Wicked Twister troubles

That is probably an exaggeration (about the grain of sand), but it looks like some type of E- Stop, not a valley.

I thought this was a joke when I first read it... Doesn't Wicked Twister valley every ride? If it didn't, THAT would be an issue!

Looks/sounds like a simple light curtain break in the station. Immediately cuts all power and lowers the brakes. If launching forward, it would appear that it 'didn't have enough power coming out of the station'.

We had to test every set of light curtains in the morning, and eventually made a game out of it, breaking the light curtain at JUST the right second so that the train would park as close to it's home position as possible. I was pretty kickass at it, if I do say so myself. ;)

This will probably show my ignorance, and that's okay....I admit I don't know much about coasters...BUT..after so many years of WT being open, wouldn't you think that new technology would have been created or upgraded to prevent oversensitivity?

Gravity, I'm a little confused when you talk about a curtain. Is that another way of saying low voltage in some spots?

And campfreak, that's okay because I couldn't tell you how Wicked Twister or Top Thrill Dragster works either. Both are complicated to figure out. By the way everyone, this is post #4,000 for me. YAY!!

WOOHOO! I can answer the light curtain question shawn!!! A curtain is like a motion sensor. It's got light bars on both sides of the track. If anything trips the motion sensor, it would cause the ride to go into some sort of safety mode.

That's the best answer I can give.

Light curtain = an invisible "shield" that runs parallel with the station, so if anything crosses the path of the "shield", it will cause the brakes to drop, and the ride to stop. It's one of a couple safety features on Wicked Twister.

In terms of the picture above, that to me looks like an E-stop that occurred on swing 4 (more than likely E55 for those of you who have worked WT before). Any time the ride senses something wrong, i.e.: over speed, dirty sensors, tripped breaker, etc., the ride will completely shut down, the brakes will drop, the motors will stop, and the fans will turn off, causing the train to stop out by the front tower. The operator will get an error on the screen that says E55, and that results in maintenance approval to reset the ride and bring it back to home position. Some times the ride won't start back up due to a tripped breaker and the operator will have to wait for maintenance to come over and reset.

Twister is a very complex ride. A lot of the mechanical problems are simple "reset and go" type of fixes.

I always figured the light curtain was like the safety on your garage door opener, but a whole lot bigger. Just a beam sent from a transmitter to a receiver. If something breaks the beam and the receiver doesn't get the signal, the system E-stops.

That is what it is. But, unlike the photo eyes on your garage door which only cover a few inches off the floor, a light curtain might cover 5 ft. of vertical distance from the floor. It is literally a curtain made of light unlike just a beam from a photo sensor.

So could a grain of sand possibly set off the curtain?

No. It's not that sensitive. However, if a bird flies through the station low enough, it can definitely break the light curtain and cause the ride to stop

Doesn't Twister also stop if somebody leans on the platform gates?

On another note, I once read an anecdote online of a moronic ride op on V2 (I don't know which one, either SFDK or SFGAm), another impulse coaster (SFGAm's is like Dorney's Possessed but with a deactivated holding brake, while SFDK's is shorter with an inclined barrel roll on the front spike due to modifications made for city ordinances.) Both work very similarly to Twister.

The story I read said that the ride op dove in front of a train and laid on the floor as it passed over him. Obviously, this would set off the light curtain (assuming these rides have one, which I would assume they do), so I imagine he pulled his stunt as the train "swung" backwards up the back tower or forwards down the back tower so it couldn't stop before it passed over him. Obviously, the guy was fired immediately.

That guy sounds like a real moron and should never be allowed to work with large machinery ever. I wouldn't expect that even from a Six Flags employee ;)

In case anyone is curious as to what the light curtain bars look like/where they're located, I shamelessly screengrabbed a youtube video and beautifully circled them.

Interestingly enough, I found a video where there are no light bars. Does anyone know when they were installed? https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveynin/2567554548/in/set-72157629237743187/

Heck, just re-track WT, that'll fix everything.

The light curtains have been there since day 1. I do not believe the middle two you circled are light curtains. I believe on both sides there is a light curtain on the outside of the column flange closest to the track on both the front and rear columns only. There are not any light bars on the middle columns. This is why you do not see them in the video you referenced.

Side note, they were originally installed on the column web (inside of the column). This did require light curtains on the middle column as it prevented the beam from reaching the end of the stations. So there was essentially a front half of the station curtain and a rear half. I don't remember when they were moved. 2003 maybe? I believe it was very early on in the ride's history. Today you can still see the bolt holes in the column web where they were originally mounted.

So with it being July 21st, has anyone noticed anymore downtime on Wicked Twister and getting stuck in the area that Thabto(Brian) mentioned lately?

It was running fine July 20.

Quite frankly I've been seeing Wicked Twister running great each visit other than the occasional down time of retrieving a guest article here and there.