The girls go downhill the easy way

Here's a vid of Virginia and Julia riding the tram their grandfather and I built.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Tram
• Funicular
• Inclinator
• Hillavator
• lift
• elevator
• mountain

[KellanE05]

what is the motor called

[jeffjohnvol]

Its a 3 phase variable speed motor. There's a controller that varies the speed with pulses, allowing it to ramp up or ramp down like an elevator start/stop.

[MintSauce]

Looks good, must have been fun creating it. What was the reason behind building it?

[jeffjohnvol]

Hard to see, but our lake dock is down at the bottom of the hill. Its essentially 9 floors down (90 feet). The cart goes down 150 feet to the bottom. If you were to climb the hill once, you'd understand the need :)

[MintSauce]

That thing needs a turbo.

[jeffjohnvol]

Actually, the speed is adjustable. It ramps up and down at the finish. It currently climbs the hill in 70 seconds. The speed shown here was 120 seconds.

[biodot88]

Oh dang when the one girl sat on the edge of the cart I thought this was going to turn really bad with mangled legs on the uprights. As a safety engineer - who absolutely loves your design BTW - there are way too many pinch points. Does it have an redundant safety brake? Have you done an FMEA? Great idea - ness. is the mother of invention...be safe. 

[japharl]

Very cool build! Reminds me of inclinators in Pittsburgh PA!