X's Rotation

By watching videos of X, and riding it for that matter, it seems that the rotations must "undo themselves". What I mean is that for every rotation, during the ride there must be and equal and opposite rotation, to "reset" the seats to their original position. Does anyone know if this is the case, or if they have some sort way to reset the rotation in the station by letting the "vertical rod with gear type things" slip through the turning mechanism? Also, anyone know how many rotation X can do in one direction before there is no more room for the secondary rails to move?

On somewhat of a tangent, but still related. Doesn't this predicament really hinder the design of future 4th dimensional coasters, as creativity must be kept in check, by the restraints the rotating cars provide? Can you imagine play RCT2 and having to worry about the rotations on the ride working out?

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What's life if you never get to the PO!NT

I believe you are correct. If it flips, it has to unflip. Although this may be seen as a limitation, I don't think it's that much of one. In my opinion, I believe it has advantages by balancing out your inner ear for less motion sickness. That helps people like me who can't take spinning rides.

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- Peabody

I love the "gear type things".

I am not knocking you...I have no idea myself of what you would call it, I just love the saying.

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Waiting for the CP announcement to be made so that about 1000+ posts will be made complaining about it.

Yeah that's the idea Coasterman. However much it rotates in one direction, it must rotate that much in the other direction before going back. Or something.

Chris Murray explained it very well to me back in March. But that's basically the gist of it.

Joe, who misses X :(

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It tastes like burning.

Does anyone have a pic or a link to the mechanisms that rotate X? I still haven't figured out exactly how it works and I'm interested.

The reason it can only rotate so far, and then must re-rotate "back into position" is because the X-rails (which control the rotation) are solid fixed members. The movement of the seats is dependent upon the distance between the X-rails and the standard running rails. This means that as the X-rails gets further away from the standard rail, the seats "pitch" forward...as these rails come closer together again, the seats "pitch" backward. (I may have these reversed, but the idea remains the same). So it should be *pretty clear* that it would be impossible with this system to have the seats pitch forward twice in a row.....sure, it's not "free-swinging rotation", but it IS the best non-coaster ride ever...even better than Spidey! (OK, maybe it IS a coaster, but it sure is unlike ANY other)....darned SoCal'ers!

edit: the onride of X will be up SOON, and it has a pretty good view of the mechanism that controls the spin...

*** This post was edited by rollergator on 10/1/2002. ***

Well, for all we know the train could do two flips in a row, as it really depends on the maximum distance the running rails and secondary rails can seperate, combined with the ratio of seperation of rails, to spin.

*** This post was edited by CoasterMan- on 10/1/2002. ***

I've thought about this a bit... Mainly becuase I want to understand how to make my own 4D's on Hyper Rails.

On X the seats do "undo themselves" that is to say any rotation, must be countered with an opposite rotation, at least by the end of the ride.

As far as I can tell, with the seats alligned to the gears as they are, the seat can rotate 1 full revolution forwards, and 1/2 turn backwards, for a total of 540 degrees rotation.

Top of lift to bottom of drop - 360 degress (ish) forward
Bottom of second drop - 180 degress backward
climbimg next hill 360 degress backward (now at 180 back from starting orientation)
half & half - 180 degrees forward (now at original orientation)
2nd raven turn - 180 degrees (ish) forward
last half & half - 180 degress backward ( to original orientation)

as for hyper rails, it only rotates 360 degress total, and starts so that you must rotate backwards first, so it's not possible to recreate X as far as I can tell. Oh, well, it's still a blast! Just like the ride!

I think the number of spins can be as many as you want. The only problem is that you would have to make the X-rail continue below the track. You would either have to make the track a lot bigger (between the running rails and spine) or you might be able to make the gears a different size to be able to get the seats to spin more as the x-rail pushes it. I'm not sure how you would be able to set up the gears differently or whether they would need to be smaller, bigger, or both (one gear big and one small).

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Six Flags, the only chain of parks that can manage to have stacking with a one train operation.

You have to remember, the gear that rotates the seats is not round, its more half moon shaped.... something like this "D"

So when it rotates upward, it has to come back down. Any rotations in one direction have to be reversed before the train can return to the vertical position.

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I hear a train a comin'
Comin' round the bend :P
TR2k3....GET READY!

it COULD have been designed to be a free-rotation thing... quite easily. but its not.... perhaps a breakdown in the ride would in that case be semi-disastrous...

the gears are called "rack gears" and it involves a large straight toothed piece of metal going up and down inside one of the two "fins" on each side (the angled fin is fake, i guess meant to look like an X or somethin).

when the X rail changes to be higher, the rack moves up a notch or two, rotating the seats one direction. when it goes lower, they roate the other way.

so the inversions MUST be balaced. lets take a sample ride

0 - rack at zero..... +2: seats rotate forwards..... -3 seats rotate backwards.... +1 seats rotate forwards.... as you can see it end up at 0 again

if it were to end up even one notch higher every ride it would after a dozen or so rides the rack gear would disconnect and be pushed off the car haha.