2DOF motion simulator build

Appears the pedals are on a slider, not the seat.

Sorry @Ville Pesonen and @Nick Moxley , you are both right, rails are under pedals, my apologies

@bsft no problem

I finally got my hands on an ujoint, but I'm not sure that if it's strong enough. It looks pretty small. It's a steering column ujoint from Ford Fiesta. It was the only ujoint that had the forks fitted to it at the store that I went to, so I did not have much of a choice.
Here's a picture of it (mouse for a scale)


Has anyone used an ujoint from a steering column and is it strong enough to hold a full frame sim?

Im pretty confident that will suffice, The U-joints from the Drive shafts most of the guys use are Complete Overkill, but at the same time they are a cheap and easy solution.

I also sourced a Steering Joint like that to replace my CV joint (if i ever get around to it that is)

Whilst I think that u-joint may indeed be fine, and I would have used one myself for a seat shaker, I must say that I don't think I would use one for a full frame. This opinion is not one of an assured surety but one of an engineering background and the one thing to remember about steering column u joints is that they aren't designed to have pressure placed on them from the top to the bottom. They are designed to be reliable and efficient in clockwise and anti clockwise rotations with all load bearing abilities concentrated within those parameters. We would have to think about a full frame pressure loading it consistently from the top to the bottom and whilst I certainly do not think that it would give way I would question its long term reliability (especially since it is a smaller unit...)

Just my .02 cents....

Thank you for the responses.
I'm going to use the u joint that I got. We'll see how it holds up.
I've asked one of my friends to keep an eye open for a driveshaft u joint as he's working as a car mechanic. If and when he gets one, I'll have to consider changing the driveshaft u joint depending how the small one is doing.

No progress on the frame yet, but I made stands for the capacitors. It took me 4 prints to get the size right for the M12 nut because the plastic dilates a little when it's printed.


I attached the 3d file (stl and skp file) if someone finds it useful.

I made little progress on the electronic side of the build today. I connected the fuse box, the diodes and the capacitors today.
The plan:

and the results:


I've also planned a box for the H-bridges and the arduino:

I have not yet tried to print the box. The printing software estimated the print time to be 18 hours. It's pretty long... Maybe I'll try to print it next weekend.

Caps are for ? Just a little extra storage under heavy loads ?

they should not be needed....

The caps are for high current peaks. I had a problem with my PSUs shutting down when the motors started, so I added the caps to provide the startup/peak current.

use bigger and or better PSU

+1 on bigger PSU's are you still running the 32A psu's ? If they are shutting off on start up, caps might not help so much when you go off track and have some decent oscillation and the motor's really start to demand more power than you have to supply regardless of Caps or not.

I still have the 32A psu's. I haven't tried them on any stress yet as my frame is still under construction. I'll have a go with the 32A psu's and the caps, if they can't keep up, I'll have to replace the PSUs with more powerful ones.
I still have the 1200W psu that sounds like a vacuum cleaner

This is the issuse I need to adress. The rig I'm going to build needs to be balanced for me and my two small kids.

@Rocket man , my hire sims are desk racers on full frames and the wheel and pedals are adjustable for kids to adult.
Thanks to @eaorobbie for the idea, use cheap draw rails, and bracket welded on the end with holes drilled for adjustment. wheel stand itself is height adjustable

Balance it for you, and move the wheel and pedals back and forth

Little update on the progress.
I bought myself a G27 steering wheel and realized that the pedals would not fit the frame. So I had to cut the column at the front of the frame and build new support for the wheel stand.
before: after:

I've also got the universal joint column build (in the first picture). We'll see if it can take the weight of the thing.

The steering wheel mount is adjustable (horizonally). At the moment it's attached with a normal bolts, but I'm looking for bolts that has a handle to make the adjusting easier:


Next on the to do list is to make the pedal stand.

Some progress on the build.
The pedal stand is now ready:

and the gear stick holder:

The gear stick can be adjusted up and down.

The frame is now connected to the base with the universal joint:


Next on the list is the motor mounts.