The electric requirements would stop you from putting it in your backyard.
The motor is 3 Phase around 150A. Residential areas are generally not wired to be able to offer 3P power to customers. You would likely need to rent some commercial space to be able to get the electric hookup.
If you didn’t run the lights, it’s only 33kW motor, less in newer Starships
Assuming you had 208V 3ph, that’s under 100A. Much less if you are in commercial area with 240V 3ph
If you don’t plan to spin 48 people, you could replace motor with a 120V single phase motor 5hp and remove a lot of weight from the ride (cut holes in every other fiberglass panel)
A decently small generator (relative to a full trailer carnival ride)… could power this. There are many tow behind 50kVA diesel generators. (Another $8k)
BTW the reason these UFO/gravs are for sale is because they are all rotting, the fiberglass panels that hold it together are like paper now and too expensive to repair.
nods knowingly
Indeed. 3p.
Look what I really pay them for is for them to know and for me not having to. They say 3p, 3p it is, whatever gets the monkeyfunkin’ GRAVITRON spinning!!
Three penis. It’s a type of electricity with three penises.
I don’t know much anything about electric motors but could you use the same motor and just spin the thing up more slowly? Or would you need a different motor for that?
I mean if you’re going tonreplace the motor just put in a small car or motorbike engine at that point.
Shut up, nerd! Let me have my gravitron
Yeah four-eyes! We want results, not complaints! Now get back in the HOLE!
Nothing that a couple of cat batteries hooked up in parallel can’t fix.
Sounds like an innovative, potentially disruptive technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk3xBhqcjqY
I mean a residential area home isn’t gonna have room anywhere for the thing in the first place.
which is why I had mine installed out back behind the stables, that we me and the livestock can all enjoy it.
Better still, buy an empty lot and it is your residential home
seems like it would make cooking… exciting. I say go for it.
Mmmmmmmm, Milkshakes…
His milkshakes brings all the boys to the yard.
And they’re like, it’s gravitron.
Damn right, it’s gravitron.
I could teach you, but it’s five tickets to get on.
Power company asked if I wanted a three phase meter when I was checking power requirements for wiring my shop up.
I just needed a different meter.
Usually it’s the meter and the cabling that needs changing, like an extra phase needs to be introduced but it should be available at street level if any commercial place is around.
Your shop might have had the cables already and just needed the meter change.
You’d also need a buddy to be the operator for it to work
Cheap timer clock from the dollar store you say?
Nah, just get a Bluetooth power button that you strap to your wrist.
Good thing my house backs up to a funfair! Place in garden, unplug the nearest fair ride… et voilà! New income stream for me!
Three phase motors are the bane of every siren enthusiasts’ existence for this reason. Anything with a motor over 5 hp is likely three phase.
Nowadays VFDs have gotten cheap enough that you can just use one of them to create 3 phases.
Or you just have 3 phase power at home (laughs in Germany).
(I actually dont right now, but my house is one of the last ones not to, and its all already prepared for it)
Or you just have 3 phase power at home (laughs in Germany).
aside from running carney rides, and maybe a shed with a gigantic cnc or end mill - what are the reasons for pushing 3p to the domicile level? I have no doubt there must be, DE knows engineering so…
It reduces the thickness of the cables and improves the balance of loads over all 3 phases.
Usually, there is a 3 phase outlet in the kitchen for electric stoves
ty.
VFDs are definitely the way to go, that’s what most enthusiasts used. When we did SirenCon over at Camp Tesumas in Wisconsin, we had a giant generator that we had to use to run the bigger sirens, especially the Cyclone 125 which has a 50 horsepower motor. It nearly killed the generator!
SirenCon
jesus I saw people in the 2023 vid w/o hearing protection - like… neat event, but do you have minimal hearing protection at all?
you can’t control idiots but… perhaps… you could make them stand at a safe distance?
not personal criticism just damn… got my hearing loss in the army, it’s not fun.
Some of them seem to think they’re immune to hearing damage, which bewilders me. Smart enthusiasts have proper hearing protection.
There are some good zoning laws I guess
Within 20 years I bet we’ll have small fusion reactors that just sit onsite and generate all the power you want. If we survive WW3 that is. A toaster-sized generator will be able to run a gravitron no problem.
Two words. Diesel generator.
Could get a large dedicated panel and rotary converter.
Ooooh. I could hook this up outside my uncle’s store.
I hear him talking about his setup all the time when something goes wrong and I regularly hear “it’s 3 phase”.
Honey, I’m home! Fire up the mothafunking GRAVITRON!
It’s actually going to set you back $120k, but still a better investment than a cyber truck
Why does it have a Denny’s light package?
I was so jealous of the carny who would get up and walk around on the inside wall.
Yeah one of them did that near me and then he fell in and get splattered on everyone.
In? In the Gravitron I rode, it was just sleds on the slightly-slanted walls that went up when it got up enough speed. There wasn’t really anywhere to fall into. I mean yeah, he could easily break an arm or something, but nothing that would splatter him.
Tbf we lost gravitron privileges at my country fair because kids kept getting fucked up trying to stand up on the walls.
Oh you’re right. It was a scrambler ride, not graviton.
A scrambler doesn’t have walls? It would definitely splatter someone anyway.
Right what threw me is that the particular scrambler was at an amusement park not a carnival. It had walls and was in the dark with lights and music.
That damn centripetal force!
You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby right round round round
Well if you’re okay with the perpetual maintenance costs which include paying someone who knows how to maintain it if you don’t know how to
If the meth head Carnies can figure it out, it can’t be that hard to work on.
Doesn’t the same go for cars tho
dude carnies are cheap. you just have to catch them drifting through town every few months.
This was, by a long shot, my absolute favorite ride and memory as a kid. 🥹
Ye old pukerator
No, that was the Matterhorn. Who designs a tight circular track and then not only spin people forwards, but stop mid way through and spin them backwards? I think that was the 3rd hardest I’ve ever puked in my life.
A puke extractor?
