Hydraulic 6 DOF Motion Platform for F-16 Cockpit

Hey there guys, i am Pascal from germany and quite new in simulator games. i was dreaming since i was a little guy, well i didnt grow that much but okay, to fly planes. i never reached that goal. 2 years ago i build my first cnc and startet to build a full scale F-16 Viper cockpit. due lack of space i couldnt make it at home, but my boss liked my idea and told me i could build it at our company. i got my own workshop and alot of space to build. one day we found an old 6DOF hydraulic motion platform from bosch rexroth, which were build for the expo in hannover in 2000 for really really a few bucks. we bought it, the parts are still 500% more worth than we paid.

so, how the hell we should get it working without any experience with hydraulic or motion systems? you dont find any about it online.

it started to beeing hard to figure out how i can get it work. the motion control computer was missing, the second control box for start the hydraulic pump, emergency stop also. so alot of studying the plans and measuring the voltages and so on. the goal was to control it with an arduino.

i got the system running and could move single cylinders by give some volts to the prop valves. i found out that the valves work with negative and positive voltages, in or out. so i took my rc transmitter, an old servo and removed the motor out of the servo and wired it up to the pro valves. i really could move it up and down with my rc transmitter.

now i think i won the game, i took an arduino and testet with some servo basics to move the cylinders. works really good. then i added the pods including in the cylinders for postioning to my servos and the dof works like it should. i tried simtools with the free live for speed and yup, it works nicely.


i am sure you want to see some pics now, but its not combined yet. the F-16 Cockpit is not fully completed.

i just realised that i cant edit the posting? it seems that some pictures are 2 times uploaded?! and probably the important thing that i forget to say that i used the servo .ino from eaorobbie. i changed just the actuator count from 2 to 6 and added the pwm pins and the actuator scale.

thats a neat hexapod seat - how much can it lift ?

moving it will be possible by editing the code to drive a h-bridge - the direction pin can be used to fire the correct solenoid

what does it use to measure distance ? does it use potentiometers

@Pascal Thanheiser Very nice project. The full scale Viper cockpit is amazing.
Do you know if the hydraulic solenoid valves are proportional?
Repurposing sophisticated systems like this is one of my favorite things to play with.
Very ambitious project. May I ask how old you are??
Thanks
tp

P.S. That seat looks like it came out of Proctologist's office... Ouch!

@noorbeast Many thanks

@Gadget999 thank you, it should lift round about 350kg on 80bar pressure.

Yeah i think that will work too. Thats my second idea. I just bought by mistake 10 Double H-Bridges. I actually just need 3 .

Yes, kinda potientiometer. I didnt open any cylinder. There are build in and 3 wires comes out(to the 4 of the solenoid). On one i can measure changes in the movement.

@T R Para thank you very much. Glad there are so many communitys to get dimensions because i never sit in a real one.

I think they are. Its a STW 0153/10. And what i found online it says yes.

You are so right, on of my workmate wasnt happy because he didnt noticed that "thing"

I'm 38.

Nice work, those proportional hydraulic systems are very expensive, so a good find. Will be interesting to see if it performs better then a modern AC servo setup .

Thank you,

Yes it is. We got the seat, the platform, hydraulicpump. cables and controlbox twice, some additional prop valves and so on. Just one prop valve(used) cost on e bay 350 Bucks. Thats what we paid for the whole thing. I has been ridiculus not to buy. No matter if working or not. Gladly every single part is working. I will post a video when its finally done

Recommend you move onto control software which has higher resolution then just 8 bit (256 positions) as it will be noticeably choppy over the length of those actuators.

Okay, i will check it out. What you think will be okay? 10 or 12 Bit or something up to 32Bit? I still do need some research.

Anything more than 8 will be a vast improvement. I and many others use 16 bit.

Hi great, interesting project, maybe I can help. Send you pm

Brutal!

Hi, did you finish the proyect? , I would like see a video please, I am workin in a 2DOF hydraulics sim , but i had have the hydraulics valves twice, now I am using proportionals valve, but it is expensive