Tomy Mountain Cableway Set

[Spaceman Spiff]

G'day,

 

I was wondering if anyone has one of these or seen one? Any good?

 

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10296030

 

 

 

 

Spiff

[cteno4]

Spiff,

 

I thought with your mountains you might be looking at this!

 

The pictures and video of this looked a bit klunky compared to the old faller one. I helped one of our members set up the faller system and it is a bit fiddly, but was able to get it to work well in the end. It does need some big scenery to make it look right. That's what struck me a little odd with the tomix as its always running very short and the end housings are so big (look overscale somewhat) which may be due to them needing room for a simplified pully mech as I bet the tomytec unit will be a bit more turnkey and less fiddly to operate (but that's just supposition on my part from tomytec in general)

 

I would have like to see one with smaller gondolas like you see on a lot of rope ways in Japan.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks for the reply. Is the Faller similar to the brawa version? The tomy version is certainly short and not a fan of the battery power.

 

Jon

[cteno4]

Jon,

 

Sorry my bad it is the brawa not faller (bad as I have one on the shelf!)

 

You could always use a power supply to replace the batteries. I expect you could run your own length of line but there is no intermediate tower that the brawa has to keep the line from sagging.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited January 24, 2015 by cteno4

[kvp]

The faller one (you can find it in the 2015 catalog) has a small single car 3 ropes system, with a laser cut wooden hut as the down station and an alpine stone house as the top station.

https://www.menzels-lokschuppen.de/out/wysiwyg/uploads/pdf/faller/FALLER_Neuheiten_2015.pdf

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks for the replies and the link.

 

The single cable car system looks interesting. It's tough to find info on any of these systems. I did see a video on the brawa. The cable cars swayed a lot leaving the station and didn't look realistic. I wonder if the faller version is better.

 

Jeff, how fiddly was the Faller to get set up?

 

 

 

Jon

[cteno4]

Spiff,

 

I helped set up the brawa (my mistake earlier, I'm always confusing faller, brawa and volmer kits), this is the first I've seen the faller.

 

All of these are going to have the issue of the swinging cars as they are a single rope and the cars are very light. I was able to get it working pretty good as we added a little weight to the cars to help with the swaying as if they were swaying too much when they hit the pully it would get them hung up. It's a delicate play with tension on the line, making sure the top and bottom pullies are held in place well and aligned just right, weight of cars and length of run. Too tight and they sway around with every ping to the string when the cars hit the pully to little tension and they foul at the pully and cable sags. They have a nice spring tension system on the pullies. Fred's was about 2-2.5' run and probably a 30 degree angle. Also slowing the cars helps some and makes it feel more realistic (as with our trains the speed the brawa kit ran was I think a lot faster than most rope ways). On Fred's we put it on a cheap old train transformer to set the speed better.

 

IMHO the best solution would to be like the tomytec with 2 cars and just reverse the motor using some optical sensors. This could reduce the pully size a lot and thus reduce the car sizes and allow for full angled pullies so the cable loop is totally flat. Then cables could be taught and cars weighted a fair amount to reduce sway.

 

A couple of years back I fiddled with doing some tests on an amusement ride idea I had, wanted to see if I could get some little cars hanging from a cable to snake around some hard foam rubber pullies. I had the same issues with rocking and the only solution I couls come up with was casting the little gondolas out of metal and having some guides going out it the pullies that stabilized the gondola as it exited. Other issue is what to use for the cables. Even nicely braded threads will with time get brittle and also stretch. Synthetic monofilament does not work well as it does not have any give. I fear thin wire will stretch and easily kinks and even fine braded wire is pretty stif and like monofilament it's not very forging ink with twist.

 

It's definitely doable, just to make it realistic and not toy-like in visual effect is the hard part.

 

I picked up the brawa cheap on ebay with the idea of using it as a test bed to play with these ideas as the smaller rope ways are prevalent in Japan and don't necessarlly need huge mountains or big structures on either end, just on the list of future projects unfortunately.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks for the detailed reply Jeff. I appreciate it. I'll keep looking around for a video of the tomy and see what happens. I'm thinking if I do it will be around 4-5 feet and 20-30 degrees.

 

 

Jon

[cteno4]

Jon

 

Hmm at 4-5' I think you may need to craft your own pylons to support the cable as there will be a lot of sag and sway in the middle I fear. Kato or tomix power towers sould be a good tower and then jut do your own guides over the top cross piece. Not sure exactly how the tomytec gondolas connect to the line and if it will work over a pylon guideway.

 

Might do a bench test with a couple of small pullies and a geared down motor. You can get a cheap one ebay to play with. Make some rough gondolas to see how they act on the long reach.

 

I've seen some nice little pully wheel sets as addon for some of the various building block systems.

 

Jeff

[1954G]

Here's someone's video of the Tomytec cableway in operation.  One of the building shells has been removed so you can see the mechanism more clearly. 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Thanks Jeff for the reply and 1954G for the video :-)

 

 

 

Jon

[cteno4]

Thanks 1954g! That shows the attachment and setup very nicely!

 

This attachment would not work over any pylons, so you would just have to see how far you can string the string until it sags too much.

 

Actually pretty simple setup, other than the gondolas it would be pretty easy to make your own!

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Simple and nice. However i don't see any automation, which should imho be part of the system. Even if it consists only of two end switches. At least the ride of the cabins is slow and smooth.

[cteno4]

The auto reverse appears to be triggered when the system taughtens up when the cars hit the end. Would be nice with a bit more of a real pause. The brawa keeps going in the continual loop as the cars move arounf the pulleys, but this action is some of the bounce that can get transmitted into the string.

 

Spiff it will be interesting to see what you come up with on this!

 

Jeff

[Spaceman Spiff]

Hi Jeff,

 

 

If I go ahead with this project, it may have to wait until next winter. Finally got the down town back drop done today. Switch panels are next on the list.

 

 

Jon