Winging a 3DOF (pitch, roll, yaw) build.

So after a little more digging, I found the yaw motor, once powered on, holds strong at center. On motors 1 and 2, when powered and centered, also hold strong. It's not until after I begin motion testing that there's a breakdown somewhere in motors 1 and 2 that they just go weak and easily movable. Thats not the case with motor 3. Even while and after testing in SMC3, motor 3 remains solid at all times. Does this point to the Arduino that motors 1 and 2 are running on is bad? After stacking 180lbs in the seat, motor 3 moved strong. Motors 1 and 2 also held them no problem, but cut out as soon as they tried to move them, even in the down position. Example: Power on motor 3, smc3 testing goes perfectly, close smc3, motor 3 still holds position and extremely difficult to move by hand. Power on motor 1 or 2, smc3 testing goes perfectly (without load), close smc3, motors 1 or 2 move easily by hand. Hope this makes sense and helps you to help me.

Well, 2 more IBT-2's blown in less than 20 minutes. Lol. I can't win with this.

From my experience with ibt2 can give you a hint:
1. try to spin the motor arm as little as possible when it is not powered, when the arm is rotated the motors generate reverse current which can damage the IBT2 or the power supply.
2. unscrew the heatsink from IBT2 and gently sand off the varnish from those two fields I showed in the photo ( 300-400 sandpaper), apply thermal conductive paste on the sanded fields, heat dissipation will be much better.

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Thank you. I will remove that coating and paste the sinks. I've probed around the blown units, and I think this is the component that keeps getting fried. Can these be replaced?

Not quite sure which item you're asking about, I've attached it
photo :
1. the capacitor can be replaced if it is damaged.
2. transistor is rather not so much it requires specialized equipment.
Don't worry about the IBT-2, I broke 4 pieces before I learned how to handle them, follow the advice from the previous post and give additionally a fan to blow on the IBT-2 bridges.
It will be OK

The capacitor keeps shorting out. I'll remove it and see if I can replicate the short just to pinpoint the problem. Also, I do have a big fan installed on the box lid. The air coming from the vents is ice cold.

Just wired in 2 brand new IBT2S and now the arduinos are not being recognized by PC. I checked USB ports with other devices, and they checked fine. The lights on the arduinos aren't even coming on. What a F'n mess this ending up being. Highly discouraging to say the least. EDIT: Cut both arduinos out, plugged them in, and recognized. Did a complete pin check, and they all had continuity where they should and nowhere that they shouldn't. Also read all IBT2 pins. Same result. There's not a single crossover of wires in my entire setup, but something definitely isn't right. Could the fault be in arduinos internals? I did notice before cutting them out, that when I plugged in one, the LEDs of both arduinos would come on for about a second and fade out. Ideas?

First, check System Menager >Com port> Arduino Uno(COM ?) visible ?

No. But they became visible once I completely cut out and removed them from the box.

After combing through more IBT-2 troubleshooting threads, I ran across this post. Should I be setting fpwm at 20? Could this be the simple overlooked reason all my IBT2S are frying?

yes, sorry I forgot about that also I have it set to 20kHz

Salute ! I will change that setting when I get home from work. Got thermal paste today, and will hopefully finish rewiring all components back in tonight. I already sanded the varnish away from the ibt2s. Maybe even get a chance to test, but that most likely will be tomorrow.

Making progress on the electrical front. Sanded and thermal pasted IBT2s. Zeroed everything out in SMC3, set khz to 20 and started from scratch. Was able to eventually sit in seat with laptop and test in simtools setup. Now, the bad news is the IBT2 from motor 2 blew out, but it was the last of the original 3 that I had put in there and was running at 35khz without paste and that makes me assume it was on its last leg anyways. So I swapped the pot, motor, and psu wires from motor 3 to motor 2 to ensure there wasn't a breakdown within motor 2 itself. It ran like a dream. Going from not even being able to move the seat to actually sitting in it is pretty encouraging. After work I am going to ramp up the intensity just a little bit while in the seat and test their limits some more.

Last night's full send in seat testing went great in SMC3. Sine and square motions seems fluid, snappy, and responsive. Before I move into simtools, just a couple questions. Is max limits value the overall range of CTC lever movement with inertia accounted for, while clip input is intended to help buffer the inertia before it can go into effect? Hard time wrapping my brain around where those two should be set, and which to set first, and also the "why" to set it there. I also have a slight roll balance issue on the rig itself I have to iron out, but shouldn't be too difficult. Need to get approx 12 pounds added to the left side. New IBT2 for motor 3 gets here Saturday. It's coming together.

I pretty much memorized these 2 paragraphs over the last 3 days, lol. I don't know, I may be overcomplicating this in my head. Is there a "base example" of where to initially set these before simtools, or just see where your max travel of CTC arm is, set that max limit, then buffer in a slight margin for clip input. A good start would be to know which one to set first.

These parameters are not very important, set 200 and 220 and that's enough. Set the rest in simtools.
It is important that when setting in simtools, do not connect the linkages to the seat, that way if the motor arm goes out of the safe range you will not damage anything.
Show some photo of your motion sim

It's not in the best state for pictures right now. Was working on looming the wiring tonight. Still waiting on IBT2 for motor 3 to come in. Doesn't help we lost power for 2 hours either! Looking to getting the psu's and elec box hard mounted today. Gonna make the brackets for all that at work. Once all that is cleaned up I'll post up another batch of pics.

It's move in and setup day. I have another problem though, simtools 3 is not allowing me to pitch. Roll works just fine. Neither motor moves for pitch. It works as advertised in simtools 2.6. not sure what's going on. Any help would be great. If there's a specific pic of settings ya need, lemme know and I'll put them up.

Unfortunately with simtools can not help, in DCS I use FlyPTmover.