Discussion: Issues with 6DOF

Fantastic ideas you had indeed FlyPT. Things are nearly perfect now!

OK guys, so I've got pretty much all my problems solved now which I'm thrilled about (more on that later) but every time you solve a problem you notice the next smaller one bothering you. =P

There is one thing still giving me unpleasant jolts during my simulated flights, and for this one the main person who might be able to help is @Thanos , god of motion simulator interface hardware!

I'm fairly certain this problem can only be solved by the AMC1280USB, the VFD's, or hardware I can't afford to upgrade.

When a substantial heave movement comes in, all of the actuators must quickly move at the same time in the same direction. If there aren't any other significant cues at the same time, small defects in this motion are extremely easy to feel in the form of false cues, or a "bump".

So when a heave motion begins, my servo arms do not all begin to move simultaneously. There are a couple that lag behind for an instant, and it's enough that instead of smoothly moving straight up from the start the initial moment of the cue contains various false cues in other directions. Please note, this is not a big problem, it is just the biggest little detail standing between my sim and perfect virtual flight. =)

The question then, is how can I attempt to tune up the sim so that all actuators are as perfectly synchronized as possible in that one critical moment?

I have tried adjust the PID on the individual actuators. I believe the worst offender (laziest servo) is #3. If I increase the PID (P) on #3 it doesn't cause that actuator to respond more quickly in that first moment. What it does instead is cause #3 to arrive at the setpoint sooner. As near as I can tell it has no affect whatsoever on that brief moment that the actuator should have started moving, but didn't.

So can anyone tell me what adjustments to the VFD's or the AMC I should try playing with? Any other ideas?

Anybody have ideas for me on the above? @Thanos maybe? I need to get those synced up.

Hey guys, any of you love me enough to take a look at this and maybe tell someone who can barely operate a computer how to make it work? =P

I know it's been done so it is possible.

All I want to do is use this to make a SteamVR Overlay that displays my (Leap Motion and/or Vive Trackers) hands in 3D while playing any game. Just that, nothing else. Need it to work with. The reason is to simply help find switches in real sim cockpit while playing in VR.

https://github.com/MilasBaumgarten/OVRLay This fork was updated just days ago, so it's just a matter of I don't know how to use it at all. (Below is another for you to look at if you are willing, that one is exactly what I need but very out of date)

From what I can understand it's supposed to be super easy but I don't have the knowledge. If you can tell me where to read so I can learn to do it with just a few hours I will be happy to do that.

I already installed Unity but can't figure out what to do with the files from there and there's no mention at all specifically of Leap Motion.

There is also this other project, 100% exactly what I need but two years or more out of date. I don't know if I did it right but I tried putting it in Unity and got an error message probably because it's never been updated.

https://medium.com/kainos-applied-innovation/vive-tracker-overlay-project-3ebc6a5e995b

I think if someone can make an overlay and get it to work properly (and probably add a scaling feature) that some sim cockpit owners would be willing to pay a little bit for it. I know I would if it worked and would be maintained for future patches.

Does your VFD's have an auto tune feature ? If yes I would look in this direction instedad of putting different proportionals in the controller.

I've done the auto tune multiple times, but I can do it again.

Only thing is last time I was able to let it do auto tune with full rotations (with load) because the servo arms were only 100mm. Now I will have to do auto tune without movement, but that still sounds like a fairly good idea. If it makes it worse though, I don't think there is any easy way to go back so it's a little scary now that my sim is finally working nicely!