Dirtys 6DOF, AASD Servos

Initially, I built the base like you see in the Fusion360 file (the Y-Frame), but it was not bolted to the ground. It slowly crept through the room during operation. My plan was to eventually fix it to the floor, but it never got that far .

I was tuning the motion with a friend one day when one of the U-joints snapped. Turned out that THIS one part was still one of the early test prints I did with minimal wall thickness, just done to confirm the shape and clearances. It was never meant to be under any load. In fact I am surprised it held up this long . That got me into the habit of doing test prints in a specially reserved color, so that it became immediately obvious that this is not an actual "production" part. Only when I consider parts to be final do I print them in black now.

This snapping joint lead to the collapse of the rig to one side and since the arms of the Y-frame were not bolted to the ground it lifted the opposite side up into the air and it almost toppled over completely.

What I did was simple: I glued three 20mm plywood blocks directly to the wooden floor, drilled 4mm holes in them and then screwed an M5 hex screw directly into them. That ended up being bulletproof. No more risk of toppling over.

The upper frame never got truly finished. The state you see in the F360 file was still just a rough draft and it never made it past this stage. The raw frame was done by a welder and my plan was to add anything else to it myself. So, I attached a 20mm plywood floor plate and screwed a Sparco R100 seat with the adjustment rails onto that.

Now, at that time (early 2020) my main concern was to see IF this thing would work AT ALL. I just fixed a provisional aluminum beam to the front that would hold the rudder pedals and an equally provisional frame around the sides to hold the stick and throttles. This was all just meant to allow me to prove basic functionality and then later bring it up to a standard that I would call "show ready".

But it never got this far: It did prove much more than just basic functionality. It worked so well that I immediately started using the rig to improve the motion cueing algorithm, do motion tuning for a few aircraft models, tested some assumptions I had about the effect of certain filters and tried out all kinds of stuff for the rest of the year..

I just recently sold the complete rig for the bare cost of material, which now funds my new build.

Bottom line: I never got to fully finish the upper platform. You will have to find a solution of your own. And when you do, do me the favour and let me know, because in a few months I will be faced with those very same issues and I will be asking YOU for advice and guidance.

Cheers,... Dirty

Since there are some of you following this build, you might be interested in this post:
https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...servo-system-72v-dc.11873/page-13#post-212969

I have put those U-joints to the test. They work great

hello Dirty,
I was reading the thread about you iniversal joints. I was wondering how are they holding up and have you made improvements?
I think I saw a link for them for the CAD files, but can't find it anymore, if it exists could you point me to them?
Thanks
Rolf