2DOF motion simulator build

I was not thinking they could arrive DOA so I ordered only the 2 that I need. Hopefully they're ok when I get them. If not, I'll have to order more and the wait continues. You're right about the Chinese H-Bridges being as strong as wet farts . The specs would suggest that they'd be more powerfull. but well, you get what you pay for I guess.

I have some aluminium heatsinks that I pulled from dead computers at work so I'll stick them on the monsters to keep them cool. I also have a 140mm fan to keep them cool.

Today I got couple cheap chinese H-bridges that I ordered some time ago, so I got the SIM moving finally. The problem is still that they're not really that powerful and the movement of the sim is pretty lazy at the moment. That will hopefully change later this week when I get the moto monsters.

I also made a mount for the rifts tracking camera.
I drew and 3d printed this part that fits on the hole of the 30mm square metal rod that the sim is made of:

I then used Sugru to attach a GorillaPods camera mount screw thingy on top of that. The reason behind using sugru to attach the camera mount to the bottom half was that I've heard the vibrations that the motion sim produces does not work so well with the rifts tracking camera. As the sugru is rubbery substance I hope it will isolate the camera from the SIMs vibrations. I don't know if this is going to work or not but I'll see that in couple of days when the Sugru is hardened and I can give it a test.

Here's a short video of Elite Dangerous and my now moving sim.

Looks good just need to get some smoothing going on It will soon do your head in if its jerky playing Elite.

Well done !!

I have tried all sorts to try and resolve the vibrations going through the camera. Flight simulators are fine you dont need anything but as soon as you try something like Dirt Rally theres no getting away from the violent movement. I tried dampened platform, a platform on springs and the mount held by springs in mid air, everything has failed so far. I have printed a little mount using some rubber shock absorbers and I will see if that works. But like I say the shaking of driving games is just too much and I dont think there is any other way apart from motion cancellation.

Nice to see the sim in action! I have to say that the monitor is a little offside. Hope your monster working ok. Remember to check how much voltage that give in outputs when you use it.

Yes, interested to see how you go with the Rift tracking camera, as I did not have much success on my old Rig with a similar setup - just too much flexing/oscillations on fast movements. My new rig although has been designed to hold a stabilized tracking camera from the beginning (no long/heavy camera support arms - mass is not always your friend ), which I have successfully tested as much as I can so far. Stay tuned..

You've tried a lot of different things to keep the camera still! Let me know how the rubber shock absorbers go. We can only hope that Oculus/Vive comes up with motion cancellation. But I doubt it's not on the top list of their to-do lists.

My mount did not work so well after the first tests. I was jumping all around the cockpit in Elite even from little movements. Then I tried adding some electricians tape to keep the cameras swivel arm from moving. That helped a lot. Now it works pretty well. Even Asetto Corsa seems to be working but that might change after I get the motion profile set up correctly and the more powerful MMs.

I've been thinking about using active stabilization system to keep the shaking to mimimal, but that's only on idea level at the moment. For example there's a spoon for helping Parkinsons disease people to eat called liftware spoon. Only problem is that it costs 300$, just a tad too much for a testing purposes And there might be a problem with it correcting too much of the movement, not just the vibrations.

I can get sour neck from playing too much with my monitor
I'll try out the MMs beforu installing them to see that they work ok.

If you need stabilize the camera then maybe this will help.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Handhel...-DSLR-DV-KK-/281739827311?hash=item419900986f

Here is example video
http://cheesycam.com/canon-t2i-camera-stabilizer-video/

If those is what you could use then here is guide video for balancing it.

Unfortunately this will no work as the camera still needs to move with the rig, just no jolts/vibrations.

Ok i get it now So this maybe is what you need

@mrbeginner I have tried something similar using cable ties, it doesnt work. The big jolts and sharp movements/vibrations are just too much. I thought about getting a gimble something like this see how that would work http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DJI-PHANT...483?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3cfeaa648b I dunno though

it's good to know that people try to find answer for this problem before the CV version is out. I have only the dk1 so I don't have to worried that yet, but I try to post if I see good ideas.

I think that this might not work as it is meant to correct rotation, not vibration. I might be wrong though.

I got my MMs last Friday and both of them are working. I'm still looking for the right settings for them as they're shutting down for some reason. I've added heat sinks on both of them, but maybe the motors are still drawing too much power or they are over heating. On the plus side, they're much more stronger than the old crappy Chinese H-bridges.

Nice to hear you got it working.
What are your settings in SMC?
I use this settings. It's never blown a 20 A fuse.


Did you only use a Heatsink or with an active cooler?

Thank you for your settings!
I have heatsinks and a 140mm fan blowing on them.
I found out that with these settings they're staying on. I probably should increase the PWMRev value to make the motors break also.


I'll continue to tune them tomorrow as it's getting late tonight.

Today I upgraded my cheap and small Lepai amplifier that drives the bass shaker to more beefy amp. The new one also has low pass filter built in so no more high frequencies from the bass shaker.


For someone interested here's how I taped the rifts tracking camera to reduce the effects from vibrations. It works pretty well. Although I have not tested it in any rally games, only Asetto Corsa.

What if you use foam to absord the vibrations. Something like this.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...Polyethylene-Foam-Camping-Mat_1083879370.html

That's something I could try in the future if/when I get a rally game that moves the sim really hard. I'm pretty sure my current tracking camera mount does not work in that situation.
At the moment I'm pretty pleased to the tracking camera mount as it seems to work in Asetto Corsa pretty well. although that might change when I get the profile to really move the sim.