1. Millennium Force
2. HypersonicXLC
3. Alpengeist

Yeah, they are the most technically advanced vehicles in the world... 2 computers in each car.

That fourth station is used all the time now.

Regarding "being quite reliable"... I work at Epcot and its seems that everytime I go on lunch, the attraction is having technical difficulties. Add to that that most rain (and its sure rains a lot these days in Orlando) cause the ride to stop.

Well if we took the combined engineering know how of every Coaster Buzzer we would have a good company. As for saying that TTD is a prototype that would be a false statement. If you wanted to nit pick we could get into the really basic levels of technology that are brand spankin new on it but over all the ride uses proven technology. But as with any new ride there will always be a break in period. That Vertical Velocity at SFGAm. It's first season break downs were always happpening and there were some periods of prolonged down time. I haven't ridden TTD (hopefully this saturday) but i believe that it's un reliability Will disappear in the next few seasons. Also Intamin likes to get things right. So I deeply believe in my soul that TTD will not be closed for mechanical reasons for long if Intamin has anything to say about it.
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Assume The Position!
The flying position S:UF

Quick question... When the launch cable snapped, did they replace it with a heavier duty one or are they just planning on replacing it every 3-5 weeks?

The pulleys and drum are all sized for a particular gauge of cable. Just because it failed once doesn't mean it's going to do so every three to five weeks.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Typically, one talks about serviceable lifetime as a "MTTF", or "mean (average) time to failure." The probability distribution of failure for mechanical parts, however, is not a nice normal curve centered on MTTF. Usually, it's what is called a "bathtub curve"; it is likely to fail either very early in its lifetime (relatively low probability---often due to manufacturing, material, or installation errors), or very late (relatively high probability), and the MTTF is somewhere between the two.
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http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

Well I'm going out to CP tomorrow and I hope it's not down then, but if it is, o well. I'll give the facts about its downtime when I get back on Wednesday.

Ajrides said:
I wish Intamin was as quick to fix it as they were to collect their 25mil.

You so sure they've collected all $25 million? When I contract someone to build something for me, they don't recieve 100% of payment until all of my requirements are met and proven. I'd hazard a guess that CP's still holding back the final check until everything's straightened out.

Later,
EV
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Remember that if you're one in a million, that means that there are 5000 other people on Earth just like you.

That's what SF did with Deja Vu I believe, resulting in many of Vekoma's $ problems. I wonder if they were ever "paid in full"?

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

Always check the "status report" on CP's site. That'll tell you if it's "up."

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Blah.

Actually, the one day I actually got to ride TTD the online status report AND the automated phone lines both said it would be down. It was the only day that it was up for any significant amount of time for the week I was there. Also, isn't Intamin there helping work out the bugs? Thats what the written apology they hand out at the parking gate says...

Jeff said:
The pulleys and drum are all sized for a particular gauge of cable. Just because it failed once doesn't mean it's going to do so every three to five weeks.

I understand about the gauge of cable having to be the same size. I guess I was wondering more if there were some stronger material or higher pound test line that could be used. Not a big deal, just my own curiosity.