I'm looking for anyone to trade notes about using the Rigi cableway. I incorporated one in my holiday indoor layout. It works reasonable well but I'm curious if anyone has cooked up modifications to improve some of the downsides. For instance, it appears you need a fair amount of slack in the cable to avoid reversing when it isn't supposed to. The instructions say if it reverses inadvertantly, the cable is too tight (I think it senses a current increase when the attachments on the cable hit the base unit). This makes sense, however, the more slack in the cable, the more it rides off center on the base unit pulley - rides low on the car at the bottom, high for the car at the top.
I bought some roller bearing pulleys (sliding door parts) I haven't installed yet but I'm thinking they might reduce the drag at the top in comparison to the provided plastic pulley arrangement hence allowing the cable to be tighter.
A different reversing mechanism would be nice - one that can do a soft stop. This has the same problem as the Aristocraft track reverser - it slams to a stop.
Anyone else played with one of these?
Thanks, Bob
I was going to use this one. The box is paper but the top is plastic, yet to run it thou.
http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=70120
Toad
My Rigi Duo Cableway just stopped working. I know the motor is good because I put 9 volts to it directly and it runs. The base station is the problem... perhaps a transistor went out. I am looking for a replacement or someone to fix it. What I think caused the failure is that the cable was not centered on the guides and there was excessive drag. Make sure that the cable clears the guides. Aso I ran the unit continuously for a couple of weeks without knowing. Oh well, I loved seeing it run when it worked.
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