Building a rollercoaster, aka "The Pirate"

[Carsten Svendsen]

**Recovered from the server chrash**

As some may have seen in the generals section, I'm building a rollercoaster vehicle with some help from legolijntje

Almost obviously, I'm also building a rollercoaster and it's a bit larger than I first thought. (This one)

Scale equals 1:28,125 and the complete lenght of the track will become 26,84 metres and 1,78m x 5,69m in dimensions or 10,11 m²

The scale is based on that the original rail have a distance of 90 cm in between, and my track has a distance of 5 studs (or 4 studs, mid-hole to mid-hole) that equals 3,2 cm

At this stage I have build a 1,5m long track and I'm not to happy about the results. I think that it's the car that's the problem because the track should be smooth enough.

I can't upload a video in this given time because I don't have enough internet left (already used 55Gb this month), so in the next weekend, it will come.

However I can show you guys my experiments and findings so far.

There are 3 different track parts that I need to make:

- A 4-sided track for the first hill including lifting mechanism (3,02m)

- A 3-sided track for the middle part of the coaster (15,64m)

- A 2-sided track for the last few metres of the coaster (8,18m)

I'm not quite sure about the 4-sided track yet but I have build a 3-sided one. This track consist of the following process:

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Link

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It's really flexible:

And in full it looks like this:

For the 2-sided track I figured I'd just do this as it's easiest and I see no reason why it shouldn't be like that:

As it looks now, the car drives really well on straight lines, but as soon as it starts to curve, the car derails. It's because there are no wheels under the track but I will see what I can do about that.

I think, that to make the car go all around the track, I need to put in a motor in one of the cars to get it around. Also, the gravity is really weird; IRL the car doesn't come as fast down the hill as the LEGO version does, but then the LEGO version slows down muh faster..... It's a strange world really....

Edited April 25, 2018 by Carsten Svendsen

[Alasdair Ryan]

Did I not help as well?

Looks great though I look forward to seeing it finished.

[Carsten Svendsen]

It will take a long time before it's finished, I have to find a way to make some sturdy pillars.

I wouldn't say you helped as the only thing you did was to post this which I couldn't use because imo it's not sturdy enough.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Carsten Svendsen

[Meatman]

I'll be watching this! I love Lego coasters.

[kieran]

Hope to see it all up and running some time soon

[Tadej]

Lego roller-coasters are great but expensive and big.

[Zerobricks]

When i posted my pin connector idea few months back i had no idea people will use it so much and with such succes. Great work!

[Carsten Svendsen]

Lego roller-coasters are great but expensive and big.

Correct, but I according to my calculations I don't need any more pieces. I have all the connectors I need (7000+) and the rest I purchase on BL for about €200 - used obviously (cheapest)

I'm afraid that it's the pillars that will give me the biggest headaches since they need to be 4 studs wide and round....

When i posted my pin connector idea few months back i had no idea people will use it so much and with such succes. Great work!

It is a great concept, but I'm only using your idea for the 2-sided track. 3 and 4 sided tracks will be made with internal tubes for flexibility

Edited October 20, 2012 by Carsten Svendsen

[Burf2000]

Really interesting post, I like the fact you have shown how your building the Track

[Carsten Svendsen]

This project is getting really difficult. I give up this idea of building the rollercoaster.

It's no problem making the track, easy as pie considering I have enough pieces, but the car it self that should run on the track is almost impossible to make. I have made many different wheelbases and I also reverted to the old track that was 7 studs in width instead of 5, to make wheels on the underside too. By using 5 studs (shown above) there's no room for wheels under the rail and those wheels are needed to keep the car properly on the track.

The problem is that the track size will increase by 50% by doing so if I have to keep the dimensions (5 studs = 26,84m, 7 studs = 40,27m).

In addition, all the car prototypes I have made runs smoothly enough on straight tracks but as soon as the track starts to curve in any way, the car stops instantly or derails. To solve this a 3-way axis on the cars are needed (up,down / sideways / rotate) and if I make that, the car will become so loose that it can't go straight and it will colapse around it self.

If I had 10 grand I didn't know what to do with, I'd happily build the rollercoaster but I don't.

So the outcome of this project resulted in:

950 used 5L liftarms

300 used 7L liftarms

1000 ½ pins

500 pin joiners

20 tyres thin

20 tyres thick

25 metres 3mm tube

If anyone has got solutions or any help/input at all, you're welcome, but I'm not gonna invest more in this project until a solution is found (not by me).

[arjanofski]

Maybe you could try to put the wheels, or the two or three wheels that you use to attach it to the rail, at an angle.

Edited October 28, 2012 by arjanofski