6DOF Work in progress

Thanks. Nice FD as well.

Busted out the ol welder and grinder and started on the upper frame today.


Also found these beauty u joints I’ll weld onto the base of the linear actuator and then weld the other end to a detachable base on the platform base that bolts down to facilitate portability and having a firm mount to the base

About 16mm high torque u joint from princess auto. 19.99CAD each

Long overdue for an update but again things were moving slow, did some traveling etc over the winter

Some of it may be out of order but hard to kee the timeline but I tried lol

Bought some potentiometers and mounted them up.


I then started laying out some of the electrical components while I waited for the AMC1280 kick starter to go through. Thankfully it did! I’m a visual person so I had to see how I would run the wires, make a kill switch, etc
Early check on leg clearance

Motors finally came in. Alibaba special. 4000rpm 12v with a decent torque spec just can’t recall what it was. Hopefully won’t be too fast. Ended up being about 450$CAD shipped for 6.

Decided to paint the motor plates metallic red for an unknown reason. Mounted the motors into the arms



Got around to tacking up the chair support and threw the seat on it for shits and giggles. Realize I have to make some changes to put the shifter where it belongs on be able to change from LHD to RHD

Also checked leg clearance before


I got the motors



More wiring

Got some steel rod cut into pieces and drilled and tapped to accommodate the tie rod end things. They were then epoxied to the carbon tubes

Nice and flush



Bought some nice thick threaded rod (5/8” I hate imperial measurements) to mount the actuators


And then welded them and painted them


Then test fitted it to check movement freedom


Getting ready to bolt down base plate to lower frame. Everything was designed to be easily taken apart and moved. All chassis wiring was done with but connectors and will be soldering I’m pins to the AMC board for plug and play


What a pain in the ass getting this thing standing and bolted on my own. Damn near lost if many times with just 2 arms connected


Took the supporting milk crates out and it stood on its own


And then I threw my seat in and attached the steering whee for shit and giggles again



And this is where I stand now. Just need to finish up the carbon tube to ball screw pucks and connect the AMC in and power it up and hope and pray.

I have done ZERO tests on anything yet so we’ll see

I really liked the rod into the carbon tube to attach the helm joint. I thought about it, but since I could not do it myself, I tried to find another solution that I could perform by myself. But your solution looks so nice compare to what I have in mind, I will probably "steel" it (Damn, I am so funny). This will cost me more money, but I think it worth it.

Thanks. I certainly didn’t do it myself. Had a machine shop do it. Was about 100 for all 6 plus setup time.

The power part is what scares me as I’m not to strong in that area lol. Need to do some reading

Looks Great . About the only main thing I did differently was using 2 x 60 Sabertooths and a different main shaft bearing (Poly), as I found those linear balls will wear the carbon tube and are noisy.

Yes I as wondering about those linear guides and the balls but the igus ones are 80$ cad where these were like 12$ us. Reconsidering changing them but damn this project costs got out of control vert fast hahaha

I hope the 2x32s will be powerful enough. Will be working on the psu soon but might just use a car battery for testing for now. This power supply stuff scares me. I may be asking for help on that

Also going to change the top rod end with these for better clearance from the upper frame



Thank god for princess autos will take anything back no questions policy


Edit:remove double picture upload

My igus bushes were $20 each from a local supplier. I just wrapped them in carbon and bonded them into the carbon end plate (they do stick out on both sides). Been using them for a long time now - no issues at all .

You can try to get samples. I asked for 6, got one. You may get lucky with two.

Anyways to ship me some at that price lol. Added cut for your troubles haha

As a PM has pointed me back to this post, will now answer this request which I missed back in April.
Unfortunately these by themselves will not suit your setup, (as they are just a bush), unless you can make something to support and attach them to the end plate like I did. The price should be little different from any supplier.

Well as an update I got everything put together and bolted down.


I have powered it up however the motors seem to spin continuously until I stop it with the limit switch. If anyone can guide me further that’d be great.

Here’s a rundown

I have 2x12v dell 2950 Psu’s in parallel. The power is sent through two schotkey diodes before being split into 3 12v lines.

Each of the 3 12v lines run through a 40A fuse before heading to each of the 3 Sabertooth. Each Sabertooth then grounds out to the 2 Psu grounds.

I then steal a 12v power that runs through the 12 limit switches and powers the coil of a relay forwarding 12v to each relay that interrupts the M1/M2 “power” output. By tripping any limit switch it cuts power to all 6 relays stopping the motors.

I have 6 10turn 5v potentiometer for reading position. These feed to the AMC1280 Kickstarter. I have updated to the latest firmware. The position of each actuator is reflected correctly on the AMC1280. The outputs for each Sabertooth from the AMC are from the 12 bit pins on the 6DOF Extension board. These go to S1/S2 on the Sabertooth. Each Sabertooth is grounded the the extension board.

The Amc is configured in this way
6Dof
Serial: New
PID 20/0/0
Sensor Input: 10bit Analog 180deg
Sensor Output: 12bit Analog Uni Dir
Sensor direction: 1-2-3-4-5-6
Start position 50

Sabertooth is configured as
Analog, Power Supply, Independent, Linear, Bi directional

Anything obvious that I can’t see. I’ve been trying to figure it out for a bit now. I almost seem to think it doesn’t reverse the voltage from the Sabertooth to the motor

This is how it looks but in its incomplete form. All connections are as described above

I did not need a daughter board to drive a sabertooth on the new 1280 . Measure the output of the 1280 to see if it changes with data from Simtools. Should initially sit around midpoint when at rest.

I can't see from the photos, if you made jumpers for the output for 12bit analog on the 6dof ext board. Most likely you left it unaltered so the output setting on the lcd menu should be 8-bit analog with unidirectional sub-setting.

Measure with a multimeter if you are getting out 0-5v voltages on the output when you move the potentiometers.

Take some closeup photos of the AMC1280USB wiring... it will help

Thanks
Thanos

The 6dof ext board actually has two DACs, one fast 8bit and a slower 12bit one...

I cannot help you with the 1280 since I use Arduino's. But I can tell you that your rig looks really nice. Well done!

Excuse the wiring mess as I’m still trying to understand this. Too many firsts in this project

From where the 6 analog out pins are it would seem as thought the potentiometer is giving 0-5v but the output is between 1.8-3.8v and not in line with the potentiometer

Ok, i think i see you soldered a pin header on the 12bit analog signal out row. I think this is where the 6 cables are connected. Ok, in this case you can select 12bit analog output in the lcd menu.

But did you cut the traces on the bottom of the pcb board , indicated with boxes saying "cut here"? These cuts are to isolate the analog out from going to the amplifiers and load the lines (since no 24v psu is connected).