Accelid DS3 motion rig

Hello everyone,

I’m Yuyu from France, a sim-racing and flight-simulation enthusiast. I recently acquired an Accelid DS3 motion rig second-hand. Unfortunately, Accelid went out of business, so this is a factory-built unit rather than a DIY project. I’m now looking to integrate it with SimTools to drive its 2-DOF axes.

Has anyone here worked with an Accelid DS3 before or knows how to set up the UDP/network interface in SimTools? Any tips or example profiles would be greatly appreciated!

I also have the DS GUI software (version 2.0.4.7) for this motion rig if anyone needs it, since it doesn’t seem to be available online.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Hi,
Thank you for creating a topic for my motion rig.
As for the hardware, unfortunately I don’t know much about it
But I opened the cover of the electronics section and took a picture of the control board.
I also took a picture of one of the two DOF motors, in case that helps give you some clues to assist me.
Thanks a lot!

nothing, just product serial number

I also captured the communications between the PC and the motion rig using a serial port monitor, in case it helps identify the most suitable interface.
Thanks

Hi @yobuddy , @noorbeast

Just wanted to share some progress and hopefully help others with the same hardware.

I initially tried using the Serial interface of the DS3 rig, but I gave up on that route. It was overly complicated to reverse-engineer, and the COM port monitor tool I was using hit its 14-day trial limit — so that made things even harder.

Luckily, I managed to get the rig working using the Network interface (UDP) instead.

Turns out, the DS GUI app (which controls the rig) has a hidden gem in the "Extra" tab: a "Simulate" button that activates the motion interface and allows you to test UDP data without needing to connect the rig.

With some trial and error — and a lot of help from ChatGPT — I figured out the correct data format DS GUI expects. I now use SimTools v3, which sends out axis values over UDP, and a small Python script that acts as a bridge between SimTools and the rig.

The result:

• SimTools outputs to port 30001
• The script converts the data and sends it to DS GUI on port 21777
• The radar in DS GUI controls the actual seat movement (2DOF: pitch & roll)

For anyone else with this rig:
I'm sharing:

• The DS GUI app
• The working Python script (with a small GUI to start/stop and view logs)
• A precompiled .exe version if you don’t want to mess with Python

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RBUUUTnt7naWBJVnGz7jWZqS0WZXSswh?usp=sharing

Right now, I'm using the Python proxy to handle the data format conversion between SimTools and the DS GUI.
If anyone knows a way to do this directly from SimTools (like using a plugin or better interface config), I’d love to get rid of the extra script.

Details of what the Python proxy sends to DS GUI:
The UDP packet sent to DS GUI is exactly 168 bytes long, structured as follows:

• Bytes 0–3 → 0x27 00 00 00 = message ID
• Bytes 4–7 → 0x01 00 00 00 = version
• Bytes 8–19 → zero padding
• Bytes 20–23 → unused
• Bytes 24–27 → unused
• Bytes 28–31 → unused
• Bytes 32–35 → unused
• Bytes 36–39 → unused
• Bytes 40–47 → two int32 values (set to 0)
• ...
• Bytes 136–139 → float32 value = radar X (horizontal movement, range: -2.0 to +2.0)
• Bytes 140–143 → float32 value = radar Y (vertical movement, range: -1.5 to +1.5)

Only the two floats at offsets 136 and 140 actually affect seat movement via the radar interface in DS GUI. Everything else can be left at zero.

Many Thanks

Just a quick update for anyone looking for a plugin for the same motion rig.
Thanks to @yobuddy, I now have a fully working plugin!
You can download it from the attachment below.
I’ve also included a screenshot showing the interface settings.
Hope this helps others with the Accelid DS3 rig!

Hello @yobuddy @noorbeast , I'm reaching out again for help because unfortunately, the electronics of my motion simulator have burned out .
I've tried to build an equivalent using an Arduino board. My simulator has two MY1016 motors that drive screw-type actuators. There are no sensors, and I have no idea how the original software was able to detect the seat position (probably through software estimation).
I’ve done some firmware tests with ChatGPT, but I still don’t understand how to get everything working properly—especially how to brake/hold the seat in a given position and how to estimate the position reliably.
Do you think it would be possible to run SMC3 without potentiometers? Or am I absolutely required to couple each motor to a potentiometer?
If that's the case, I've already purchased WAVGAT 3590S 10kΩ pots, but I’m still not sure how to physically couple them to the actuator arms.

video of the test with arduino and bts7960 :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9dXArN8K9W25u8Df7

Thanks for your help

Hi @yobuddy,
Thanks a lot for your reply!
Looking at the burned board, there are only two pairs of DC wires for the MY1016 motors and four wires for the power supply. There's also an RJ45 port, but it seems to be just for a start/stop button and a LED.
I didn’t see anything that could provide feedback. maybe I need to take a closer look

I took a look, and there’s nothing that seems to provide feedback. I took a picture of the board connected via RJ45, it just has a LED and a button.

Thanks again for your help!
I've uploaded several photos so you can see how the system is built.

The main board is fixed and doesn't move at all, so there's no way it could include a motion sensor.
The only place where a sensor might be located is on the small PCB connected via RJ45, but I really don't think there's any kind of sensor on it either.

I found this project: https://www.printables.com/model/1062501-my1016-ffb-steering-wheel/files, which should help me connect a potentiometer to the MY1016 motor.
The 3D models are included, and I had the parts printed by a local company, I’ll be picking them up today.
Once I’ve installed the potentiometers, I’ll start testing with SMC3.

In parallel, I’ve reached out to someone from the seat manufacturer to see if they still have the original firmware, it would be very helpful to understand how the system worked originally.

You're right @yobuddy , I checked again and there is actually an accelerometer on the small board, it's the XL335B chip.
I’ll see if I can do something with it to use it with SMC3.