Showroom My 3 DOF seat mover + GS-4 + Simvibe

Hi guys.

I am just about to start down the path of adding a 2 DOF seat mover to my rig.

I have been taking to Dave (bsft) and I like the idea of his Desk racer.

I don't have a huge amount of room so I like the compactness of his design. I probably do have enough room for a shoulder mounted setup but I like the front mount system for compactness. I would love some input and ideas.

My plans are to replace the back half with a new frame with a pivot point under the seat and 2 big worm gear motors controlled by 2 Pololu Jrk 12v12 controllers

I really like to feedback I am getting from my GS-4 and 8 transducer setup and I am ready to take it to the next level and would love to hear from you guys about you ideas.

Here is a few photos of my rig to date.





Here is a video of my rig in action.

Hello @Avenga76 and welcome. Nice rig you have there. As suggested a desk race would fit nicely back there and keep things compact.
For sure use 12v big worm gear motors, (not wipers) for speed and power and the Pololu JRK for control.
Cheers, David.

Thanks David.

I have found the same motors that you used locally in New Zealand. http://www.bgts.co.nz/styled-2/styled-10/index.html (the first one on that page)

They do say on that website that it has low holding torque and are easy to back drive. I am quite a tall big guy at 125kg. do you think these will be strong enough?

Yes they will do, you just need to balance the whole thing right for pivot placement. Low holding torque is more when power is off, but yes they move a bit, just think of it as car suspension getting in and out of a car, it "springs" a bit. Not a problem once you are in game though.
I regards to your other message you sent, yes you could put the GS4 on top of the desk racer set up

Just put the GS4 on the base. But you would need to make the motor connections higher up the sides. to help overcome gravity. Even higher if possible than whats pictured.
Something like suggested. And keep motor lever arms 40mm CTC to help keep as much torque as you can. With 40mm CTC and about 60mm throw it equates to about 250mm per second. Thats what mine runs and gets fine vibrations.

Cool. Any tips on finding the balance point?

The GS-4 seat has really tall sides so I can go pretty high. I could go even higher than that because with the GS-4 it is pretty hard to get in to anyway. You can't get out sideways like you can on a normal seat, you need to take off the quick release wheel then step in to the simulator then sit down. It reminds me of how I need to get in to my friends AC Cobra and having to take the quick release wheel on and off reminds me of race cars. it sort of adds to the immersion.



I have been thinking how all the systems will work together and I think they will really compliment each other because they are each really good at one aspect. The GS-4 seat is really good at providing sustained lateral, longitudinal and vertical g-forces but it is not that great at bumps and the initial motion of turning in. I see the seat mover system being good at the bumps and the initial force of turning but in a long turn it can't really provide that sustained g-force because you have reached your maximum tilt angle and gravity isn't enough to generate the g-force feeling.

The GS-4 bases all it's motion from the G-force telemetry data and the Seat mover will be getting it's data from the roll and yaw etc. So I think that they should work really well together.

So how I see it working through a corner is that the seat mover will give you that initial turn in force, then the GS-4 will maintain the G load as you corner then the seat mover will provide the straightening up forces. And the transducers will do all the little stuff like engine vibration, road texture and ripple strips.

to find the balance point, build the top desk racer frame, sit the gs4 seat on top, sit on it as you would, and allow if your legs sit up a bit. Its not an office chair.
Then sit the desk racer frame with gs4 and you on a broom handle. Get a mate to roll you back and forth till you find a balance point, mark it and thats where you put the pivot.
As for getting in and out , in that case, make them as high as you can without going to shoulder height, so above knee height if your knees are higher than your belly or belly height is gut is above knees would be ideal. The bass shaker would need to be moved. I think @Nick Moxley has good ideas where they can go. He did a static to seat mover conversion as well, but with shoulder mounted motors
Another rough sketch

I recall something was getting sorted about using GS4 on Simtools.
@yobuddy ? @eaorobbie ? Does anyone know what was happening? I know simcommander cannot work with simtools as plugins are different and conflict.

going back a few step, you could make a shoulder mount at rear. I know for a fact that about 15 deg angle back and out to the sides will still move you around. I think that equates to about 800mm overall width and 400 ish back from the rear of the seat. SCN have to run at 60 deg angle. DC motors on @eaorobbie are at 60 deg, but he has more room than me. Hence desk racer design.

I could do knee height, any higher than that an it will start getting in the way of my shifter.

I will move the bass shakers up on to the top frame. Not sure what I will do about the big bass shaker under the seat. Maybe have it back behind the pivot or extend the top frame out behind the back of the seat a bit.

I use SimXperience Sim Commander, Symprojects Sim Dash and FanaLEDs together. They all read the telemetry and they all work fine together. It is a bit of a mission for games that use UDP but I use a UDP proxy to foward the data to a different port assigned to each program. Things like rFactor can run multiple plugins and they should be fine because they are just reading the telemetry data. But if any one has some experience with running both together then I would love to here it.

Maybe there is some sort of com port conflict.

I could probably do some testing before I get too far down the track.

My rig is 800mm wide already so I am fine with that width and I could probably do 400mm back. It will take up most of my room but it is doable.

Ok then, sounds good, just mount motors as high as you can at the front and you will be right to go with a desk racer.

Really nice rig, good luck with the 2DOF enhancement.

@Avenga76 , how much does gs4 seat weigh?
I think you may need motors with 50:1 boxes on them.
At your weight, 25:1 would move it with 5 kg seat on it, but how much is gs4?

I have been speaking to @eaorobbie whom has more experience than me. If gs4 weighs nearly 15-20 kg, plus you, thats near 150kg. You will need 50:1 boxes for the motors to give you the power at either desk race spot or shoulder mount.

Yeah the GS-4 is pretty heavy.

How about the bottom one on this page? http://www.bgts.co.nz/styled-2/styled-10/index.html It is 50:1 but it is only 100 RPM shaft speed.

I did some measurements of my room and I do have enough room for a shoulder mounted setup. Which is better for moving heavy weights?

Shoulder mount is better for moving weight, those motors are fine for 15 deg shoulder mount for sure.Unfortunately a bit costly but they will certainly move you.
Lever size to 65-80mm CTC. Just shorten the actual feedback range on the jrk. I will explain that later. So you should get about 10 deg total movement, 5 up 5 down. That will be enough for a seat mover.
It will work on desk racer setup as well. Up to you of course how you want to mount them. The motors will get warm, but put a fan on them and no problem.
Ive had my motors nearly to hot to touch.
And the 50:1 will be very stiff , they will still move under power no worries. Just with power off they will be near unmovable
Curious what the lever thinghy on the back of the motors is though. Ask what it does. It may be a manual control, as you have to reverse the polarity of the wires, need to find out what that thing is on the back.

Sweet. I am totally cool with the cost of the motors. The smaller ones were $160NZD and these ones are $240NZD, so an extra $80 each. With the amount I have spent on my rig then they are just a drop in the bucket. It is still going to be much cheaper than something like a SimXperience stage one and I can get it in NZ so I don't have to pay duty, that adds heaps to the cost of things.

By the time I have finished building this I should have dropped some more weight. I have lost 40kg so I could get light enough to use the GS-4 and I hope to drop more over the next few months.

I am used to stuff getting hot on my rig. I had some friend over doing some laps in the rig and by the end all the servos were hot, the amps were hot, the transducers were hot. It was like a sauna I my room, and it is the middle of winter with fans on. At least I don't need to use my heaters this year I will be installing a few 12v fans on my rig.

It is a tough call but I think I am leaning more towards shoulder now.

It come with or without electronic brake. Do I need a electronic brake?

I will see what they lever does.

here is a technical drawing of it but it is in Chinese or Japanese (Sorry I can't tell the difference).

no you do not need brake. JRK controls braking of motors during direction change.
Yes please find out what the lever does.
If you can go shoulders, it will be better. I didnt know how heavy GS4 seat was, sorry.
Job well done man!

Cool, Shoulders it is. I will draw up some quick plans when I have a chance but I have a pretty clear idea of what I need to do.

I will do 15 degrees back and 15 degrees out.

I have checked with the supplier about that lever.

So it is for the electric brake, so it would be best to get it without the electric brake and lever?

no electric brake or lever needed.