Tech help

[willsy]

Hey all. Well this is what’s happing and I need some help. I am making a working model like the Giant Drop but it is a stand up. I have already made the tower and the track it welded to the tower. I have a motor at the top of the tower with a real for the cable togo around when the gondola is winched to the top. Every thing is ok but I need help with Magnetics. The winch come down like the GD but instead of the way it works I want to use magnetcis to grab it and winch to the top. and the brakes are magnetic as well. Here’s my problem. I need to be able to control the magnetics with battery power, I want to be able to cut the power then the magnetic release at the top and the Gondola will freefall to the bottom and the mag brake will kind of work the same way. Does anyone know anything about magnetics? Thanks simon

[Gazza]

I'd have the magent turned on to hold onto the car (It would be on by default), but a press switch integrated at the top could deactivate the power long enough to let the car fall. The switch would be placed so when the car lifter gets to the required position it presses on the switch and drops the car. The Electromagent would be in the car lifter. When the car lifter is returned back to earth the switch is released and the magnet goes back on. Obviuosly you would need a switch that works in reverse to a normal one, so the power goes off when it is pressed instead of on. Now, for the brakes. An Idea I thought of is having angled permanent magnets in the tower all in the same orientaion and an angled permanent magnet in the gondola. The North ends would be facing diagonaly up in the tower and the North end of the magnet in the gondola would be diagonaly down. As you already know, like magnetic poles repel so the magnets would repel each other as the gondola arrives in the brake zone, slowing it down. You would have to toy with the angles of the magnets to adjust the braking power. Here is a diagram of what i mean (a bad one though)