3dof sim project for flight and space gaming

Hi Everyone ,

It has been a while since my 2dof project.
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/2-dof-flight-race-build.16924/

Last 2 years I didn't do much with my 2dof rig, because of serious back injury.
While recovering I came up with the idea of a building a new simulator.

The 2dof build was built with simple tools, so upgrading some tools was my first mission.

I build a workbench and bought a vice and a drill press.
Then came the idea of building a cnc milling machine, that took over 6 months to complete.
But I got it to work and it does cut aluminium.
Needed to learn basic CAD/CAM, I use Autodesk Fusion, got the basics under control so I can make parts for the new rig.

Now it's finally time for new simulator ideas.
A 6 dof stewart platform would be great, but with the cnc taking a large part of the budget.
I wanna try and make a 3dof with heave first.

I really like sebastians sim
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/my-3-dof-with-heave.18449/

And Codac version of the same approach

https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/f1-like-3dof-simulator-with-heave.18845/

The 500Watt motor with gearbox they use in their simulator look powerful and budget friendly.
I ordered 3 of them with the same gearbox of Sebastian and start building the 3dof simulator.


With the experience of the first build, better tools and the help of this forum,
I’m looking forward to a new simulator adventure.

I will post regular updater and lots of questions.

Started with the design for the simulator base , 120° angles between motors.
I will use 4040 aluminium profile and standard corner brackets .center and corner plates will be made out of 6mm aluminium.

I Got started on the simulator base. It got a bit bigger then planned. (1mtr x 1mtr)
I had some 12040 aluminium left from the cnc machine project , and made use of that.

Wanted 120 degree angles between the motors.
So Cut the 60° connectors on the side out of 8mm aluminium with help of the cnc.
Waiting for more alu. to arrive, to make centerplate and make motor mounts for the other motors
the mounting plates for the motor are also 8mm thick , hope this will be sturdy enough.

update:
2 motor levers made , out of 20mm aluminium. they fit nicely but have some play , I have to deal with that later.
made 8mm holes at 60-80-100mm distance to the shaft.
As spacers I use steel threaded inserts , that I use to clamp down material on my cnc machine.



The Y-shape constuction is next , most use 4040 extrusion with m8 thread to connect the rod ends with bearings,
But was thinking of getting m8 steering rods like these. with a length of approx. 180mm

Has anyone tried these before , will 6 (2 per motor) be strong enough for around 110 kg weight on top?

I managed to get some work done.
Motor levers are done en made the Y-shape connections on them .
The top bar is made out of 2 stacked, 4mm alu corner profiles.
It feels pretty solid , I cut put some 4040 alu profile underneath if needed.

On the bottem connection ,
I used M8 threaded rods ,So 6x m8 bolts most hold the full weight , seen it used on other rigs but still not sure if this is strong enough
on top I used M12 rods , they look pretty solid

I was thinking the whole y-shape rotate and sway to the left and right on the rod.
But it can only rotate.

next up is the upper part , is it better/stronger to make a triangle on top or another Y shape like the bottem?

Update time

I recieved the motor controllers and the fuse hub.
Connected meanwell 1500W psu and tested the motors with the buttons on the controllers.
everything worked fine but they run at fullspeed of approx. 60rpm

When jogging a motor repeatedly , the psu cut out.
probably from overcurrent /regenerative current.

after lot of reading on the forum about shuntregulators , schottky diodes and more.
I made the decision to go for batteries (2x12V in serie)
managed to get my hands on 2xVarta AGM 12V 95Ah (They are big and heavy) for only 50 euro.



This is the setup for the electronics for now.
Have question about recharging the batteries with the PSU.
but will post them in my question thread.



next up is the arduino and hall sensor part .

I finally got some time , working on the electrical side of my simulator.

I added a switchpanel that is normally used on boats
it has a voltage meter (so i can moniter it coming from the PSU
usb ports , I intend to use as charge port for my VR set

2x 24V-100a relais
one to switch power from PSU to battery, and the other to switch power to the sim .
put an emergency switch in serie with it

KWS DC200 -100A volt/amps meter.
this to moniter voltage, amps and Watts of the sim.

schematic

I building it in a cabinet that will stand besides the simulator it self.
Still work in progress , will add some pictures later.

set voltage of the PSU to 25.6V the diodes and relais have some voltage drop over them , leaving 25.2V after them to the batteries and rig.

So all the 24V wiring work is done , motors working great, when pussing manual buttons on the cryton controllers.

Next up is finishing the wiring of the arduino side, will use 3 arduino boards one for each motor.
it should work with 2 but with 3 it looks more symmetrical with the cryton drivers.

Busy with tuning motors with smc3 , first one works fine, but with multiple arduino's how do you make that work?
I keep getting connection error when trying to get the second on to work.

do you have to make 3 arduino folders on you pc , one for each motor.
and each it's own com port.

yes i checked in device manager and changed it in the ini file , everything checkes out.
but smc3 is not connecting.

Motor 1
PWM pin 9
Dir pin 2
pot pin A0

do you have to use ?
Motor 2
PWM pin 10
Dir pin4
pot pin A1

do you have to use different pins per motor even if you have 3 arduino's
because they use different com ports same pins should be no problem was my guess

ok very strange

loaded same code to second arduino, same wiring.
I made 2 folders on the pc ,one for motor #1 and one for #2
each folder contains a smc3 exe and the ini file.
changed com port in the ini files so thay match the COM ports

But when i try to open SMC3 for teh second motor , it doesn't work , the pop up comes to stop ,retry or ignore.

for motor 1 the file looks like this
# SMC3Utils.ini
UDP_PORT=20017
COMM_PORT=4
IMG_PATH=c:\temp

motor 2
# SMC3Utils.ini
UDP_PORT=20017
COMM_PORT=7
IMG_PATH=c:\temp

Thanks noorbeast ,
I found the problem , the shield on the arduino had some bad connection.
Got all 3 motors working on smc3.