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The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread


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Does anyone know why MM runs their ZacSpin so differently than the one in Sweden? I find it strange that MM prefers guests to get sucker punched in the groin in ththe name of taming down the ride. And why would MM want to tame down GL anyway? It’s at a park that consists of 90% extreme rides. Is it a maintenance thing?

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Does anyone know why MM runs their ZacSpin so differently than the one in Sweden? I find it strange that MM prefers guests to get sucker punched in the groin in ththe name of taming down the ride. And why would MM want to tame down GL anyway? It’s at a park that consists of 90% extreme rides. Is it a maintenance thing?

 

i rode it when it first opened. i honestly thought i might get seriously hurt. body and head. lol i believe it's been tamed down since with that large slab of metal next to the seats that wasn't there originally. since i hear mostly that the ride sucks, i stay away.

 

i think intamin should gift sfmm a new zacspin with the seats in the correct position so it's not flinging you around. hahaha

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I can only imagine it working in two ways: either the seats are so weighted down and so off-axis that they no longer flip at all, and the feature of the ride then becomes the drops. Or, the seats flip so much that there's no chance of it staying in the upside down position for more than a split second (magnetic spinny fins might help there).

 

The problem with the ride, as I see it, is that because of the way it's designed there's a very good chance you're going to experience extreme g-forces face-first or upside down. The last time I rode it (basically when it first opened), that was my experience, and it felt like being punched in the head over and over. It doesn't bother me that the ride's still there — I mean, it's not like it takes up much space — but it is, by far, the worst coaster I've ever ridden. And this is coming from someone who actually loved Flashback and Psyclone, even at their crunchiest.

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I can only imagine it working in two ways: either the seats are so weighted down and so off-axis that they no longer flip at all, and the feature of the ride then becomes the drops. Or, the seats flip so much that there's no chance of it staying in the upside down position for more than a split second (magnetic spinny fins might help there).

 

The problem with the ride, as I see it, is that because of the way it's designed there's a very good chance you're going to experience extreme g-forces face-first or upside down. The last time I rode it (basically when it first opened), that was my experience, and it felt like being punched in the head over and over. It doesn't bother me that the ride's still there — I mean, it's not like it takes up much space — but it is, by far, the worst coaster I've ever ridden. And this is coming from someone who actually loved Flashback and Psyclone, even at their crunchiest.

 

i too rode flashback and psyclone until they stopped operating. lol

 

alan schilke explained basically why it sucks. it's because of the seating position being off the centerline because of the back to back seating. seems like intamin figured that out as well with their new model.

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I always hear about the B&M Rattle, Intamin problems or what ever company has a coaster out their. Someone will always pick a ride apart! It's funny to hear people talk about X & X2 and how it's a Piece of SH...! That's fine in all and we are entitle to our opinions.

 

With X2 being close to 20 years old it was and still is a revolutionary ride! Having a family member help with the construction and to finally see the outcome of it has been awesome for him and me. Everytime i driver up and see it, i think back to when I first rode it. This ride was the first ride to give me that OH SH.... feeling! Being my home park, I'm a little bias! Like I said before, I take the good, the bad and ugly of this ride.

 

This could be an issue but who knows. When I am in line for X or any coaster I see a large person trying to squeeze in the seat and have the restraint barely come down. When that train comes back to the station I hear, that was horrible ride and it was uncomfortable. These rides were build when people weren't as large and I am sure that has portion to do with it.

 

I have no clue regarding X2 at all - for all I know it's an absolute saint of a ride. I haven't been to SFMM since X was converted to X2. And X was absolutely revolutionary.

 

That being said, X was a very scary coaster. There were a lot of things I saw from X, particularly when I transferred to the maintenance side, that to this day haunt me. Kind of the worst of two worlds - a desperate coaster manufacturer forcing something they weren't ready to with a shoe-string budgeted park that believed it needed to debut X ASAP... to not the best result.

 

Again - I fully concede X2 is a different coaster. But X is for very good reason gone.

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The front end ride control software was a windows program. That's all you need to know.

 

Come on now, I though it was going to be something else. I know about software! I have 2 families still working there and on occasion one work's X2. She is a Engineer major and knows all the in's & out's of X2. She did a paper on it and mechanics of this beast and is very knowledgeable. I don't even bring it up because she will talk me down!

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^^Any reason it's down for so long? I care a little bit.

Literally to save money. It's a ride that requires more operators than most, it's already extremely unpopular, and the park is in budget cut mode right now. The perfect storm for shutting down the ride for the rest of the season. They're also doing some special maintenance on the ride as well, but nobody seems to know what that means.

 

SFMM added weight to theirs as well. They didn't want it flipping too much.

I've always heard this, but I've asked and everyone at the park has always told me that they didn't add weights, they just added the magnet to drastically slow down the spin rotation. Where are the weights supposedly installed?

 

The front end ride control software was a windows program. That's all you need to know.

The cutout for the computer's keyboard and trackball still exist on the ride's control panel. I've always found it quite interesting and that's hilarious to know that's how X used to operate... Now the ride has a nice Allen Bradley PLC with touchscreen panel that is very much in line with the times.

 

For me, I've always found it fascinating that X/X2 uses pressurized air to lock and unlock the harnesses. It's not your typical pneumatic system either, there is literally an arm that comes up and down to pressurize and depressurize the seats and restraints that connects to the back of the train every time it parks in the station. That arm doesn't exist at the old unload anymore which is why when the ride breaks down they can't get people out of the train at old unload unless they manually hook up an air hose to the train itself to get riders off. They will only ever unload from the old unload in rare circumstances (mostly if they can't advance the other train out of loading).

 

Also, X2's train has fiber optic cable ran through it for PLC comms for whatever reason which is also amazing and unusual.

 

It's a weird ride to say the least. Even now, it's just so unique and different then most any other ride that has ever been built I find it really fascinating.

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SFMM added weight to theirs as well. They didn't want it flipping too much.

I've always heard this, but I've asked and everyone at the park has always told me that they didn't add weights, they just added the magnet to drastically slow down the spin rotation. Where are the weights supposedly installed?

 

 

here's some images i found. one from media day, and one recent. light composite panel next to the track compared to heavy steel large piece.

2007072393_ScreenShot2017-11-11at8_17_10PM.png.76cb8f5fa3d55590b1fadb7221c70e59.png

 

1628974773_ScreenShot2017-11-11at8_19_32PM.thumb.png.a7f184efb126446263cc9a2a5c66ae11.png

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The front end ride control software was a windows program. That's all you need to know.

 

Come on now, I though it was going to be something else. I know about software! I have 2 families still working there and on occasion one work's X2. She is a Engineer major and knows all the in's & out's of X2. She did a paper on it and mechanics of this beast and is very knowledgeable. I don't even bring it up because she will talk me down!

 

I don't know the operation/mechanical side of X2 at all. From all accounts it addressed the major issues with X and the trains are very well designed.

 

X's front end/HMI was Windows based. The back end was a dual Allen Bradley SLC PLC setup. I don't think a light weight messaging/logging system being run by a windows application is uncommon in industrial controls (Disney has been using a Windows-based messaging system for years successfully, Riddler used one in the electrical equip room when I worked there). What was unusual was the amount of control the operators and maintenance were expected to do through X's front end system. When it crashed (and that's when, not if) you were sort of flying blind and couldn't do much. When it finally came back up and sync'd it wouldn't always accurately reflect the true ride status, especially in terms of occupied blocks. We knew we were in trouble when we started having to manually force bits on/off in the PLC (mostly to reset blocks the ride control system refused to acknowledge were not occupied and would not reset through the HMI). Forcing bits in a PLC is something you expect to do early in testing on a coaster but is generally a major no-no for an operating coaster.

 

Even without the HMI issues the ride control system had just very obviously not been through enough test and adjust.

 

On the mechanical side, the trains were a whole other bag of problems... to give an idea of one of the challenges with the original trains, SFMM installed on their own a proximity sensor on each side of the train at the brake run at the end of the ride along the cat walks. The purpose of these sensors two-fold - verify each fork (support arm holding the seats) was present and that it was in the correct position (not bent). So why SFMM add them? Let's just say they weren't added as an abundance of caution or as a "what-if/just in case" sort of thing.

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The purpose of these sensors two-fold - verify each fork (support arm holding the seats) was present and that it was in the correct position (not bent). So why SFMM add them? Let's just say they weren't added as an abundance of caution or as a "what-if/just in case" sort of thing.

 

The wings don't have a central axle running through them, do they? They're just sort of slapped onto the side of the train (well, bolted and whatnot). I wonder if a continual axle might have lessened the jerky rotations? Or if the jerkiness is the fault of a guide rail system in need of reprofiling?

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The purpose of these sensors two-fold - verify each fork (support arm holding the seats) was present and that it was in the correct position (not bent). So why SFMM add them? Let's just say they weren't added as an abundance of caution or as a "what-if/just in case" sort of thing.

 

The wings don't have a central axle running through them, do they? They're just sort of slapped onto the side of the train (well, bolted and whatnot). I wonder if a continual axle might have lessened the jerky rotations? Or if the jerkiness is the fault of a guide rail system in need of reprofiling?

 

For X they did not have a central axle running through them. I have no idea for X2.

 

I'd guess relying on a coaster rail to control the rotations causes a lot of the jerkiness since Arrow tends to build jerky coasters anyway, but that's more of an educated guess than actual knowledge. From what I can recall X was jerky from day one and just got worse as time went on but my memory is a little hazy.

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^&^^The jerky rotation of X2 is mainly caused by the amount of "play" in the rack where it attaches to the outer rail. The rack rests on a rubber cushion to act as a damper so that the natural vibration of the wheel base on the track doesn't get transferred into the rack and pinion (which could definitely cause problems).

 

The side effect of this is that each car does have a lot of play and can easily rotate a bit just by pushing the car up and down by hand. So a lot of the bouncing you see and experience on X2 is actually the lack of stiffness on that rack's connection. It's a necessary evil.

 

Could it be redesigned to have tighter tolerances? Maybe, but I'm sure that this is as good as the tolerance gets without causing a safety or mechanical headache, otherwise S&S probably would have designed for less rotational play.

 

here's some images i found. one from media day, and one recent. light composite panel next to the track compared to heavy steel large piece.

[attachment=0]Screen Shot 2017-11-11 at 8.17.10 PM.png[/attachment]

 

[attachment=1]Screen Shot 2017-11-11 at 8.19.32 PM.png[/attachment]

So that modified fiberglass panel isn't actually steel. Those are indeed not the counterweights. I will do more investigating....

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^&^^The jerky rotation of X2 is mainly caused by the amount of "play" in the rack where it attaches to the outer rail. The rack rests on a rubber cushion to act as a damper so that the natural vibration of the wheel base on the track doesn't get transferred into the rack and pinion (which could definitely cause problems).

 

That's interesting, I don't remember a rubber cushion on X's trains (but could just be failed memory). Was that added to the X2 trains?

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