Steering

tenchu

tenchu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
This is all about how things are steered on different rides.
Could anyone tell me how these ones are controlled?

Fantasmic - are the boats on rails?
Great movie ride???
Ellen's energy adventure???

And there's loads of others which i cant remember now!!!

AAArrrrgghh!!

(And did they convert the bikes to be electric in the stars and cars parade at MGM?)
 
kaos

kaos

Active Member
Originally posted by tenchu
This is all about how things are steered on different rides.
Could anyone tell me how these ones are controlled?

Fantasmic - are the boats on rails?
Great movie ride???
Ellen's energy adventure???

And there's loads of others which i cant remember now!!!

AAArrrrgghh!!

(And did they convert the bikes to be electric in the stars and cars parade at MGM?)
Click to expand...

Here's what I know...
Fantasmic-- The large boat at the end is on a track, the rest of precision the rafts are all precision driven and free floating.

GMR- As far as I know, it is the same as Universo of Energy.. The cars are guided by a contactless track. If you look down when you enter the theater in UofE, you will see the metal "rails"
 
J

JLW11Hi

Well-Known Member
I know that in UoE, the cars are pulled by one single, very thin, but very strong, wire. Don't ask me how this works, I just heard thats how they do it.
 
J

JLW11Hi

Well-Known Member
ok, I found that info on the "wire" contraption. This is taken from a Disney World book, its a bit out of date, but I don't think they ever changed the vehicles:

"The ride vehicles, which weigh about 30,000 lbs when loaded,are guided through the attraction by a wire only one-eight inch thick, embedded on the floor."

-Walt Disney World, 1989
 
disneyreports

disneyreports

New Member
The Universe of Energy ride vehicles are self propelled and are not pulled along the track by a wire or cable... There are imbedded "pucks" in the floor of the ride track that sends a signal to the car as it passes over telling it what to do next, eg. turn left, right, stop, etc. When the vehicles are stopped in one of the two theatres they are constantly charging... The charging system works much like an electric toothbrush, there are no real contacts on the cars rather the charge is induced from a plate on the floor to the bottom of the ride vehicles...
 
s25843

s25843

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by JLW11Hi
I know that in UoE, the cars are pulled by one single, very thin, but very strong, wire. Don't ask me how this works, I just heard thats how they do it.
Click to expand...

They are not pulled.
The cars on UoE are electrical and are self propelled the single wire is just a guide wire to show them the way to go
 
J

JLW11Hi

Well-Known Member
Well, anyway, that's how they used to do it. I quoted that from an official Disney World book, but it was talking about the very first version of the show, without Ellen, so I guess they changed it :confused:
 
disneyreports

disneyreports

New Member
Universe of Energy never used a system where the vehicles were pulled through the ride... I am very familiar with the text you are reading and the wire they are talking about is the guide wire built into the floor... Think of it as a very long antanna... The wire put out a signal that the ride vehicle was able to track or trace... A few years ago they stopped using the wire in favor of the "pucks"... Basically a puck works much like a transponder you might have on your car for toll roads... As the ride vehicle passes over it the puck send a new command to it...
 
J

JLW11Hi

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by disneyreports
Universe of Energy never used a system where the vehicles were pulled through the ride... I am very familiar with the text you are reading and the wire they are talking about is the guide wire built into the floor... Think of it as a very long antanna... The wire put out a signal that the ride vehicle was able to track or trace... A few years ago they stopped using the wire in favor of the "pucks"... Basically a puck works much like a transponder you might have on your car for toll roads... As the ride vehicle passes over it the puck send a new command to it...
Click to expand...

Oh, I get it (I think:veryconfu :D ) Really, that makes sense why they changed it. From the book, they made it sound as if they were pulling it (and it made no sense to me, either)
 
joho0

joho0

New Member
UoE as well as GMR still use the wire guide. It is much more precise than the pucks. If one of these 30,000 lb monsters were to veer off track by even an inch, very bad things would happen.

The pucks are used on the parade routes to trigger the soundtrack/effects on the floats and keep them in sequence.
 
Timekeeper

Timekeeper

Well-Known Member
Give me an inch

Originally posted by joho0
If one of these 30,000 lb monsters were to veer off track by even an inch, very bad things would happen.
Click to expand...

If one of the "monsters" were to veer off track by an inch, they would be shut down and halted motionless - similar to the ToT. I suppose one may consider this scenario to be "very bad."

Tk
 
RobFL

RobFL

Account Suspended
Okay.. here's the info, which is correct, and not the ramblings of some Disney fans who thinks they know it all... No offense, but stop acting so authoritative... especially when you're wrong.

UoE used to be a "guide" wire system. You can see the panels where the wire was embedded in Theater 1 and Theater 2 turntables. The guide wire sent out a singal that the car recieved and guided itself accordingly.

This was replaced, with what i call a "sensor array" AKA: pucks. A little series of two by two (each vehicles follows two "track" lines) metal boxes stuck in the floor, each emitting its own little signal. This is detected by a series of paired bushels of copper wire on the underside of the vehicles and the reason the old metal guide wire holders atop the turntables have a nice chrome polished look. They keep getting polished every 17 minutes by two vehicles.

Anyways, the system is still called a "guidewire" system because it is the same general concept. It is used in UoE, GMR (the ops can control the vehicle speed though and that led to an accident which took out the loading dock), ToT (a vehicle guidence fault sent a vehicle through the firewall), and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular (to move the sets).

-Rob
 
tenchu

tenchu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Originally posted by RobFL
Okay.. here's the info, which is correct, and not the ramblings of some Disney fans who thinks they know it all... No offense, but stop acting so authoritative... especially when you're wrong.

UoE used to be a "guide" wire system. You can see the panels where the wire was embedded in Theater 1 and Theater 2 turntables. The guide wire sent out a singal that the car recieved and guided itself accordingly.

This was replaced, with what i call a "sensor array" AKA: pucks. A little series of two by two (each vehicles follows two "track" lines) metal boxes stuck in the floor, each emitting its own little signal. This is detected by a series of paired bushels of copper wire on the underside of the vehicles and the reason the old metal guide wire holders atop the turntables have a nice chrome polished look. They keep getting polished every 17 minutes by two vehicles.

Anyways, the system is still called a "guidewire" system because it is the same general concept. It is used in UoE, GMR (the ops can control the vehicle speed though and that led to an accident which took out the loading dock), ToT (a vehicle guidence fault sent a vehicle through the firewall), and the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular (to move the sets).

-Rob
Click to expand...

So the sets in Indiana Jones are guided along the floor? I thought they would just be controlled from the handsets. I suppose this makes sense if they are moving them several times a day.
 

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