My wheel mover and 2dof Hyper project.

Hi everyone,

I have a Hyper cockpit that I use, primarily, for iRacing.



(that's my 10 yr old son driving, I don't normally need pillows to reach the pedals

It has 4 transducers running Simvibe (two under my heels and two behind my back on the seat), ECCI wheel, and CST (at least the Australian version, 5 Star) pedals. It also now has two Seaflo fans producing wind.



I'm keen to add anything that might add to the immersion of the Rift, but without too dramatically modifying the Hyper. I decided to do a cosmeetic upgrade of the Hyper (it's almost 20 years old, I'm thinking a livery change will be nice) and would like to include a couple of other projects as part of that.

I've always wanted to find out if moving the wheel can provide a similar effect to the seat mover feel of acceleration, so that's my first step, and then would like to add tensioning to 4 points of a 5 point harness to see how much of a sense of movement that can provide (since seat movement isn't possible with the Hyper).

I've seriously considered adding a G-Seat system instead of the belt tensioners (especially after seeing SeatTime's thread), but I'm leaning toward doing the belts for now, and trying the G-Seat if I'm not happy with the effect the belts give (not sure at this stage, if I want to modify the Hyper seat as much as the G-Seat will need, but if enough people try to convince me that the G-Seat is the way to go over tensioners I could be swayed .

Anyway, first step is the wheel mover, I've just ordered a pile of parts:



(and Arduino Mega and box of assorted springs completed my shopping list) so now I'm working on how I'm going to mount the wheel to the rails. It'll be a while till I can make much progress, the cosmetic update of the Hyper comes first, but I'm keen to start playing with the software side of things to find out what issues I might have getting this working as I'm prepping and painting mdf.

I plan to connect the stepper arm to the wheel platform with springs on either side (each under half tension) so that as the motor turns it doesn't pull the wheel out of my hands, rather it applies tension on my grip on the wheel by extending one of the springs further, this should also mean that it always centers when there's no power applied to the motor, so it should always start at the center point at the start of each session (so I don't think I'll need an encoder?).

To be honest I'm not sure whether I've gone overboard on power, should I have just gone with a cheap RC servo, I'm not sure, the wheel is very heavy, and I obviously want it to move quick (although accuracy isn't all that critical at all), so I figured a strong stepper would be worth it from that point of view (comments from those who know better than me welcome)?

One last question, I'm struggling to find a linkage arm (around 80 to 100mm long I think) to connect to the stepper spindle and springs, does anyone know where I can get hold of one?

Any comments or criticism of my plans welcome

Peter.

Whats that wheel base ? its very long

ECCI 7000 FFB wheel, it was state of the art in the days before dd servo wheels. It's tempting to go OSW, but hard to justify when I have a good quality wheel that's built like a tank and will last practically forever.

It is currently a little longer than it needs to be, I put a 100mm extension on it to allow the wheel to fit under monitors before I got the Rift, now that's not necessaary I'll probably remove that to make it a little more compact again.

interesting idea!
you have plenty of range: I would assume that only +/- 2 cm (4 cm range) will be enough

I like your Seaflo! from 17$ to 25$
www.amazon.com/SEAFLO-Line-Blower-Bilge-Operation/dp/B00LIV1N0G
https://fr.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-seaflo-air.html?spm=2114.06010108.0.0.j8t5iH&site=fra&SearchText=seaflo air&g=y&SortType=price_asc
Are the seaflo noisy?
I can't figure it out from your video...

The Fans aren't quiet, well just say that. Lol Avenge76 did some video testing and they seemed rather loud when spooled right up.

Yeah, the fans make plenty of noise (both the sound of the air moving, but moreso, the whine of the pwm frequency from the motor driver), if you need a quiet environment (others trying to sleep nearby, watch TV, etc) then the noise would be unacceptable, but most of the time when I'm racing the rest of the family are at the other end of the house, and I like the (speed dependent) high frequency vibrations that the fans put through the chassis. The sound is just noticeable over the engine sound through the headphones (adding a little more depth to the sound put out by the sim), for me the noise adds just a little bit more immersion .

If you wanted to add movement to the hyper, you could bolt on a shallow semi-circle arc and have two motors rock it from side to side from the front, and when combined also have basic pitch / heave / surge?

I've seen that design somewhere, but can't find a suitable picture....

And as soon as I post... I find one...

You can see the "arch" under the seat.

Hmm, interesting, thanks Archie. I'll consider that, sort of like a babies cradle for rocking to sleep.

I'm hoping that moving the wheel and belts will give me a good sense of acceleration/braking, but something like this might be good for adding a sense of turning forces.

You know the only thing that bothers me a little about something like this though, I've got a rift and headphones on, imagine a pet, or child (mine should be old enough to not be that stupid now, but you never know) getting caught under it, and you go on driving blissfully unaware of it.

Members on here with small pets have taken them outside to be shot... Ermm. No.. Hang on..... I mean...
They have built boxes to put around the workings.

EVERY sim owner on here with kids will have had this thought. Personally, I just put my motors far enough in to not be a worry, but I know other builders have put boxes around the "mechanism / workings"

Even something as simple as mesh hanging down in front of the "rocker" would be enough to stop accidents. Just hinge the mesh so it moves with the side to side motion. There are heaps of options to protect the little ones.

Yeah, you're right, there are definitely solutions, to be honest until now I'd not wanted motion enough to be prepared to find those solutions, now as I look into it more and more it seems worth going to the trouble to make it work.

You won't regret it. I

f you are after immersion, the RIFT coupled with even subtle movement is jaw dropping.

I literally can't play DiRT Rally now on screens and without motion. I need those 'cues' that you only get from the combination of movement and the RIFT.

Yeah, I agree, even with just simvibe and wind it feels dead to drive now without them!

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to think I'd like to do something like this for the Hyper (eventually, once I've got some simpler projects up and running first).

I'm wondering how much power the motors would need, Hypers look small, but are pretty heavy, is there a way of calculating how much torque my motors would need in this sort of configuration?

OK, after a long discussion with a mate of mine last night (who has the welding skills to help me build a frame), I've decided to give the belt tensioner a miss (for now at least, too difficult to get it working in the tight spaces under the Hyper seat, I might revisit it just for the shoulder belts later if I feel that it'll add more to the immersion) and focus on the wheel mover, and a 2dof mover for the whole rig.

So, not wanting to re-invent the chassis mover, I'll be following what looks to be the well trodden path, I gather (from reading a number of other threads) I need:

two of these (the 12v version when they have them back in stock):
https://www.motiondynamics.com.au/worm-drive-motor-12v-24v-200w-180-rpm-20nm-torque.html

and two of these:
https://www.pololu.com/product/1393

one 12V 32A + power supply like this
http://au.stepperonline.com/switchi...or-3d-printer-kits-115v230v-s40012-p-179.html

A couple of 180 degree good quality pots

and then some hardware (frame, universal joint, connecting rods, etc).

If I've left anything out (or something on the list isn't appropriate) please let me know.

So, just so that I know at this stage, does the SimTools software talk directly to the JRK through the plugin, or is there another layer of software required in there?

Excellent Noorbeast, thanks, much appreciated. I'll have a look through that lot and post again if I have any more questions

Sorry for all the questions, hopefully I'll be comfortable soon with getting started:

I see some people using a Sabertooth motor driver rather than the Pololu, can anyone point out the differences/advantages of each please (or point me towards that information if it's here and I've missed it?

My rig will be different to most in that I'm almost lying down rather than sitting quite upright. That will mean that if the pivot point is at the center of gravity of the rig (with me in it) then my head (which I assume plays by far the biggest part in sensing the movement) will be a long way behind that point. I assume that I need the pivot at the center of gravity to make the load on the motors as small as possible, but has anyone done any experiments to find out whether having your head so far from the pivot point is an issue (especially using VR)?

Thanks,

Peter.

Hmm, yeah, the weight issue is a good one, my rig is definitely significantly heavier than most projects in here (but luckily I'm pretty light and it's mostly me and my kids driving it). It's in pieces at the moment, so hard to get an accurate weight, I'll see if I can weigh the parts over the weekend to give an estimate.

If I do what seems to be the recommended layout (arms mounted high near the shoulders) then the motors will be quite a long way away from the pivot point (probably a metre or so), which I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) will be good for small, quick movements (the further the attachment is from the pivot point, the less force required to do it, but the less movement felt for each degree of movement of the motor)?

I'll try to roughly model up my plans over the weekend and see if there's any feedback for what I plan to do.

And thanks Noorbeast and others, you help and input is very much appreciated.