Another DD hoverboard motor SIM wheel...

Hi All,
Only just getting into this SIM racing stuff.

I was attracted but the idea of force feedback and the realism that it can potentially give to the experience. Next move is a seat mover.

Wanted to have the gold plated experience but at budget price so went DIY. I'm a builder really so I'll probably spend more time building a rig than driving it!

I'm using an ODrive, hoverboard motor, EMC project Arduino control, with a custom encoder setup and hardware.

I had to machine a new shaft for the motor to allow a central feedback shaft, and room for wiring which seems to work well. There is also an integrated slip ring to allow me up to 9 buttons on the wheel, TBD.




Driving experience is good as far as I can tell.

Pedals are second hand fanatec ones from a local SIM racing center that is closing down. I made my own pedal box as a temporary measure until I've got my motion rig going.



Looking at an Arduino based load cell brake next. And have fitted my office chair with locking casters to use as a racing seat too!

Hopefully you'll find this interesting, if you're interested in my previous mechatronics projects check out my small YouTube channel.

www.YouTube.com/CNCModellerUK

Anyway looking forward to chatting in the future.

All the best
Barry M

Great! you got the virus

next step for immersion is indeed IMO the load cell brake pedal!

can you tell us more about your slip ring?

Hi @RacingMat, the slip ring allows elercical connection across an infinitely rotating shaft.

This is the same as the one I'm using.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Slip-Rin...-/264909769836?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

As I'm using a matrix button setup the 6 wires will give me 3x3 = 9 buttons.

It's mounted on the hollow feedback shaft that has a small hole in the side to let the wires inside and pass through to the wheel.

I'll cover it in more detail when I do some videos on the design on my YouTube channel.

Hope that helps.
Barry M

Good work !

How much do you estimate the wheel motor and driver have cost ?

The ODrive is the major cost, but they are hoping to release a single motor version soon with integrated encoder for roughly £100. My plan is to use the current double motor ODrive for my motion rig and swap in a single motor board when they are available.

The motor it's self was £20 second hand but I believe you can get them new for about £30 to £50.

However the motor has been modified. I turned the new motor shaft on my lathe myself, so it didn't cost me much, but to get someone to make one individually would not be cheap.

The encoder was £15 on Amazon. Slip ring was £20 to buy locally but can be got cheaper with longer lead times.

Hardware and raw stock materials probably £30 max. Cheaper if you buy in bulk.

Arduino was a tenner as was the EMC firmware licence.

Wheel was £30 second hand, quick release was £12. Both from eBay.

So say a £250 quid basic components, + blood sweat and tears to design and get it to work.

I'll eventually 3D print a housing, along with some of the existing custom mechanical components I've already printed.

Personally I would do this just for the engineering challenge, the fact I get a decent SIM wheel is a bonus lol.

Hope you found that interesting.

Cheers
Barry M

Thanks for posting this Barry. I've had a working Diy wheel for a few years now, using a brushed motor connected to EMC pro and Arduino. But i want to move over to brushless now.
Can you explain how to get the O drive to talk to the Arduino? It's it as simple as connecting a wire from the pwm out from the Arduino into an input on the O drive?

Hi @Chris Malcolm,
Unfortunately its not that simple... the way I've set up the ODrive is for Radio control Servo PWM input. I don't think it'll accept the industrial PWM that a Leonardo sends out.

The newer STM32 based EMC does support outputting Servo PWM, but I've had a lot of issues getting it to work with my PC/RaceRoom as RaceRoom keeps crashing with the STM32 board. Your mileage may vary.

So for my Leonardo I've created an interface board that translates the industrial PWM to Servo PWM.

You also then need to configure the ODrive for your motor and to behave like a brushed DC motor for the EMC.

Since the brushed motor driver is effectively a current based control system I've set my ODrive to Torque/Current control mode and it seems to be a good setup. Albeit I've never driven with a feedback wheel before so how do I know.

I used the hoverboard motor tutorial on the ODrive documentation site to help me configure my setup. It includes how to setup Servo input comms.

I'm going to move over to a higher fidelity interface shortly, probably using CAN to communicate with the ODrive but it'll be a while before I get there. The Wheel is working and my next step is fitting switches and paddles to the wheel, and then a load cell brake pedal.

Hope that helps, let me know how you get on!

Cheers
Barry M

Thanks very much for the explanation Barry.
I didn't realise there were different types of pwm. I've had to watch quite a few YouTube videos on the last few days, to try and get a better understanding of pwm now.
Converting the pwm signal seems like the most difficult step, so I'll research that, once i understand pwm more.

Barry, are you still using this setup? What voltage powersupply are you using? volts and Amps? I am currently using a hoverboard motor and a hacked version of the hoverboard control board. Works well, but has a lot of cogginess that cuts down on the realism. Do you feel cogginess with the Odrive?

Amazing work you have done bro, but will you be able to share ur odrive configuration settings for the hoverboard motor?

Barry, please can you tell us more about your PWM converter board?

You give me an idea with mounting on standard shaft holders and I made this With custom board so. It needs much less components to integrate.

is that a brushless controller ? what software do you use to control the wheel ?

@CNCModeller: when you inspire other people, it's the beginning of fame!

Yes. It is brushless controller developed by me https://easyeda.com/olukelo/btn8982-three-phase-controller_copy_copy. I use custom firmware for it developed from zero. But ODrive can be used as well. I have developed version of firmware for it, both for use with incremental encoder and absolute SPI encoder. Here are compatible connection schemes:

Do you have the complete FFB part running on your controller/ODrive?

Yes. And not only single one
Here is Wheel Check step log of first copy:


Here is video of another instance done by one of my frieds:


And he liked it so much that already built several copies for his friends:

And I already built FFB joystick on my controller as well(and not only me):

VERY impressive!
In the second video I cant see any encoder. Where is it installed?
Does the FFB joystick run also on an ODrive?

We managed to place encoder inside the shaft. Magnet is fixed on mooving part. It is possible to drill the shaft with simple handheld tools. Encoder pcb is ordered on JLCPCB, cut to round shape and glued with epoxy to 3d printed part. Wires are passed through the hole in the shaft.


Joystick is on my custom controller board. Originally I used ODrive as hardware with my custom firmware, but I did not manage to use two SPI encoders simultaneously, so I have fully working firmware for my custom board only at the moment.