Newbie here building a 6dof

Wound up here thanks to Dmax's videos. And have been doing a ton of reading and researching this forum.
I'm going to be building a 6dof rig, because I'm an idiot and I know I wouldn't just be happy with 2 or 3 lol.
This is me trying to do this on the cheap side, since I'm waiting for my garage to be built ,so I can finish my actual racecar.
Anyways.

Using 6 jazzy 24 volt wheel chair motors ( same as Dmax used on his 2 dof rig)

Using 3 24 volt 63 amp 1500 watt power supplies

6 ibt2

And 1 Arduino? ( If I understand correctly this can handle 6 motors?)

Been doing a ton of research and I stumbled upon a thread about using diodes so they don't back feed into the psu's.
So I ordered some of those as well.
Also with a bunch of fans and heat sinks to battle heat

My main question is, am I missing anything else? Safety wise?

Obviously a kill switch.
Breaker is a 15 amp in the house.

I ordered one of those watt/amp meter wall socket plugs to see what the rig would pull under a load.

This is my first time doing this, I've never really messed with house wiring or electronics this way.
( Car and PC stuff for sure)
I just want to make sure I'm doing this safe and right

I was going to attempt to run all 3 psu off of 1 outlet and everything else off another.
I daisy chained all 3 together and obviously it works,but there is no load.

Frame hasn't been built yet, so can't test anything yet, just want to make sure I have everything in order.
Thanks in advance

Oh thank you very much, I didn't know this.

Yes I've been doing a ton of reading on everything.
I'll be sure to ask for help or ideas if needed.

I know 18:1 isn't the best for this sort of thing, but it's cheap, and I figured I can always upgrade later on.

Thanks for letting me know about needing 3 Arduinos.
What is different about motor 3?

Awesome,thanks a ton.
Yes I read that as well, I can turn them down from 24v, hopefully can hit around 20.
Thank you

Slowly been getting some work done, built the lower frame, but that's not entirely done, mainly working on the electrical side of things, turned my psu's down to 21 volts, which is as low as it'll go.
( trying to fit everything into an old PC tower case which is a bit harder than I imagined ,but tons of fun lol)
Doing some reading here and there, and something popped into my head.


When is it necessary to ground something?
I'm new to all of this,but I obviously don't want to kill myself haha.

All 3 power supplies are in the tower, all grounded through the outlet.

I have all the ibt2s and Arduinos and diodes in the same box along with the cooling fans.

This is a metal case, should I run a ground wire from the case to the power supply?

What about with the frame itself when it's all together?

Or am I overthinking this


Some pics of what I've got done so far.

Did you ever complete this project?

Still working on it. Took a break from it for awhile.

Then had trouble getting everything to communicate correctly, found out a few wires were shorted out, causing two Arduinos to malfunction.

Ended up taking everything apart, and now putting everything into a cabinet.

Just way too tight and hard to diagnose issues inside that little PC case.

Currently working on it as we speak. Spent the last 3 days getting this together

Good to hear that you are still moving forward. What made you decide between rotary and linear? Cost?

Cost for sure.
This is something I wanna try to do as cheap as possible.

The real racecar eats up all of my actual budget and gets all the expensive parts haha.
This is just for fun, something I've always wanted and never knew it was possible to build.

Hahaha you're absolutely correct, plus I can get drunk and race all night long with some friends lol

I see that you have undertaken an ambitious project , the question is whether you have run at least one engine with the arduino board ? new users often have problems with the correct operation of SMC3Utils and settings. The idea of lowering the IBT2 supply voltage is not very good ,in 6DOF you need all the available motor power and lowering the voltage lowers the motor power .
See two threads about building 6DOF with 24V 250W 75RPM motors
one current
https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...g-msfs-smc3-flypt-transducers-controls.19053/
one archived
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/keiths-6dof-wheelchair-motors.17038/
I, in my 2DOF, use a motion controller from an archived project, after damaging 8 IBT2 pieces .
I will be watching your project closely because I also have a desire to build a 6DOF.
What is the maximum current consumption of a jazzy 24V wheel chair motor ?
Good luck

I'll take a look at those threads when I get a chance.

Yes I got 2 working actually with no issues, hopefully I won't have any more issues with this new cabinet. It's much more organized,and a lot more room.
So wires shouldn't be crossed or touching one another lol.

I believe to stall them completely was 25-30 amps, but normal operation is around 2-5 amps.

I will most likely need to use gas shocks to help with the weight of the machine, because these are geared so high.

I would love to find different gear boxes for them, as long as they're cheap enough.


If this doesn't work out, I'll just sell the motors and get some 50:1
After all, everything should be pretty much the same.
Might need to swap power supplies,but that's simple.

I do think this will work.
I'm not after a huge amount of motion,just motion in general.
I only race in VR ,so I think a little will go a long way

I wouldn't want to discourage you but 5Ax24V=120W power, for 6DOF it may not be enough power, can you show the labels on the motors or the exact model of the motor ?

Unfortunately there really aren't any labels, you can't find much on them, this is all from testing that Dmax did in his videos on YouTube.

I took a look at those threads, definitely pretty awesome.
My motors look about 2x the size though,
If that's any insight.
And they're all wheelchair motors, I would imagine the power would have to be similar,since wheel chairs aren't exactly light.
We will see lol



Here's his video

I watched the video around 3:30 minutes you can see DMax testing them without load and they draw up to 3A, they are strong ( my 250W motor draws 1.5A without load). Let's hope only IBT2 will last .
I will be watching your build with attention

Yes he also stalls them out, and one time does it real slow and hit like 15 amps.
I think theyll be plenty strong.


I'm curious about the ibt2 as well.

We will see
I know those 100amp drivers are fairly cheap and people seem to have good luck with them

I'm not really a YouTuber or social media person, but since there is interest, took a quick video of what I've got done so far

Well small little update.
Found out my 1 Arduino definitely died.
It turns on,but not recognized by the PC, which I'm honestly not surprised. I'm surprised it even turns on haha.

Spent about 2 hours diagnosing why my motor would only spin 1 way.

Tracing wires, ohming things out, checking voltage etc.

Well apparently you need to have both potentiometers plugged into your Arduino at the same time. I only had 1 plugged in, and for some reason the motor would not spin the other way.
(I'm not exactly sure why this is, kind of doesn't make sense to me)
But that was a simple fix, too bad took all my free time to find it lol, but I'm happy, I got 1 motor to actually talk, and work correctly.

Hopefully the other 5 go smoothly.
A win so far in my book.

Sorry for the clutter and the mess, things are just mocked up for now to see if things work correctly,before I go any further.

I will probably try to get all 6 to work correctly, then tear everything apart and paint it, then build the tie rods and the rest of the frame afterwards.

Just seems easier to access everything now.
I will most likely have to re calibrate every potentiometer afterwards,but that's fine. Much easier to rule things out ,in the state that it's in.