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

WOOHOO!!! Fabrication is done!! off to the powder coaters now.

I tested the range of motion, 480mm at it's furthest setting.

Some more update photos

The lever arm with connecting rod and rod ends.



I had to do a little step in the lever arm so it will clear the frame. The upper frame is really low which is really good.



Side view of the lever arm and connecting rod



The flight stick mount all welded up. I did a few mounting holes so I can fine tune the distance outwards

The throttle mount all welded up





We had to remove the support arms for the back motor so the lever arm doesn't hit it.



The front wheel mounts fully welded

wonderful

Looking good dude,,

Packed up the rig and took it off to the powder coaters yesterday

I got my simulator back from the powder coaters today, it looks really good. Just did a few little bits and pieces at the workshop like mounting the wheels and deck plate etc. I will be bringing it back home tomorrow.

The frames all powder coated



I made a little tread plate so I wouldn't get my feet caught between the moving frames.



Painted the lever arm



It will be interesting to see how the powder coating lasts with the wheels rolling back and forth on them



I mounted the bottom subframe in rubber vibration isolating feet.



Back frame all powder coated



A view from the back, you can see how much movement I can have, not sure how much I will use of it. It is quite easy to change so I think I might have different setups for different types of game, just gives me tons of flexibility.



Rear wheel mounts



The throttle mount all powder coated



The front wheel cut-outs in the tread plate.

That was quick work on the powder coating

I'm also curious to see if power coating stands up to the wheels...my design has them running on powder coated plates.

Thanks. I can't wait to get it going again. It is all assembled now so I just need to make the camera mount for my rift and a few braces then the rest is just wiring.

I am hoping the powder coating lasts, I am using urethane wheels so they should be soft enough not to damage them too much.

I got my rig all assembled today.

I took the day off and me and my fabricator spent the day building the rig.

Here is some progress shots.

The frame could just squeeze through the door without detaching the sub frame



It looks a lot smaller now that it is set up in my house



Motors installed





Controllers installed, shifters, accuforce, flightstick and pedals.



Lower frame mount



Lever arm



Here you can see the relationship between the upper and lower frame and the linkage between them.



Throttle added back in, batteries, power supply and seat installed.

Sweet....really came together nicely bud.

Thanks, Videos will be coming up as soon as I get all the electronics done.

Thanks. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, not much more to go.

Some more little progress today.

Mounted one of my DSD button boxes, I have quite a few to choose from, this one is a prototype of the AFW button box but I also have a couple of the prototype CSW2AF button boxes that I would switch to.



Made a mount for the controller box



It bolts on to the back of the upper frame.



I have a little access hole that I can use to change the position of the link rod on the lever arm and lower frame



A view of the flight stick from the front, I will be changing this all tomorrow.



Did some final tweaks to the throttle mount, it locks in really nicely now

yee haa buddy, thats lookin great.

A masterpiece, best craftsmanship and close to industrial design and standards.

Thanks guys, it is really great to get such positive feedback and encouragement.

Today I worked on my flight stick mount and my transducer wiring.

I have included heaps of photos of how I am doing my quick release for @noorbeast

First up I cut a 70mm section of PVC, this was the length of the 5omm coupler plus the 20mm end cap.



Next I measured up the section once it was inside the coupler to make sure it will sit flush inside the end cap



This is how the end cap mounts to my rig



Next I glued in the 70mm section in to the end cap using PVC cement



Then I glued the coupler to the 70mm section and wiped off the excess cement.





While I was waiting for the cement to dry I trimmed the flight stick PVC section down to size, this is what is inside the PVC section, I was a bit worried about the cement breaking because the cap isn't that deep so I put in a little bar to stop any rotational force.



This is the top section all ready to go back on to the lower half, this will be the part which will be interchangeable, I will be putting the same PVC pipe on the bottom of my handbrake so I can swap over from one to the other



And this is it back in the rig, I will be putting in some quick release bolts in to the side of the coupler so I can lock it in to place.



It is now sitting at it's correct height, I will do a carbon fibre wrap when I am all finished.



Next on my list was to wire up my transducers. I have have 7 transducers so it is a lot of wiring.

These are my amps.



I bundled all the wires up in to a single loom and connected it up the front to the rig where there won't be as much movement.



They are all then cable tied to the upper frame, the wire for the pedal transducer need to have a bit of extra play so I can still adjust the distance of my pedals using my slider.



From there they go under the frame, I took the tread plate so I could hide all the wiring, The Rivnuts I use to attach the tread plate which is just high enough for the cable ties to clear.



For the transducers in my seat I brought the wires up next to the universal so there is less movement and I left plenty of slack.



I starting on my USB connectivity. At the back I have a 7 port USB hub which is attached by Velcro, This runs everything on the back of my rig, so the 3 JRK's, GS-4, Flightstick/Handbrake.



Up front I have another USB hub which will run my button box, shifers, pedals and throttle, the Accuforce will plug directly in to the PC.

Another big update.

I have been really busy this week getting everything up and running, good news!!! everything is working great! I have rear traction loss now. It is pretty damn fun.

I am glad I went for as much movement as I did. I have tuned it so for smaller slides and little skids I use about the same movement as most rigs but if I do a big slide then I can go even more sideways, in a spin it can get pretty damn sideways.

A big thanks to @Nick Moxley for helping me tune the rear traction loss.

I also think VR helps a lot with rear traction loss, I tried it just on my monitor and I found it distracting seeing my whole room moving but in VR you don't see the movement, you only feel it, pretty awesome.

Here is a video of the rig in action. At the beginning of the video I did a little montage of different skid so you can see how the rig reacts to each type. I have a really big range of movement so a little quick step out feel a lot different to a big dirty drift. After that I do a lap of nords in the skippy. I picked that car because it is quite easy to get it to step out and you can hear when it loses traction by the tyre noise. Note: In this video I am trying to step the back out so this isn't my normal driving style.



Now on to the update photos.

I finished off my flight stick by running the cable inside the PVC pipe, I did this by just cutting a hole and hot gluing it. I will carbon fibre the PVC so it doesn't need to be that pretty.



I did the same in the base and have a USB extension cord running up to it so I can just pull the PVC pipe out and unplug the USB and plug in my handbrake.



Next I played around with a camera mount for my oculus rift carmera. It is linked down the bottom by the pedals and also braced to the frame up by the steering wheel support frame.



This is the top of the support arms



And the other end attached to the frame.



I also added some more bracing in the side because I found that the frame flexes a bit when using my DSD shifter. It is rock solid now. I will get this powder coated soon. I really love all the tubing on my rig, reminds me of a roll cage.



Finished up my wiring loom, I have everything running through these cable conduit so they look really nice and tidy.



This is my rig all set up, this was just prior to building the controller box so there is some more wiring on the back now.



I have a monitor on the window sill for config and tweaking changes but I do all my racing and flying in VR now.



Next up we started work on the controller box. One of my friends helped me out with this so big thanks to him. We are running out of space in the controller box so we had to mount the new JRK to the roof of the controller box.



Added some new and bigger cable glands for the new cables.



90% complete just some final touches



While my friend was working on my controller box I had a chance to try out my rig with now motion, just my transducer. I found that I had a problem with my camera mount. When I had my transducers turned on I would constantly lose tracking when ever I went over a bump. To test this further I loaded up the old demo scene in the 0.6.0.0 runtime and turned on the tracking camera bounds. I then put on a bass track through my transducers and every time it hit a low note then the tracking bounds would go red then the head tracking would go mental. When I tried this in car in iRacing it was unplayable because the view would bounce around and over some bumps in would jump my view down to by the passenger seat.

So I did a test with the camera off the rig like I had it before and everything was sweet. I was worried about how it would go when I had the traction loss because I have a lot of movement and I wanted the camera to rotate with me. Next I tried some dampening which ultimately failed, it helped a bit but my rig is just too violent for the camera. For now I have gone back to having it mounted off the rig, I have only tested the rear traction loss in iRacing and it didn't feel too bad with the camera not moving with the rig but they did confine the head tracking area in iRacing so you can't move your head outside of the car so this may be worse in other games. If anyone else has any other ideas on what I can do about the camera then that would be greatly appreciated.

Here is what I tried with the dampening. I tried some bushes at the top but they were way too soft and I got a wobble instead of a vibration which will through off the head tracking, I was thinking of doing them inline with the connecting rods but I don't know if that will help so I went back to hard mount up the top.



Down the bottom I have the camera stand sitting on a rubber bush and some rubber padding under the pedal plate which helped a bit but still not good enough to race/



Next up I got back on to the controller box. I got it back from my friend and it was all ready to go, just needed to run the USB and pots cables to it.



The new JRK in it's new home



Another view from above



The motor controller box installed and fully wired



So many wires



A view from above

one of the best rigs I ever have seen. You had the skill and patience to finish it finally, absolutely stunning about the quality of all the parts and gadgets you have built in. Congratulations!

My Word!!! Wiring porn!!! I love it. What an excellent (and neat) build!

Is there any reason you mount the VR sensor on your rig as opposed to just having it on the floor (via a tripod etc), away from your rig?

Thanks!

I used to run my camera off the rig when it was just 2 DoF but now because I have so much movement I find that it feels like I am sliding out of the seat a bit. I was talking to a friend about it today and we came up with a good analogy, it feels like you are racing in a car with an old bench seat and your bum slide from side to side.

It isn't really too bad, when you are racing you don't notice it because you have so much other forces going on that your brain just sees it as being pushed around a little inside the seat. You notice it if you concentrate on it on the skid pad.

Thanks. It has been a long project and I am glad to be able to use it finally.

I am so pleased with the results. I just had one of my friends from Australia over to try out my rig. He has a SimXperience Stage 3 and he said mine is a markable step up from his simulator, he really liked the extra movement of the rear traction loss, he said they felt very similar with the traction loss but mine just had a ton more movement, so little slides felt the same but where his would max out I still had heaps more movement so I can do really big slides.

BTW, I will give you a PM soon, I am wanting to do a little test with some MotoMonsters because I am maxing out the little JRK's and I need more power!!!!!!

Thanks. Because the whole frame is moving now I had to make sure all the wiring was nice and neat.

As I said with @noorbeast I wanted my camera to rotate with my rig, because I have quite a lot of movement on the rear traction I wanted to see if I could get it to track me as I rotate. It is not actually as bad as I thought it was going to be, I imagined my virtual body sliding completely out of the car in a slide but it isn't quite that bad, I would probably hit my virtual head on the roll cage but not actually slide through the door so it is liveable.

I have a few other ideas to try, I am not sure if my rig is just too violent to even have the camera on there, at least it is not too bad with the camera off the rig.