Question What exactly do the sliders in the washout filter do?

Ok I see it now.
Indeed the algorithm is different on the rotationlal effects but also with those, the return to the center is not overcoming enough the cue changes in order to bring them back to the center.

Concerning the present algorithm on the translations, it seems that the math is sending the cue in the opposite way as it should. It's completely unusable.

Please put a similar math which you builded already in the rotational effects, into the translation effects. (Don't forget the extras as well)

Important. - Please increase "return to center" slider range.

Send me a copy for testing (only heave for the moment) when you'll find some time for this.

I am away from my hardware for the moment but I can easily see it on the software side if it gonna work or not.

Thank you very much @yobuddy

Best

@yobuddy, At the moment, for the slow aircrafts I use 180 for positions and 1 or below for accelerations (angular and linear) Heave is an exception with values around 1.5.

For faster aircrafts, value around 3 or higher is needed. Btw. that's why I am asking for increased sliders in the "profile editor" from 50 percent to 90 percent.

Best.

Hi all,

Sorry to revive this thread but I have the exact same concern as AussieSim at the time:

"Is there a way to slow down the natural return, for example a harness tensioner belt without elasticity. Upon braking/surge the belts tighten quickly, but upon release of the brake I don't want the harness tensioner to release pressure immediately. Rather to gradually reduce tension."

I'm indeed trying to implement surge with an actuator, going backwards on braking. Everything is ok when I brake, the actuator pushes backwards pretty fast but as soon as I release the brake pedal it goes forwards as fast as it went backwards in the first place, whereas it should go slowly. That's when I use no filter or the washout filter. Btw adjusting the gain above does not change anything, just make moves very abrupt.

The behavior with the traction loss filter is a bit different and looks ok at first but is finally not. With the traction loss filter activated, the actuator pushes backwards pretty fast, then when I release the brake pedal it stops and starts going forwards slowly (great!) to re-center but as soon as I press the throttle pedal even very slightly it then has a very abrupt move forward to re-center instead of just having a forwards move proportional to the throttle level and just starting from where it was.

Is there actually to manage this i.e. having the behavior of the traction loss filter (fast move backwards, slot centering) but no abrupt move to center when only pressing throttle very lightly?

Thanks
Alex

Thanks for your reply. I unfortunately already went through all the documentations and tried lots of configurations but I'm blocked with a structural issue:

- My rig's TL is working ok as expected
- I'm having issues with the surge. I intend to use it going forward on throttle and backwards on braking (I have an active belt tensioner). I would therefore expect the following behaviour: on throttle, going forward with a speed depending on how hard throttle is pressed (to be adjusted with the profile and control center min/max indeed), and then slowly backward for washout. Likewise on braking, going backward (with speed depending on profile and tuning center min/max) and then slowly forward when brake is released. And then the same process should be able to start over from any position based on the current washout position. However:

* If I don't apply any filtering, when braking I get fast backward and then fast forward as soon as the brake pedal is released -> not ok since forward should be slow
* If I apply the washout filter I get exactly the same, just more abrupt and even more so abrupt when applying gain -> so not ok either
* If I apply the traction loss filter, when braking it goes backward with a speed depending on profile and min/max (ok), when releasing the brake it goes forward slowly (great) but as soon as I press the throttle even extremely lightly I get a strong jolt, i.e. not at all a move that is be consistent with the profile and min/max but clearly a strong forced move towards the center of the surge axis, which is not ok for surge.

Does this make sense? Could you please help? Is what I'm looking for achievable with the currently available filters?

Thanks
Alex

What I maybe did not make clear enough is that I use surge to feed 4 axes (and all 4 therefore have to share the same min/max profile settings):

- 3 are standard vertical actuators (PT-actuator mega monster, 1 at the front of the rig, the 2 other ones a the rear). They get the surge moves ok.
- the last one is a horizontal actuator moving the say supporting the seat/pedals/wheel/display. It's with this one that I have an issue since when you release the brakes it's normal to have the platform overall getting back to horizontal very fast (thanks to the car's shock springs) and this works ok with the 3 first vertical actuators but it's not normal to be pushed forward by the horizontal one, hence the need for a slow re-centering for this specific actuator whereas the other ones are re-centering fast.

This means that, whatever the min/max profile, the behaviour needs to be very different between the vertical actuators and the horizontal one for the same signal being received. Hence my issue since the washout filter can only increase the behaviour I described above, while the traction loss filter is not adapted due to very abrupt re-centering not being adapted either for the horizontal surge actuator.

Alex

Thanks.

You mean a different dedicated DOF column in the "axis assignment" page ? How will this actually change the behavior of my axis (say Axis 4a) if it's still fed by the force "surge"? It will then probably just behave the same way as it is currently, shouldn't it ?

I understand that the surge force is currently output by Simtools to axes in a way that is consistent with vertical actuators, replicating the rebound of a shock spring (i.e. when the acceleration disappears this induces a strong move in the other direction), whereas normally when the acceleration disappears it should mean no forced move any more, just a slow re-centering. As a summary it should work as a traction loss but acceleration-based instead of position-based as TL currently works.

Does this make sense?

As a summary, is there a way to get the surge force to:
- move the actuator forward on a positive acceleration and then just re-center slowly when the acceleration is back to 0
- move the actuator backward on a negative acceleration and the just re-center slowly when the acceleration is back to 0

Thanks
Alex

Ok, thanks.

Can I do that if using the AMC-AASD15A controller to control my PT-actuator set? Could you please point me to the doc? Thx.

Weird having to go back towards hardware to solve what probably could be addressed on software side with a different filter type or additional parameters. I'll try and reach out to Thanos to get his view.

What your rig looks like? Can you post a video of it here?

Hi Thanos, noorbeast,

Here are a few pictures (sorry no video yet). I'm still testing and need to mount the missing screens after designing a way to prevent them from moving too much when the rig is in action.

A brief summary:

- it's basically the same setup as Shao's 3DOF+TL+Surge but with lower profile since I did not want to use a ladder to access my rig...
- I used 3 Mega monster actuators (1 front and 2 rear) for the 3DOF, a foldback PT-actuator for TL (I wanted foldback type to make the structure less wide) and a standard baby PT-actuator for surge. The controller is Thanos' provided by Shao
- The setup is completed by a SimXperience GS-5 seat and the G-Belt active tensioner should arrive tomorrow.
- As you can see I also kept - as a first stage, to be tested and removed if not actually needed at the end of the day - my SimXperience 2DOF seat mover setup. The previous setup was "just" SimXperience 2DOF+TL + GS-5.

Overall, as a summary, I'm just using a setup that is very close to Shao's and want to get the best possible feedback from the surge horizontal actuator. I don't want the setup that goes forward when braking (as Barry's due to his passive belt tensioner, since I'll have the G-Belt) but conversely I'd like the surge tray to go forward on acceleration but stop and re-center slowly when the acceleration stops, and the same on braking, backwards on braking but stop and re-center slowly when the braking stops.

Currently, as per Simtools' standard output, the position of the horizontal actuator and therefore of the surge tray is directly linked to the surge acceleration.

This means that when accelerating (acceleration>0) the tray goes forward fast (you want it so to actually feel it as an acceleration and not just a change in position) but when the acceleration stops (acceleration back to 0) the tray also gets back to center fast whereas you would like to just re-center slowly since just stopping the acceleration is not the same as actually having a negative acceleration. Likewise on braking. So ideally I would like the position of the tray to change rapidly only when the acceleration (surge) is getting away from 0 (i.e. actual acceleration or braking) but to get back to center slowly when the acceleration (surge) is just on its way back to 0 (i.e. just release of acceleration or braking). And this surge behavior should only occur for the horizontal surge actuator of course. You'll tell me that you would then miss something when the surge figure just remains stable (constant acceleration or braking) but that's where the GS-5 seat is instrumental in simulating maintained g-forces...

Where this was probably a bit puzzling for noorbeast is that the standard current surge behavior of Simtools is roughly ok for the vertical actuators being used with surge force since the fast re-centering is consistent with the behavior of shock springs that pop back to their normal position as soon as you release throttle/brakes. It's only for the horizontal surge tray actuators that a different output mode (filter?) based on the surge force would be required.

As a summary we would ideally need in my view:

- a standard way of driving the vertical actuators from surge whereby the position of the actuator would be directly linked to the surge signal (current Simtools' approach)
- a variant of the surge output (a specific filter to be implemented?) - meant to drive horizontal surge tray actuators - and whereby the active change in the actuator's position would only be driven by surge figure getting away from 0 and the actuator would just re-center when the surge figure would be on its way back to 0.
- mixing both approaches would not be an issue since the vertical axes would be fed by the standard surge force with no filter applied, while the horizontal surge axis would be fed with surge+specific horizontal filter

Does this make sense? I'm surprised this point was not raised before considering all people getting horizontal surge trays on their rigs. But maybe most of them just use the tray the "wrong" way - or put more nicely - in a way that is indeed consistent with typical passive belt tensioning approaches (like Barry's) where the tray goes forward on braking so as to provide belt tension.

Thanks
Best
Alex

Those washout filters are not the easiest to get right. Video below of one of my old rigs using the BFF software. IMO very close to being correct.