Whats wrong with Dragster?

I plan on stopping by the park today but before every trip i usually look at the webcam. I just checked the webcam and it seems as if something is wrong with dragster. All 6 trains have yet to be transfered into operation. I hope nothings wrong especially with the ERT coming up this evening!

If Dragster is unavailable they will substitute in another ride for ERT.

Hopefully its s good one ;)

They overpaid for it.

The launching technology wasn't designed well enough and could not run consistently for a long time.

They overestimated the amount of money/attendance the ride would bring in.

The launch cable was not designed to get as hot as it does during repeated launches.

The computer system was flawed and could never run 6 trains.

They trusted Intamin.

Oh wait, did you mean just what is wrong with it today? :)

Lol @ Chuckwagon. I will say though, whoever designed the ride to include the sea of proxies to measure the train at such a small distance constantly and overburden the PLC is ridiculous. Dunno why but seriously, its just stupid.

Anyone heard if they have changed the ride tonight for ride night yet? TTD is still not operating. If it's Maverick it's a must go tonight!!

I hope its anything but Mantis lol

Gplez90 said:
I hope its anything but Mantis lol

AMEN!!!!

From Cedar Point's Facebook:

Tonight's Platinum Passholder right night is still on at Top Thrill Dragster. If that changes, we will let you know!

Hope to see some of you tonight shortly after park closing.

Im in Millennium line now, Dragster is running right now. The launch cable smokes as it goes.

The launch cable does not smoke, what you see is mist from the water cooling.

Did not know that! Millennium only has 2 trains going. Hope I don't miss ERT on TTD

Justin Delbert said:
From Cedar Point's Facebook:

Tonight's Platinum Passholder right night is still on at Top Thrill Dragster. If that changes, we will let you know!

Hope to see some of you tonight shortly after park closing.

They added Magnum as a bonus

thedevariouseffect said:
I will say though, whoever designed the ride to include the sea of proxies to measure the train at such a small distance constantly and overburden the PLC is ridiculous. Dunno why but seriously, its just stupid.

I will say you are 100% wrong on this.

The PLC is not even close to being "overburden" as you put it.

Lol, it's alot of extra code written for practically a pointless reason :P

There is a sea of proxy switches for no reason at all, then you have switches to monitor the brake fins if they are up/down, you have all the air regulation switches, ect. Some of it of course is necessary. All of these sensors though over the whole launch section/unload/load. I'm sure a good bit of them could be removed quite honestly.

It's not overburdened, as in, lag I guess, possibly put this in the wrong context. But like I said, it's pointless to have that much then code written, even if you copy & paste a bit of it & just change some variables, but nonetheless ridiculous. Looking at arrow coasters, or other rides even, just short & simple. Entry/Exit proxies for brakes, seperate but redundant photo eyes, and a few limit switches but I don't think they're hooked up to the PLC now that it was upgraded & proxies were installed but still. You don't see a sea of sensors on those and they work just fine.

I'd think the safety system would need to be much more complex on a ride that's launching guests 0 to 120mph and braking them back to 0, while maintaining 5-6 trains over a course that's just seconds.

If there are a ton of check points, good. It may cause more down time, but the last thing I want to do is collide with another train at 120mph.

The return from top had crest to unload isn't covered with as many proximity switches as load to launch is. I just don't see this as necessary when it can be done in simpler terms and still as efficient.

Also the brakes are static for the majority of the brake run, they aren't even the ones that move, so you have nothing to fear

Again though, that's about what I'd expect. The sensors are thoroughly checking the launch position, that the train hasn't rolled back, and that all the brake fins have popped up to safely stop the train from a rollback. With the static brakes on the return side, there isn't as much that can go wrong.

Maybe there is a better way to do it all, but it's definitely not as simple as your standard Arrow coaster. If something goes wrong with a train in the course, you've got a about a minute to stop the next train on the lift.

Around the launch where the dog engages the train that makes sense because it has to be right on the dot, however another 400 sensors (probably exaggerate a bit) is excessive. Mind you this doesn't include the mass of sensors that ate probably installed inside the engine house on the hydraulic motors/cable drum

On one of the Travel Channel shows, I think Monty Jasper said that Dragster has about 600 sensors. "Large" PLC systems in manufacturing can have over 1,000 sensors, so the computer can easily handle 600 sensors.

Many of the sensors on Dragster are needed. All the brake fins need to be retracted before launch. If one of them is up, it could cause issues on the launch mechanism.

I think the excessive use of sensors is between the unload and launch standby. I think that could have been done with a lot less sensors. Any time one of those sensors detects something out of place, someone has to check what happened. I also heard that the prox sensors are the most failure-prone. If that is the case, with so many of them in the unload and load, it's no wonder to me that they have issues.