Attraction Batman & Robin: The Chiller

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Attraction Type
Roller Coaster
Attraction Status
Defunct
Attraction Manufacturer
Premier
Attraction Model
LSM Shuttle
GAcoaster said:
Apparently Premier really wanted to get the ride fixed and working the way it was intended but the park just wanted to pull the plug after years of issues.
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Premier did but every time the ride got touched it was fucked up in some way. The LIMs constantly had issues and the trains constantly had issues and the programming constantly had issues. Was a never ending clusterfuck of a ride.
 
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Six Flags bought four new-tech prototype rides at the same time from a young and small company whose high-speed roller coaster legacy consisted of exactly two other new-tech prototype rides, which themselves had major ongoing problems. Massive trouble was baked into almost every aspect of the situation from the outset.

Chiller with the lapbars was a good time though, and worth the challenge to catch one side or other on a day when it was running.
 
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The Batman side was a little more complex which probably made it more problematic than the simpler Robin side. The end spire for Batman had extra LIMs to push the train back through the inverted tophat.
 
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When the ride first opened they had the same amount of LIMs on both tracks. The only reason they reduced it on the robin track is because the train didn’t need to make it as high up the spike to make it back through the cobra roll.

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Such a shame this ride couldn't get its issues fixed. I've always found it interesting that the Mr. Freeze's were able to stick around till today but this one didn't. Hopefully someone can confirm this but I've heard that this thing would suck up so much electricity that they'd need to close other nearby attractions just to run both sides. Another detail Ive heard was you could hear this ride no matter where you were in the park because of how loud it was.

Wish I go the chance to ride it would've been a strong piece of the lineup if it were still with us
 
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EastCoastAirtime said:
Such a shame this ride couldn't get its issues fixed. I've always found it interesting that the Mr. Freeze's were able to stick around till today but this one didn't. Hopefully someone can confirm this but I've heard that this thing would suck up so much electricity that they'd need to close other nearby attractions just to run both sides. Another detail Ive heard was you could hear this ride no matter where you were in the park because of how loud it was.

Wish I go the chance to ride it would've been a strong piece of the lineup if it were still with us
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I don't recall the park closing nearby attractions to run both sides, though it was a rare occurrence that both sides did run. Moreover, I can confirm that Chiller was loud as it sounded like a jet fighter taking off.
 
GAcoaster said:
Both-- the park's power system is lacking (and they have power outages all the time). I hope they have that figured out for Flash.
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I mean Kingda Ka’s launch system was far more powerful than Chiller’s and it had no issues with using too much of the park’s power system. Also, launch technology has come a long way since 1997, so I feel like Flash’s LSMs will be much more reliable and energy efficient than Chiller’s LIMs were.
 
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NKMM10893 said:
I mean Kingda Ka’s launch system was far more powerful than Chiller’s and it had no issues with using too much of the park’s power system. Also, launch technology has come a long way since 1997, so I feel like Flash’s LSMs will be much more reliable and energy efficient than Chiller’s LIMs were.
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Yes, it used a hydraulic launch which uses less electricity.
 
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GAcoaster said:
Both-- the park's power system is lacking (and they have power outages all the time). I hope they have that figured out for Flash.
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Im sure nowadays its fine or much better at least. The solar panels they've installed over the years in the back parking lots would supplement the existing power system quite well i would assume
 
Not really— they still have outages in the summer. Those early LSMs seem to have been real energy hogs though.
 
EastCoastAirtime said:
Im sure nowadays its fine or much better at least. The solar panels they've installed over the years in the back parking lots would supplement the existing power system quite well i would assume
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A big problem with LIMs is the skin effect with AC current. Basically AC only wants to travel though the outermost layers of a wire or cable and hardly any current travels through the core, increasing the electrical resistance. The higher the frequency the worse the skin effect becomes.
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NKMM10893 said:
I mean Kingda Ka’s launch system was far more powerful than Chiller’s and it had no issues with using too much of the park’s power system.
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Kingda Ka used hydraulic accumulators; the hydraulic pumps ran a while, slowly building pressure in the accumulators, and released it in a short period of time.
The issue with magnetic launches is they only consume power during the launch, resulting in very high peak loads. (Yes, there is a constant load from the cooling fans on many launched coasters, but that energy usage is small by comparison and does not contribute energy to the launch of the train.)
The solution to Batman & Robin would have been an energy storage device. The most common for this application would be a flywheel type; essentially a motor attached to the electrical grid drawing a fairly consistent load spinning a heavy flywheel. The flywheel powers a generator that powers the ride. A well known example is for Thunderbird at Holiday World, it uses two 12 ton flywheels to store the approximately 2,500,000 Watts needed to launch a train.
I don't know why more parks with launch coasters don't use energy storage to smooth out their energy use. Grid operators prefer constant loads. I guess for many parks the surcharges for major short spikes in their electrical usage is cheaper than the added cost of operating an energy storage system, plus the extra energy cost from the losses in such systems.
EastCoastAirtime said:
The solar panels they've installed over the years in the back parking lots would supplement the existing power system quite well i would assume
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I am not trying to be negative on solar or anything, but the solar panels do not help with night rides. Plus the solar panels are more of a base generating load, and do not meaningfully effect the grid operator's ability to handle short peak electrical loads.
 
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