Hoddem's Aluminum Rig V2 (3-DOF, SFX, VR)

After falling out of sim racing for the better part of two years, I am jumping back in.

This will be my second rig, read the build of the first one here
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/adding-2dof-seat-shaker-to-aluminum-rig.9708/

Some basics on the new build
1. Simlab P1-x chassis clone using imperial extrusion.
2. 3 dof SFX100 kit using Thanos's motion controller
3. VR only (Oculus Rift), single monitor just for setup.
4. NRG Prisma seat.
5. OSW (small mige and Argon) with Fanatec BMW and Formula wheels.
6. Fanatec CS V3 pedals, handbrake and shifter.
7. Wind generators using Seaflo fans.
8. simvibe or gamevibe and up to 8 transducers.

stretch goals
1. Traction loss platform
2. Seat belt tension system
3. pneumatic gseat system.

I already have most of the gear, so the bulk of the work is just getting the aluminum cut/drilled/tapped and assembled.


Current Status
CAD files available at grabcad
https://grabcad.com/library/racing-simulator-2020-1

First project is frame assembly. I am building this based on the simlab P1-X frame. The difference is that the simlab is using metric 40mm extrusion and I am using fractional 1.5" extrusion. The main rails on the simlab are 40x160, I will be using 1.5x6.0. I don't have 1.5x6 in my pile though so I will be mating two 1.5x3 extrusions together.

I pre-cut enough extrusion to make the exterior box of the frame along with two rails and a cross member for the seat.

To make the stacked rails I drilled access holes along the bottom of the lower rail.



Using hidden end fasteners along with tnuts I joined the two extrusion. this is a pain because the nut assembly can slide so I used allen wrenches to hold them while I slid the second extrusion into place. I also used a handful of plates to make sure everything was lined up before tightening the hidden fasteners.



Here is a finished rail, additional access holes are visible because I will be using as many hidden fasteners as possible for the frame.



This is a mock-up of the frame with the 2 double rails and 2 double cross members completed.



The simlab frame is approximately 23" x 55", my frame is 27" x 56". I chose to keep the width at 27 because I already have a lot of extrusion that is factory cut to 24". I was also able to use all hollow extrusion to keep the wight down. Another difference is I am planning on mounting the seat low inside the frame vs simlab has it on top of the frame.

Exciting build!
After changing from a 4 actuator rig to a 3 with two up front I have some advice.
Look into a way of attaching the legs to the platform as certain movements with the tripod make my rig want to tip over. Like landing sideways from a jump in Dirt rally 2.
You could always turn down the motion but that's no fun.

Otherwise I have yet to feel a difference going from 4 to 3 as far as performance.

Here I have the frame assembled, with the seat slider attached. Again I have no brackets because I am using all internal fasteners. It makes for a much more difficult assembly process, but reduces weight quite a but.



Things were going pretty well, but no matter what I did I could not get my seat to line up correctly. After more investigating I discovered that the factory drilled the seat different from one side to the other. I measured 5/16" difference in height for the mounting bolt holes (left side vs right side).



I 3d printed some shims to get one side up 5/16", but then I noticed that the bracket was so close to the seat that I could only use the top mounting hole on the rear of the bracket. I want to be able to recline the seat more then that so I redesigned the shims again to put the seat at an angle. the angle would be the equivalent to the rear bolt being mounted in the middle mounting point.



I cleaned up the design slightly and printed one final set which I still have to mount.

That has definitely crossed my mind, I was thinking something like a shock limiter strap that would not let he actuator lift beyond max stroke (assuming its attached to a sub-frame). I will have to come up with something, my current design has the whole platform raised 24" so a crash from that height would be very bad.

Thanks for the heads up though

Here is the final version of my seat spacers printed and installed.

The first thing I did was insert some long bolts from the bottom of the seat sliders. Notice the hex nut that is recessed in the spacer, the spacer holds the nut while I tighten the bolt from the bottom. This allows me to make seat adjustments from the top without needing access to the head of the bolt.



Then I put the seat slider bracket on followed by a 3d printed shim washer and then finally a regular washer and lock nut. At this point I also cut the excess bolt off.



Final result from the outside, It looks aggressive, but it is the equivalent of having the seat mounted one bolt hole lower in the rear. I should be about level at the lowest setting in the front.



Notice the difference from one side to the other, that is to compensate for the factory mounting holes on the seat being off.



Installation on the rig is a lot easier now because I was able to line up each slider in along the center of the rails without the seat installed. These sliders are from my other seat which is closer together so I ended up having to bend the release bar to fit.



After the lower brackets were installed to the rig I loosened the lock nuts and installed the seat. I did a little bit of work to get it aligned and locked everything down.



I also have been working on the cad model a bit, I hope to keep it updated as I go. I will keep an updated cad model and current picture of the rig in the first post.

i‘m excited to follow this build.
what are the whole costs you calculated for this project?

Well most of this stuff I already have from my first build, but I will take a swing at it.

$1,000 - Aluminum Extrusion including brackets and hardware
$1,300 - Fanatec Gear, BMW & Formula Rims, CS V3 Pedals, SQ Shifter and Ebrake
$1,400 - Small MIGE OSW with Argon Drive
$1,000 - Gaming PC with GTX1080, 27" monitor
$400 - Oculus Rift
$1,500 - SFX100 x 3 Actuators, includes Thanos controller
$2,50 - Seat
$5,00 - 8x transducers and 8 channel amplifier
$2,00 - Wind Generator

Roughly $7,500 worth of gear, its probably higher because of all the custom parts and the things that I am forgetting. keep in mind I bought a lot of this stuff a few years ago so the prices might be much lower now. This wouldn't include any of the stretch goals like traction loss or g-seat though.

Thanks for following the build

No updates this time, I just wanted to show you guys the overwhelming amount of stuff I have collected over the last few years. Almost all of this was on my old rig, plus some stuff that I collected for different actuator prototypes.


Here is all the fanatec gear that was salvaged from the old rig and the actuators.




After I get my garage back in order I will be working on the pedal tray and wheel deck.

Well I made a lot more progress organizing my gear then I thought I would. It doesn't look like much of a difference, but I went through and sorted everything. The rear stack from top to bottom is cables, gaming PC, amplifier and custom control box. The other two totes contain the AC servos/drivers and miscellaneous sim gear.



Part of the organization process was removing anything I didn't think would be needed for this rig. I had been experimenting with dc motors on the SFX actuators and since I am going with AC servos I removed all of the DC components and put them into storage.



It's only 4 bolts holding the DC motors on so removing the was pretty easy. I will have to re-design some of the SFX parts to accommodate the AC servo motors.





This is my DC Kit that will go into storage for now, it has everything needed to switch back to DC if I have to. I also have my spare actuator thrown in, I'm only planning on using 3 so I have an extra for some future use (TL or Seat Belt Tensioner).




I also had some time to cut the remaining pieces of extrusion. Here are all of the extrusion for the pedal tray.



These are the extrusions that will become the uprights and crossbeam for the steering wheel.



I still have a lot of access holes to drill and ends to tap before I can continue assembling. Also in the picture above I have some 3/8" aluminum plates showing, those will need to be drilled too.

Here is the updated CAD model to give an idea of how the pedal mounting will work. It will be a little tricky to make adjustments, but should give me a lot of control over the position of the pedals.





I should have the basic outline of a sim rig within another week or two.

Lots of progress this weekend!

I was able to finish drilling and tapping the remaining extrusion. It actually went a lot faster then I had planned.




30 access holes and 38 tapped holes in total.



I use a lot of WD40 when I am working with extrusion. It makes cleanup a little more cumbersome, but it makes drilling and tapping way easier then doing it dry. I like to give the extrusion a good clean out with compressed air and then a quick wash to remove any left over oil. Usually I would do the washing with a hose in the driveway, but its too cold for that so I used the tub instead.




A quick air dry and I had a pile of nice clean aluminum ready for assembly.


I took some time to assemble the two uprights and the steering wheel cross member. I used the same method as the main rails on the frame with internal fasteners and lots of allen wrenches to keep everything lined up. Assembly of the pedal tray went smooth, everything lined up nicely and the pedals even fit on the first try.






Next up I need to assemble the 4 verticals onto the frame and drop in the pedal tray. I picked up the club sport v3 performance kit from fanatec so I need to take a little time to pull the pedals apart and install the new parts. I have the hydraulic piston attached to the brake pedal right now, but it sounds like most guys move it to the gas pedal after the performance kit is installed..

This is the plate that I need to finish before I can continue with the steering system. Its 0.375" aluminum 7.5" x 6.0" with a lot of holes. The holes need to be pretty precise because of the countersunk heads. I'm debating on cutting these on the CNC or trying to get them close enough with the drill press.




I updated the CAD model too, I have more detail like hardware and caps on some of the assemblies now.

for your wife letting you to use the bathtub for that!!! LoL

Well I spent a lot of time working on my pedals last night. I both love and hate how much adjustment these pedals have. It took almost 3 hours to switch the damper over to the throttle, install the performance kit, swap pedal faces and adjust the pedal positions. After all of that I set the pedal tray in the rig and so far I am not liking it. Right off the bat I think I made the tray way bigger and more complicated then it needed to be so I will have to make some adjustments.

Here is what I am thinking for the new tray, its about as simple as it gets




Now one thing that I have never really like about the fanatec pedals is that when the pedals are at an angle then the heel plate is also at an angle. If I adjust my foot forward or backward it also changes the height of the pedal on my foot. So after doing some thinking about various options I am considered making the pedals inverted and adding a foot rest plate.

Inverted


Standard


Does anyone have good feedback on inverted vs standard pedals?

Small update on the pedal situation. I remade the pedal tray per the designs above. It only required two new pieces of aluminum to be cut, drilled and tapped.





The vertical supports for the pedal tray are installed. I might end up trimming these down as I doubt I will ever have my pedals setup as high as these allow.



Here are the pedals installed, I have the pedal tray pushed back as far as possible and the back of the pedals are resting on the front cross member.


I also adjusted the seat tilt up one notch in the front and now everything is starting to feel pretty good.



I will be working on my plates the next few evenings and hope to have the wheel mounted soon.

Mounting plates are DONE!

I debated for a long time on whether or not to cnc these. In the end It would have been roughly 2 hours per plate on the cnc and I finished them in about 2 hours total with the drill press. So Here is the whole process from start to finish.

I started by printing out a scale template and taping it to one of the pieces of aluminum. I then Marked the center of each hole with a center punch.



I clamped both plates together and dimpled each mark with a Uni-bit, this is the closest thing I have to a center drill and works pretty good.



I drilled all 20 holes, I had to move the clamps around a few times to get access to all of the holes.



A quick test fit to make sure the holes are lined up and all seemed good.



Back to the drill press to countersink the center holes and put a slight chamfer on the remaining holes.



The plates were 8x6 and my design called for 7.5x6 so I had to trim them down on the chop saw. As long as I had it out I figured I would chamfer the corners as well.



I then ran over the plates with an orbital sander to take the edges off and give them a consistent finish. Here is the final product after a quick wash with soap and water.

This post will outline the conversion of the steering wheel and dashboard to the new design. Now I actually built this up a few months ago in anticipation of this build, If you have seen any of my other threads you may have seen some of these pictures before so I apologize for the double post.

This is the original dashboard from my first rig, It was absolutely awesome with 3 fully configurable displays and fan vents.







Now that I am focused entirely on VR I have no use for the displays and I am trying to keep this rig as simple as possible so I also want to get rid of all the excess aluminum.
Here is the updated design.



There are 4 custom plates required for this design so the first thing to do was cut them out on the CNC.



Here is the first part off the router.



It could be better, my clamp gave way at the end and the surface finish is just ok.

and I had a


I am still learning with my little hobby mill, but after a few tweaks to the setup I was able to get decent results.



Here are all 4 plates off the CNC and cleaned up with the orbital sander. I also did the countersinks on the drill press.



This part was critical, I needed this plate to hold the bearing that will ultimately support the steering shaft. The fit needed to be just right and I am happy to say that it was perfect. It is just a slight press fit and there is no noticeable deformation in the bearing itself.



Next I gutted the old setup, its amazing just how many parts were on here.



And then I rebuilt it using my new plates. I didn't get any pictures of the assembly process, but its very simple.
Here is the finished assembly.




The new setup has tilt (0-22 deg) can move in and out roughly 2 inches and weighs probably 1/4 of the old system. The blue cylinder inside the box is a slip ring, it allows the usb cable to rotate along with the shaft, that cable is then fed through the shaft and up to the Accuforce Quick Disconnect. I will never have to worry about wrapping cables up in my wheel.

Here is the build of the original steering system if you are interested.
https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...seat-shaker-to-aluminum-rig.9708/#post-125597

One last update today.
Unfortunately not a lot of pictures, but I think the assembly is self explanatory.

My plates worked great, the hardware not so much. I didn’t have the right size bolts so I will probably have to update the hardware later. (I’m building in the basement, but I will have to relocate to the garage at some point)





And here it is with the uprights, crossbeam and steering system installed.

This frame is rock solid, but also getting to be pretty heavy.

my next project will be to update my sfx actuators to accept the servo motors. In the mean time I may just have to hookup my computer and take this thing for a spin.

It took a handful of days to print all the parts needed to convert my actuators. Keep in mind that I am using Misumi extrusion and designed all of these parts from scratch to match up accordingly.

see the original build here
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/hoddems-diy-linear-actuator.10324/page-15#post-185498

Here are all of the parts needed for a single actuator.



The first thing I assembled was the linear bearing block, when I originally built my actuators up I ended up breaking one of these bearing blocks by running the actuator too far out with a drill. All of the pressure was placed on the 4 bolts holding the linear bearing in place. To fix this I made a spacer that will distribute the pressure over the entire bearing block in the event of a crash. Unfortunately it was an after thought so it makes assembly a little challenging.



Fixed bearing block assembled on to the extrusion, I had to leave the linear bearing loose and tighten the M10 bolts down first. future state I would reprint the fixed bearing block with the spacer included.




Here is the shaft inserted into the slide. I used few strips of tape to get a nice snug fit. The excess was then trimmed off. I also used this opportunity to add more PTFE lube to the inside of the extrusion and the slide.



I half inserted the slide block and began assembling everything else from here up.


Ball screw and nut added as well as the bump stop assembly. My original build didn't include the bump stop, but the original sfx design uses it so I figured I should probably add it. I took this opportunity to re-lubricate the ball screw with some white lithium grease.



Fixed bearing installed onto the ball screw.



Fixed bearing block mounted to the fixed bearing.



Fixed bearing block mounted to the extrusion



Prepping the servo with the shaft coupler, I also installed the shaft coupler on the ball screw at this time. Final adjustments were made using the slot in the spacer, after which I pulled the assembly apart and tightened both shaft coupler halves as tight as possible.



Fully built actuator now with a servo motor instead of the dc motor I originally had. I also have 3d printed feet that @Nick Moxley released on Thingiverse.


all three actuators ready for mounting, I ran out of black filament so I'm stuck with this multi-color spacer for a while.

More progress on my actual rig

I was able to get the actuators mounted with a combination of gusset brackets and flat plates. It is a little tricky because the simulator is standard extrusion and the actuators are metric extrusion.






I also fixed the wind generator fans to the cross bar. Not planned, but the point almost directly at my head right now. I will be adding air straighteners at some point.



Here is the rig now





I also had some time to update the cad model



Next on my list
1. Seat belt mounting - I would like to keep the lower and side mounts fixed to the seat itself so when making seat adjustments the whole belt doesn't need to be adjusted.
2. Monitor mounting - I picked up a 13.3" touch screen monitor that will hopefully make operating the sim easier then a wireless keyboard.
3. Switch panel - I will have to determine what things I want switches for and how to integrate e-stops. These will be for functional aspects of the rig, not for in game use.
4. Shifter and e-Brake - I have them mocked up but I don't like the position so I need to put some more work into that.
5. Transducers - Mounting positions and quantity.

Small update, my monitor showed up in the mail and I have to say that I am pretty impressed. It is a 13.3", 1080P, 10 point capacitive touch display. I had been shopping around for a while and came across this one used on ebay for about $40 usd shipped. It is a bit dusty, but other then that it looks to be in good condition and the touch function worked with windows 10 out of the box.





I will use VR so the monitor will only be to get into and out of games and startup essential software like simtools, iracing, etc.


I already modeled up the monitor in CAD and I will be working on a mounting solution in the next few days.



I am also thinking about picking up a 15 key stream deck and setting up dedicated hotkeys for each piece of software that I run. I keep going back and forth on building my on DIY version, but I like the idea of the plug and play stream deck. I'm hoping that with a touch screen and possibly a stream deck I wont have much need for the keyboard anymore.

Finally if you look closely in the picture above I have spent a little time on my wind generator grills. I have the final design done and should have the first of 4 off the printer soon. I am calling these grills because I am mostly using them to keep curious fingers out of the fans, the do have a long straight section that resembles what other people are calling air straighteners.