A new home for "Dirtys 2nd 6DOF Motion Rig"

The motion rig described at https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/dirtys-2nd-6dof-aasd-m4s-controller-sfs1620.17639 has found a new home! While @Dirty is working on his next generation of motion platform, I was lucky enough to acquire this one from him. See http://www.tvdr.de/sim/3 for more information on how my Full Motion Flight Simulator project comes along. If you have any questions or suggestions please post them here.

Klaus

I've finished building all the additional hardware (see http://www.tvdr.de/sim/3).

Hi,
I’m currently switching motors from 90ST to 80ST with brakes.
I’ve been looking at your documentation, I’m also not super tech savy, and I’m missing two type of crucial instructions regarding your section explaining the Brakes pipeline/connection network.
I’m missing what to do with the M4S controller and how to connect it to the Attiny85 board.
Is there any soldering/modification to do to the M4S controller board?
More pictures ( I love pictures), diagrams, anything that would hold my hand and show me exactly on how to do it would be great.
The other thing is a guide on how to load your piece of code into the Attiny85 board.
Than you very much for your help if you can.

@TheCalVRsimer Please take a look at the M4S manual, chapter 4.5 "Connection of a servo brake". Locate the pads labeled "Extra 1", "GND" and "VCC 5VO" on the M4S board and connect them to the Attiny85 board as shown in my wiring diagram on http://www.tvdr.de/sim/3/brakes.htm.
To program the Attiny85 you can download the Arduino IDE from https://www.arduino.cc/en/software.

K, great thank you!

I found an old youtube video showing how to install the Attiny85 and program it on a PC.
The first step it seems is to download the Digistump.Drivers from github before being able to use it with the Arduino software. Is that correct or you don’t need to install drivers anymore?
I’m getting the Attiny85 tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to upload your code onto it, fingers crossed!

I programmed it using a Linux PC and didn't have to install any drivers.
Just install the IDE, plug it in and see what happens.

I already installed the drivers, I’ll plug it in tomorrow and see what happens, thanks!
Amazing cable management btw!

Would you mind sharing your settings for the M4S Dashboard app regarding the brakes, thank you!

Thank you!

I think I successfully uploaded your code on the Attiny85, phew!
I must say it was a bit of a struggle and it is not as simple as plugging it in and using it with the IDE software.
Several steps need to be achieved, such as installing drivers and installing the board in the IDE software, at least that’s what it takes on a windows 11 PC.
I’m gonna write down a detailed step by step tutorial for the dummies like myself out there!
I understand there is a much simpler way of installing the motors with brakes but I think it is worth spending the extra time and effort to benefit from your 12v option installation.
Thanks for putting up your documentation together, it is essential for people like me who have no clues about what they’re doing.

The legend of the DOF diode fix! This is an awesome looking build!

Yeah this is a really amazing Rig build ! Klaus helped me to finaly setup the code for the brakes and find a really good solution to keep the heat away from using only 12V to hold the brakes.

@Klaus Schmidinger and @Motion4Sim One more question: Can someone please explain to me how the homing of the M4S controller actually works? AFAIK, the controller slowly moves the axis against a hard stop. The servo drive signals to the controller when the torque exceeds a certain limit with the "signal out 1" signal. But in the parameters I've found Pn0061 which is set to 6. This means "homing on powerup". Does this mean the servo drive executes the homing on its own?

And what value is used for the torque threshold? 100% would be ok which translates to ~2kN of force with 1:1 drive and 10mm pitch. But if Pn0008/0009 is used (300%) I would be afraid of breaking something because 6kN is a lot of force.

Hi. pn61 sets the output channel for sigout2 which is assigned to "torque reached" with 6, the limit for torque reached is set with pn24 normaly is at 100% also 80% or 60% may work pn8/9 should be at +- 300%, if you want not the max power on your actuator while homing reduce pn24, the homing is done from controller not from drive

Thanks, that helps a lot. For our current rig we used seperate homing switches (inductive proximity sensors). But using a hard stop reduces part count and cabling. So I'll do it like that for my next project. The only disadvantage of the hard stop is that you have to limit the homing velocity to lower values than what would be possible with limit switches. But as the PC software takes some time to boot, anyway, that's not really an issue.

When powered off the rig is usually (YMMV) at the lowest position, so the actuators are most retracted. When I switch the M4S "online" it starts the homing, which is just a very short turn of the spindle, since it is already at (or shortly above) the hard stop point. So homing is done within a second or so.

I had the same thoughts, but the homing works fine even with Pn008/Pn009 reduced significally. Also, like Klaus said: Normally, the rig starts out all the way down, with the actuators de facto at their hard stop. So, the homing is finished within less than a second. Even faster with PN008/009 reduced.

I'm happy to see some traffic on this thread, because Klaus made some great modifications to this rig (not just for looks) and I think his build-blog is well worth the read: http://www.tvdr.de/sim/3/