Drop Tower Question

[Angry_Gumball]

After riding Drop Zone today, maybe the second time I've ever had to deal with 'off balance' cabins, it came across my mind of 'why and how is it off balance'? My only 2 guesses is maybe an even pull on those cables from the motor(s) when pulling up the cabins, or second thought was maybe too much weight on 1 side of the cabin puts too much strain? I really don't know. So, I refer this to "Musical Chairs" as we have to get up, move around the tower to make the sensors happy so we can ride. Is it just CGA's tower that experiences this, or do other Intamin second-gen and roto/gyro towers also experience this?

[D-86]

In my homeparks every rotating and less or more spinning ride must be always balanced right. so it's always good for the ride maintenance and keep up to balance it right and i think that all intamin rides have those sensors if some side of round-seated ride are heavier than others.

[PKI Jizzman]

The ride ops at Drop Tower have to balance out the ride when it runs.

[chemical_echo]

Not just the one at CGA.

I used to work on the one at CW and we had to switch people around if the balance light came on.

[RollerNut]

Drop Tower like the one at which park? The one Carowinds doesn't have a balance light, it has an overweight light, which when it comes on we have to take someone off the rde.

[Sunfire]

^Actually, CGA's Drop Tower has an Overweight light too. That's what Gumball is asking about. As for me, I'm not sure why balancing is a problem. I've never worked at DT.

[Angry_Gumball]

^Now, that makes sense. The op said that the "Tower's off balance, someone has to move..." and of course, the non-member of our group doesn't budge, leaving one of us no choice but to sit out. Are there specific weight limits then for each cabin?

[KDCOASTERFAN]

^Actually, CGA's Drop Tower has an Overweight light too. That's what Gumball is asking about. As for me, I'm not sure why balancing is a problem. I've never worked at DT.

 

On the 2nd gen models each section has it's own mini panel with 3 buttons/indicators.One is for restraint release,the other is the aforementioned weight sensor & the third is the "section ready" button,which has to be pushed after the ops have checked & cleared the car that is running on that section of the tower.

 

I wonder if a weight imbalance may have contributed to the accident at SFKK last season? It could always be a contributing factor after all.

[Guest]

So, I refer this to "Musical Chairs" as we have to get up, move around the tower to make the sensors happy so we can ride. Is it just CGA's tower that experiences this, or do other Intamin second-gen and roto/gyro towers also experience this?

 

^Actually, CGA's Drop Tower has an Overweight light too. That's what Gumball is asking about. As for me, I'm not sure why balancing is a problem. I've never worked at DT.

 

Doesnt happen at all on the Drop tower at SFGAm which is the same model, it was pretty fun putting 4 large people in a car and seeing come down the brake zone way farther than all the other cars before stopping. Amazingly it does happen at SUF though but you dont know until after the seats are retracted, so they have to be chassied down and have the large row switch seats .

[RollerNut]

The Carowinds Drop Tower has a weight limit of 800 pounds per car or an average of 200 pounds per person. It was a common thing for the overweight light to come on, when it did we generally just asked someone to get off, and go to a car wth a less people or smaller people. This normally resulted in an arguement, but it is hard for the guests to win when the ride won't start with one car overweight.

[BasD]

Well I've been to Movie Park Germany lately and they have an (Intamin) drop tower out there.. But because it not being so busy the ride ops only ran one half of the tower, so it wasn't balanced out at all.. Every weight was to one side..

[haiderodes]

I wonder if the weight limit is more for the sake of the lifting mechanism or the braking? Seeing as how its braked using magnets, a heavier car could take longer to stop causing a problem, but then again all elevators have weight limits.

[RollerNut]

I was told that the motors can only lift 1,300 including the car. It could be that the counterweights on the inside of the tower only weigh 1,300 however. I will see if it is listed in my Hurler/Drop Zone handbook.

[Myself]

It's not just Intamins etc. The Pounce Bounce, Kennywood's frog-hopper style kiddie ride (with seating on all four sides) is also very weight sensitive and during the summer we often had to re-arrange people because the car was off balance. In case you're wondering, the exact ride type of the Pounce Bounce is a Zamperla Jumpin' Star 16.

[kenshinmac]

Not trying to threadjack or anything but I was just wondering if anyone knows what sort of wind speed they need to shut down sides of the Intamin Drop Towers. I mean this happens a TON at Elitch Gardens in Denver so I was just curious.