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.
Where I’m from that’s enough for your ice lollies, your entry into the picture house, with enough left over for the bus home!
How many belt onions?
Wasn’t the style at the time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are some good zoning laws I guess
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”.
Could get a large dedicated panel and rotary converter.
Two words. Diesel generator.
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.
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
This was, by a long shot, my absolute favorite ride and memory as a kid. 🥹
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.
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.
3rd hardest I’ve ever puked
You can’t just hit and run like this. Spill it.
OK, well the 2nd hardest I puked was at a cottage with some buddies not long after college. I didn’t have much experience drinking, and I thought it would be a great idea to drink a magnum of red wine on the first night. I was doing good for most of the night, even ate dinner and was having a great time. And then…I didn’t feel so good. And then I really didn’t feel so good. I ran to the railing with a bright red spray, as my buddies laughed their asses off because they thought I sounded like Donald Duck when he’s angry. I thought that was funny and started laughing while puking, which just made me sound more like Donald Duck when he’s angry. They called me Donald for the rest of that week. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with red wine ever since.
The hardest I’ve ever puked though was during my year of hell, when I was going through my Crohn’s diagnosis. I had hit a pretty major flare and my bowels were practically swollen shut. My doctor wanted to do a scope, which meant I had to be cleaned out first. And for that, they give you powerful laxatives. They told me to drink Gatorade with the water to help hydrate me since it blasted all the water through your bowels. What they didn’t tell me was to avoid red Gatorade. So I’ve downed the laxatives mixed into a bottle of water, and I’m sipping on Gatorade on the couch when my stomach starts hurting. My stomach was already hurting, but this is a stretching kind of pain. The laxatives are working, I think. But then I got that feeling at the top of my stomach, and I knew what was about to happen. I ran to the bathroom, got to the door and couldn’t hold back anymore. I projectile puked 6 feet and hit the toilet. An almost perfect red arc, but some got in the bowl. And then…I felt the other end. I barely made it to the puke covered seat and began shitting my brains out while still puking hard into the bathtub. I was crying and sobbing by the end of it while still puking. My bathroom looked like a murder scene. I’m covered in red puke. And I still had 3 more bottles of laxative to get through. I’ll be honest, I contemplated my continuing existence in that moment.
Those wacky college kids and their… red wine!
I was still trying to find what I liked. Beer was and is disgusting. Hard liquor required mixing to make it taste good, which I wasn’t good at. Coolers aren’t bad, which I drank for the rest of that week. But red wine was tasty. Really tasty. Deceptively tasty. It also contains a lot of tannins, which I found out the hard way later can cause stomach cramps and nausea in some people such as those with Crohn’s that I didn’t know about at the time. So does tea for that matter. It’s all part of the journey. I know what to avoid for the most part now.
The story. Spill the story.
A puke extractor?
