2DOF Joyrider Flight/Race Sim Build

I'm just starting out designing and getting parts for my first sim build. I've gotten a lot of great information from the forums, but I still have a lot of design decisions to make.

STYLE - I'm 90% certain I'll go with a Joyrider style sim. Technically it won't be a Joyrider specifically, but I'm using that term generically to make it easy to explain the type of sim I'm making. Really it is a 2 axis gimbal design, but I'll call it a joyrider just to make it simple.

My kids prefer flight and roller coaster sim, and it seems a Joyrider type setup is better for that. Although a licensed pilot, I prefer racing, so hopefully I won't give up too much there by making flight sim the priority.

MOTORS - I've purchased a pair of Bodine, 1/4 HP, 41 RPM motors. These are super cheap used on ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bodine-42A3...armotor-5-8-/291575211443?hash=item43e33ca5b3

POWER SUPPLIES - I have a pair of HP DL380 DPS-600PB power supplies. These put out 47A at 12 volts. They take a little work to make run outside of a server, but at $15 each they are hard to beat.

MOTOR DRIVES - I'm very comfortable with Arduino's, but if my budget will allow it it sounds like a pair of JRK12V12's is a much easier and reliable solution than Arduino's plus Monster Moto's. But the price difference is around $150, so I'm undecided.

ENCLOSED COCKPIT - I've never seen a DIY sim with an enclosed cockpit, but I'm considering it. Oddly my wife is pushing for it, using the logic that if I'm going to build this thing, I should do it right (as long as it doesn't cost too much - which eliminates a Stewart platform!). The weight is a concern, along with the general complexity and making it harder to get in and out of the sim.

Good luck with your build! I'll be watching the thread...you have a very supportive wife

Here are the motors I'm using. At 13 pounds, they are solidly built, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are great motors for this application. It is too early to tell yet, but a few others have used them with success in different styles of sims. This thread discusses these motors in detail.

A couple extra goodies came with the motor, as you can see in the picture.

Coming off the motor is a nice Molex connector, which I'll keep for something else since conincidentally I already have the mating piece.

The little black block is a 10A self resetting fuse. I'm sure I'll overload that all the time once the sim is done since the motors are rated at 23 amps, so eventually I'll remove it. But for now it seems like a good thing to leave in place to help avoid burning something up as I have no spare parts. Once I have everything together and moving slowly, I'll gradually ramp up the profiles until the fuses start tripping and then bypass them once I'm pretty comfortable things are working as expected.

Here are my power supplies. Like many people, I've gone with used server power supplies. HP Proliant DL380, 575W, DPS-600PB, 47A at 12.15V. Also gives me plenty of 5V should I need it. At just $15 each with free shipping, it is a screaming deal. I wonder why there are so many of these floating around. They work fine, so the servers they were in must have been scrapped?

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Using these power supplies is a little tricky to use, since they assume they are in a server. If you just plug these in, the fan will run but you will not get the 12V output. Several of the pins need to be connected to enable the power supply.



Looking at back with fan up, pins are as follows

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
10 11 12

Usage:
1 = +5V
2 = +5V
3 = +5V
4 = Fan Speed (float = always high speed, ground = low/auto)
5 = -12V
6 = PS Kill (pull to ground to enable +12V)
7 = Unknown
8 = Gnd
9 = Voltage Adjust
10 = PS On (pull to ground to enable +12V)
11 = Current Share (connect to pin 11 of 2nd supply when in parallel)
12 = Unknown

Right = +12
Left = GND

Definitely follow the recommendations to run the fan at low speed! With the power supply in standby mode, the fan runs and my thought was "That isn't loud at all. What are people complaining about?" But then once I enabled the power supply the fan went to screaming mode and I totally understood. As I understand it, grounding pin 4 doesn't permanently force the fan into low speed, but instead puts it into auto mode where it will still speed up if needed. I haven't put much load on mine yet, so I can't verify this.

Following the recommendation of @bruce stephen I'm going to run the power supplies in parallel so both supplies work together to run both motors. That will decrease the odds of having one shut down with a big spike. That means I will connect pin 11 on the two supplies.

I got a great seat for $128 USD off ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/381293703282 It fits me like a glove and is more comfortable than any car seat or even office chair I've ever had. But I'm rather skinny (5'10" 150 lbs, 187 cm 68 kg), and it looks like it would be a tight fit for someone heavier.

You would think setting up the seat would be the easiest part of this project! But mounting the included slider to the bottom of the seat was a trick. The mounting holes were covered by enough foam and fake leather that they were nearly impossible to find. Then figuring out which way to mount the brackets was tricky since mine are backwards from what is shown in most instructions online.

The sliders have an 8 1/2" range of motion, meaning I should have no problem setting things up to handle kids through adults.

I used JRKs myself, and I just want to +1 the convenience of not having to worry about bad hardware (seems to be a rampant problem recently) and coding. After a few easy configurations, they work perfectly and consistently.

Great suggestions @noorbeast! At this point I have no idea where the center of gravity is going to be, so I'll leave the slider on the seat to make it easier to dial that in. Once I have the CG right, I may just bolt the seat down in that spot. Having the pedals and controls adjust does seem like a better idea. I only have 25 foot pounds of torque to play with, so the CG needs to be pretty close for this to work.

Joyriders are not really setup for pipe balancing, thats what the sliders adjustment for the pitch bearing are for.
I built a joyrider as my first ride. I had to move the bearings that sat on the roll frame back and forth til I found the balance point.

At this point I'm drawing up a rough design. I've looked at a lot of pictures of Joyrider type setups to see where they put the bearings. Since I'm planning having an enclosed sim, that will change the balance a bit, but hopefully not too much. Unfortunately I need to make a lot of design decisions and build at least the inner frame before testing the balance. The good news is the inner frame is going to be quite cheap compared to the rest of the sim, so if I get the balance way off and need to rebuild it, that won't be that bad.

I used the same power supplies for you joyrider simulator, worked great!

Also for your bearings I just stuck with using large caster wheels and removing the wheels. I know it's not the most ideal but it works pretty well and I haven't had a problem with them yet

After temporarily getting sidetracked with a pumpkin chunkin' project, I'm now back on the simulator. Here are the crude design as it stands now. The plan is to have the back half of the cover slide forward for access.

I've got enough 1" x 1" square steel tubing to get started welding up the middle frame. I'm a little concerned about the weight. The basic frame without the cover, walls, floor, seat, monitor, etc. is going to weigh around 30 pounds. By the time everything is in there plus the weight of a person, the part that moves could easily top 300 pounds. I'll need to get the balance points pretty close if I'm going to move that with my 25 ft-lb gear motors. Right now I'm mostly guessing where those pivot points should be. Even if I get it perfectly balanced the acceleration might be pretty slow with all that mass to overcome.

Working on the lever arms. This is the short one that will probably work for roll, but I think is too short for pitch. Made out of 1/2" acrylic since it was easy to work with and my local plastics shop practically gives away small pieces like this (this piece was about $0.25 USD). Hopefully this will be strong enough, since I'm not sure I could make the equivalent out of steel. Aluminum maybe, but that would be an expensive piece.

I don't know how strong are these acrylic levers but I would advise making them at least with 4mm thick iron or steel.

Your most vulnerable point, is around the hole that fits the motor axis.

@pipis2015 I think you are probably right that the acrylic isn't strong enough, even at 1/2" (13 mm). Acrylic tends to crack. But for now it is cheap and easy to work with, so I'm considering it a mockup piece. Once I have everything assembled and the dimensions right for the lever, I'll try to replace it with something stronger.

The problem is, how do a make a lever out of steel? I don't think I could cut out something that matches the keyway out of steel. I was thinking I could buy a collar with the keyway already cut in it and weld the collar to my lever, but I haven't found a collar like that yet. Or should I ditch the key and use a collar with a set screw. I could probably flatten the motor shaft if the set screen didn't work with the keyway.