SeatTime's DC motor Sim

To make my life easier when I need to setup the pots, decided to weld a commercial coupling to the back of the 60:1 gearbox instead of drilling to enable the pot to be mounted using grub screws (just using a cheap pot for load testing).

thats a good idea!

Load tests have gone well, I'm quietly confident.

load test on what

Just the motor/gearbox for a now probable new sim. If the tests had not been successful, I would have canned the idea.

Sounds promising. What is the bucket weight and arm length?

Peaked out at 16kg with a 100mm arm, 19 kg with a 75mm arm. Can get more with a counter weight. This is plenty for my design and I intend to use a counter weight. This is a 12vDC 200 watt motor with a 60:1 steel gearbox. I'm liking the steel gearboxes as they are strong (don't know if the standard nylon one would last that long moving this amount of weight) and lock in place when not being driven so there is no load on the motor if just supporting the weight. Unfortunately if you are a big guy this may not work for you for a 6 DOF.

Looks good! but you didn't fear to melt any plastic things inside with high welding temperature?

Pack gearbox with high temp grease if ya worried about that, think not 100% 60:1 has metal gearing inside not plastic. Superstrong

For these gearboxes you really need to be able to easily pop the pot off so the limits can be adjusted as it does not turn unless driven. Yes steel gearbox, still grease around bearing after welding in just two spots as it does not have to be super strong.

As I have lots of projects on my plate at the moment, questioned if I had the time to build the 6DOF especially as it meant stealing parts from my current sim. Re-assessed what I expected to gain in going to a 6DOF and it was heave. From my experience with a seat mover heave just feels like pitch or surge but with more shaking as the balance point is right under your butt so this is no up or down movement. Now heave in a real car does not work like this, so I sat down and thought what I could do with my current sim to introduce a more realistic heave. Picture below is what I quickly designed and built from items from my garage and using my test 60:1 gearboxed motor.

Basically I cut a big hole in my seat and hinged a sheet of metal in there which is driven up and down by the motor and levers. The levers are small (FYI the shafts are mounted in steel bearing) as you don't need allot of movement and it guarantees a lot of torque which is necessary to lift a person. It works perfectly and the sim is so much easier and more natural to drive now without all the seat pitch shaking.

Awesome.

Well done @SeatTime have not seen that concept used, very interesting.
With heave I set low min and max and a low (7%) in the Axis Assignments, creates a nice vib to represent the heave, Works well in Dirt3 and Grid2.
But I do like this idea.

Have only one thing left to do to the sim - bass shaker. Built one from a big old subwoofer were the cone edge had deteriorated.
Removed the edges of the driver and rebuilt as it would have been just too big to fit anywhere on the sim. The grey you can see on what is left of the cone dome is epoxy steel, which also holds the bolt sticking out of the top.

Unfortunately I can not locate the big amplifier that I put into storage two years ago (just too many packed away boxes).
Although I hate doing this If I cannot locate a reasonably priced amp it may be cheaper to just bite the bullet and purchase a Butt Kicker + Amp.

What about Dayton Audio Puck Transducers?
http://www.daytonaudio.com/index.php/tt25-16-puck-tactile-transducer-mini-bass-shaker.html

Hi, thanks for the link, but I don't need a transducer/bass shaker as I just built one for zero dollars, just missing an amplifier to drive it (which I thought I had in storage).

@SeatTime : what a beautiful buttkicker beast!
I'm curious if you benchmarked it with Buttkicker (r) ?
I made one (big and heavy as well) but the Throne Thumper is incredible in comparison!


Could you please share more details about your heave system?
How did you achieve vertical guidance?
Thanks!
Mat

I would have liked to fire the transducer up but cannot find my big amp. The heave module is hinged at the front of the seat and the two shafts are used to help with the balance of the seat and vertical direction of force. Works fine with no vertical alignment problems.

Added another picture of the seat heave setup for those who have requested it (unfortunately not so easy to take a photo now with it on the sim).

the underside of the seat is now basically a hinged plate of steel. This plate has been slightly shaped to fit the seat and re-enforced to stop any excess flexing. You can see were the coupling connects to the seat in the background center. The shafts sit in bearings to stop any unwanted axial movement.

Thanks SeatTime! Nice shot!

Could you take the coupling (in background center): to see how you converted motor rotation into heave!