Showroom Compact AC Servo 6DOF Rotary Stewart platform

Had several requests on how the platform performs with a flight sim. I customized the DSC plugin to provide angular velocity data for all axis, and use that data to base the platform movement off of. If you are interested in how you can customize simtools plugins let me know... Hint... It requires decompiling

Big changes this week, A new contributor to the project found that the SPI bus to the GPIO was un optimized pulling only 1Mhz, out of 10Mhz... with a small change the ESP32 now can drive the AC Servo controller faster, this was a bottleneck that was causing the motor to only spin at ~1/3 its max speed at times. now that has been overcome and the arms can swing at a much more scary rate! This video is the first where the modification has been done. I did end up adding some more filtering to Simtools side, as well tuned the S curve acceleration profile to take a little more time to speed up /slow down the platform, as the added snappiness was taking its toll on my body...

Custom plugin for MS Flight Sim 2020

I have released the source code to this so other developers can improve on it, I have spent 1.5 hours to get it working this far. Several more hours just making a video and posting it to GitHub. I may not invest more time in it, but by all means,... take it and ....Dare I say..... FLY...



https://github.com/knaufinator/MS-Flight-Simulator---Simtools-interface-

This is a VERY early release as QUICKLY as I could get it out so people can start flying around in a motion sim for Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

This project includes 2 parts

1. FS2020_GamePlugin = The Simtools plugin, compile this and drop the file FS2020_GamePlugin.dll into the SimTools plugin updater app to install it, patch it as normal.
   
   
2. Simvars = This is a Server application, this connects to MS Flight Simulator when you hit Connect, it Queries the correct data from the game only at 10Hz, anything faster and it was slowing my PC down, so change that at your discretion.... this needs to be improved. take a stab...this is a modified app from the SDK, so it has a bunch more functionality in it than what we are using. dont hit anything else other than Connect.... after it opens up, and it should consume the data automagically..the simtools plugin should see the data as soon as you do.

Limits I used, i did not touch sway or surge yet...

Programed up a BLE Chest Heart monitor to my custom graph app, so I could record my heart rate during a race. And.... indeed my heart increases under stressful race conditions ...

PCB assembly, I get asked often about the PCB... so I wanted to dedicate some nice fancy macro shots to it ... Enjoy!

Part 2!

hi!, can you please tell me the Exact Specs on the motors, I have build a 2Dof with Wheelchait motors and I'm planing to make a 6Dof like yours, but Still don't know what motors to use that has enough power

Yo, I have the specs embedded in the GitHub project link -
https://github.com/knaufinator/6DOF-Rotary-Stewart-Motion-Simulator

basically I use 6 750w AC servo motors
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32844239563.html

coupled with 50:1 Gear reducers/torque multipliers
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32967571001.html

The motors are good for 2.4 Nm torques constant - 7 peak, then coupled with the torque multiplier/gear, we get 120Nm torque constant and 350Nm peak. The peak is good for those slamming motions .. when you hit the walls.....

I also like the simulator of DOF6 recently. I saw your video on YouTube, and I was very interested in it. So I went to GitHub to check your project, but I found that the controller code of ESP32 only has a no-load debugging code, I wonder if you could give me some help on the code and how to use the Seror. Thank you very much for your simulator. It's very attractive.

pm'd

Hey Knaufinator, awesome build, that was something I wanna do. Just curious about how you figure all these out, are you an engineer?

Yes, I have a Computer engineering degree, this build was somewhat right up my ally with the PCB, microcode work.

I liked your project, I support compact projects, my platform has only two dof (it suits me well) but I see you opted for monitors, so I ask you if you were not interested in virtual reality glasses, because after I flew in, I couldn't more back to the monitors, (used 3 combined at 30º angles).

I actually do have VR, a subscriber/builder sent them to me. I have used them, and they do offer a nice bump in realism and immersion. though,... I do prefer monitor, as VR tends to scramble my brain when motion compensation is buggy in my very dynamic rig..... most of the time. Multiple monitors would be better, but as I am mounting the monitor to the chassis,.. it needs to be light weight.

the motion compensation is really boring to implement, it didn't work well with my rift s and it worked almost well with the reverb g2. but that's it, let's go ahead!!!

I record my BRZ with an IMU and video feeds with a custom open source app I developed and then Play it back on my 6dof motion rig,... I want to expand this idea and take a trip to something like the Tail of the Dragon...!!

Excuse me, I have a question about the pn058. How to set the homing trigger? only set it "23"? I use the same servo with you.

by setting the value to 23- you inform the servo driver that the "sigin" port from the PCB cable is the Homing sensor. with that information, it now knows that when the signal goes high...then it needs move in the direction you program in with pn36 + pn37. pn38 and pn39 inform the driver how fast to move - 100 being the homing speed on either side of the homing sensor position hunt for me.

pn33 informs the driver to Hunt for home directly after turning it on
pn34 is the direction is will go after home.

Input Designation

• pn52 - 23 Sigin 1 - homing trigger

Home location after sensor is activated

• pn36 - +/-11 X1000 pulses to get you in the ballpark area after home trigger
• pn37 - ~ +/-5000 as needed for precision to finish off where you want the arm to land after home trigger
• pn38 - 100 init speed
• pn39 - 100 back home speed

homing rotation direction settings

• pn033 -3 power on homing
• pn034 - 0 clockwise
• pn034 - 1 counter clockwise

I recommend reading the manual to the aasd-15 servo driver. it took awhile for me to understand it, but the more I read it and played with the motors the more it made sense.

I am puzzled with pn36 and pn37 .

I set them 0, and when the hall active, the servo stop

good, that is the expected result. its also good that this illustrates the homing sensor is working.

pn36 + pn37 = the position it will move after it hits the homing sensor.

there are only so many LED digits on the servo driver. the manufacturer needed to split up the count of how many positions are to be sent to the motor. so they split it up by a factor of x1000

pn36 = + x1000 positions as the number you enter
I entered (11) for this value, this means it will move 11,000 positions

pn37 = + positions of the number you enter
I entered ~500 here or it may have been closer 500... either way, use this to fine tune pn37, as you can only modify it at the 1000's precision with pn36
s0,... 11500 would be my total movement once home is triggered.

This will be different for each motor , as the sensor is in a slightly different location on each arm.