This Year for Halloween I designed and built a Motion Simulator/Roller Coaster theme park attraction. Themed to space travel, this all steel welded ride vehicle utilized 4 large automotive air bags to heave and tilt the 8 seat enclosure. this ride vehicle rode on a large track, and included a 1G acceleration reverse launch using a custom large pneumatic cylinder. The control system I designed for it was less than ideal... it was safe but it was extremely complicated and difficult to program/troubleshoot.

i have a year to redesign the control system and I would love input on ideas for An AFFORDABLE control system.

Components of the ride:

• Motion Control is made up of 8 large air solenoid valves.
• Video/Audio triggering is needed to playback the ride media.
• Special Effects Relays (Wind, scent, water, etc)
• Pneumatic launch (2 solenoid valves control the launch cylinder)
• 4 Limit switches to track vehicle position and launch cylinder position.

I would like to run all of this with PLCs…. but I am stuck when it comes to programming the timeline of the show. All Motion/effects data needs to be programmed amd synced with the AV playback and I am not aware of any industrial software/hardware to use besides the EXPENSI E Alcon McBride controllers. Any ideas?

 

A draft /drawing of the mentionned theme park attrcation would be helpful to assist you from here..

 

Video of motion platform (8 110v relays attached to 8 air solenoid valves control all of the motion. It’s extremely simple, 2 solenoids to a corner of the ride platform, filling and exhausting the air bags). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bbUl7XKnTmP5lLsg9t83xP5ohVl10HK7/view?usp=drivesdk

These air bags need to be programmed alongside a video that plays back during the ride. Is there any component that allows for easy programming on a timeline with synced playback? instead of manually programming all of the timing information (when each relay kicks on and off) it would be amazing if there was some sort of already existing solution. Here is a photo of the motion platform on its rolling base.



The ride has been completed and was open for operation in the past week, it had since been disassembled but here is a video of its reverse pneumatic launch. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JooMO2U3uY9xH_k854lStRkI-oJOt7yx/view?usp=drivesdk

A draft /drawing of the mentionned theme park attrcation would be helpful to assist you from here..

 

What technology is used to modulate strings of Christmas tree lights to music/audio?

 

Any ideas?

Yes, but you probably won't like them.
Why are you doing this? It is a waste of time doing it your way. What do you hope to achieve?
No one would try this like what is suggested for a real system.

Motion Control is made up of 8 large air solenoid valves.

The control is going to be very "mushy". A lot of energy is going to go into compressing the air.
Accurate control will be impossible.
As soon as you put someone in the "ride" the dynamics will change a lot.

4 Limit switches to track vehicle position and launch cylinder position.

Are you kidding? That isn't enough resolution for position feed back.

I know how to do it right. In the past my company had provided the motion controller for many movies, theme park rides, stage shows and simulators. Large platforms are moved with hydraulics. Smaller ones can be moved with servo motors. No one uses pneumatics if any mass is involved and even then, small servo motors are better.

With the right equipment what every you are trying to do can be done in much less than a year.

 

Yes, but you probably won't like them.
Why are you doing this? It is a waste of time doing it your way. What do you hope to achieve?
No one would try this like what is suggested for a real system.


The control is going to be very "mushy". A lot of energy is going to go into compressing the air.
Accurate control will be impossible.
As soon as you put someone in the "ride" the dynamics will change a lot.


Are you kidding? That isn't enough resolution for position feed back.

I know how to do it right. In the past my company had provided the motion controller for many movies, theme park rides, stage shows and simulators. Large platforms are moved with hydraulics. Smaller ones can be moved with servo motors. No one uses pneumatics if any mass is involved and even then, small servo motors are better.

With the right equipment what every you are trying to do can be done in much less than a year.

I appreciate the time you took to make a response, but I hope you read your message back and understand that it was not what I needed and could have been interpreted as very discouraging and unhelpful.

I am not an engineer (clearly) I am HOPING to pursue a career in engineering (I am not yet of college age) and this is something that was designed for fun and for my learning.

The pneumatic motion platform design is a proven system and the reason it isn’t used professionally often is because its cheap . For someone like myself, designing a whole theme park ride in their own backyard… it works great! I’m able to move a large ride vehicle around safely, at a relatively low pressure (only abt 60psi). And guess what… not a single one out of the thousands of people who have ridden my simulators said the motion was mushy or inaccurate. Since the whole ride vehicle moves on a track (50 feet in length) hydraulics wouldn’t work because there would be immense problems introduced when trying to run hydraulic lines to the ride vehicle. (Look at Disney’s EMV ride vehicles… break downs galore… and now put this on a coaster track with a launch)

The “Why are you doing this? It is a waste of time doing it your way. What do you hope to achieve?” Line irks me. First of all, I do this because it’s fun! Every year for the past 10 years I have designed an attraction for our neighborhood Halloween… this year I have the money, motivation, and the want to build my own roller coaster, and I did it! So for the upcoming year why not make it better.

Im new to this forum, but please whenever I ask for advice for help with CONTROL and automation, do not use that as an opportunity to tear down what I have created for people.

FWI: This attraction ran for 3hrs continuously on Halloween night with a throughput of over 500 riders. Free to the public. No person, no company, and no theme park builds projects for the public like we do. I am pretty confident I am the only person crazy enough to build an 8 passenger welded steel roller coaster motion simulator with a pneumatic launch in their garage

 

What technology is used to modulate strings of Christmas tree lights to music/audio?

Great idea! I will totally look into this. I also just found Weigl Control and they might have some safer solutions to the programming dilemma.