Showroom 2 DOf motion Sim on a Budget

Hi All
I went to see the V8 Super cars at Ipswich Raceway Queensland last August. There I saw a motion sim that costs about $1 per minute to play. My daughter was devastated when she couldn't have a ride.So, I thought to myself , I reckon I could build one of those.
I am not a tech savvy person but, I know how to use a welder and a soldering iron.
After doing some investigation on the interweb, I cam across this website and Racing Mat's tutorial which got me all fired up and thinking it is not impossible to do.
I am going to attempt to do this with as little money and as many salvaged parts as possible.
I will keep you all posted

Regards Simon

Welcome Simon may your project succeed!

Stage 1.
Ardunio Uno $39.00 including delivery

Motor Driver Module 30A Monster Moto $15.00 from Ebay ( Took a month to get it)

Power supply from a computer that couldn't run Pacman if it wanted to $0.00 ( to be upgraded upon success and testing)

Power supply housing from a dead power unit $0.00

Various parts from Jaycar ( 2 x 12 volt mini motors for testing and 2 x 10k pots) $24.00

Total so far $63.00

After spending a Saturday soldering and drilling. Here is the finished result.


Nice and compact.

Stage 2
Get the motors working and test the software.

Keep you posted
Regards Simon

if you use wipers, look for cheap, hunt around wrecking yards, I eventually found $10 ones that did the job. Mind you , these days I use bigger motors
as for $1 per min, thats a cheap rate compared to motion rides, they run $1.50-$2 per min, also they only offer rfactor, not the codies games kids love to play.

these are going to car show next Sunday and I am charging about $1 a min.

Most of the SMPS similar to the one you have shuts down when it detects large fluctuation in current. Also the maximum power available on the 12 volt rail is 200 watts, 2 large motors will need more power. It will work with the mini motor but not with wiper motors...

Also monster moto can only handle 30 amps max. Choosing a motor will be very critical, you can end up with problems similar to this.
http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/problem-motors-shutting-down.5888/
http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/monster-moto-shield-amps-per-channel.5366/#post-53439

Hi Mazhar,
thanks for the info. I will be upgrading power supply as soon as i can get the system operational. Alot of the parts I have tried to spend as little as possible so, if it fails I haven't lost a lot of money.I have bought a couple of cheap 12v wiper motors from a wrecker( $20 ea) No idea how many watts they are, but if it all works well , I will upgrade.

I am in territory I have never crossed before.It will all be trial and error.

Regards Simon

Good start @headbangersball!

Nice little box! heat sink will be nicely cooled.
If you're unsure about max current, put a fuse to protect your motomonster ;-)
or use a single motomonster per motor (double wiring) like Pit did.

Thanx for compliment. I think i will put a reset-able fuse @ approx 25AMP. Still in the design stage it is a work in progess

Hi, In my first build, my biggest problem was constant worry about project's failure and loosing money.... Ended up realizing that I could have done better if I didn't worry about it.

Also with the Current Sense feature of Monster Moto, it is possible to calculate the Motor Watts (rating).
All you need is to find a Sketch for MM based on Arduino that will send the current usage to your serial monitor. There should be one on Google or an example code on Sparkfun website.

Good idea, but this function "current sense" is not documented...
I asked the question on sparkfun product webpage, no answers... but it's rather simple to do, just need to calibrate it with multimeter.

Today I will be getting the hardware to mount the motors on a frame . I am using some gas struts @ 1100 nm. to connect the motor to the back of the seat.I have calculated approx 200mm of travel ( +/-100/100 ) from the horizontal position with the cam I am using.Should have some pics tonight

why are you using gas struts for?

The Current Sense pin on the VNH2sp30 outputs .13 volts per amps used by the motor. Simply connect the Current sense pin on the MM to any analog pin on the Arduino and read its value by using the analog read command. We should get a value between 0 and 1024. Dividing this by 26.59 should give the amps used by the motor.

For example,
int cspin = 2; //Current sense pin from MM connected to A2 pin on arduino
int value; // variable to store current sense
int output; // variable to store .13volt per amp converted to amps ie 5v/1024 counts/130milliVolts per Amps
value= analogRead(cspin);
output= value/26.59;
Serial.println(output);
(You will need additional codes to run your motor. )

Suppose your motor is rated at 8 amps, Serial monitor should print values between 7.9 and 8.1 with some minor variations . Motor should be running at a constant speed without any load. Also, dont forget to set pwm to 255 to get the correct motor rating.

There goes my 4 hours since I am a beginner in Arduino...

Now I will give you a small task, can you redo the calculations and figure out how I got the divider 26.59? You should also mention the time taken to get your answer?

and you wonder why I use JRKs instead...............

OMG @bsft can't help doing it. jrks forever

Cause they were free
I don't have to build a con rod to go from the motor to the chair. 1100nm you will never be able to compress. They are built to take massive doors . More weight than any one person could put on them

Way way beyond my level of comprehension..

Good stuff, I'm also in Brisbane and went the V8's and saw the simulator there, my project was already underway but that re-enforced it. We will have to compare each others once finished

Sorry I did not. My daughter got plenty of selfies with all the drivers though