DIY 2DOF home build

Hi,
Yes I have tried using manual mode, UDP pass through, motion and all other modes. I can see the light blue line on the graph saying that signal has been sent but it looks like nothing is coming out of the arduino. I haven't got all my test equipment at home so I can't look for signals coming from the pins to confirm but it looks like it's a problem with the arduino. Unless I've been sent two dud motomonsters. I'm thinking I might go and get an arduino uno and try it out before I replace both motomonsters. I have another two motomonsters spare so if the uno doesnt work I'll replace the motor drivers.

This is the initial setup as per instructions:


Ignoring the green line because I've disconnected everything at this stage for fault finding, when I tested the setup I increased PWNmax all the way to 255 and nothing happened. So Itried doing that for every output type and still nothing. I moved the chair up by hand and the green line moved to the blue line so I know feedback is working. Also, yes I know to turn motors on in top left hand corner after out of bounds (Incase someone asks).

Thank you,
I don't think your message translated properly, (Will pedals and gear cutting tools is what?) it does not make much sense so I can't respond. try writing it a different way

Well I can barely keep the chair straight at the moment so I hope Iv'e defeated doubt. I did however further reduce friction between the balls and the metal by placing a hardened plastic sheet on the rolling surface. I haven't set up traction loss yet as I'm trying to get the 2dof working first. Now that the weather is looking better I need to put some time into my real race car so I won't get too much time to implement the third axis.

Cheers guys!

Yes Arduino test will be cheaper and it always used to have one more

This is so frustrating..... I got the arduino UNO and got everything working in the utility, motors moving yay!
Now.... Simtools isn't moving the motors...... I've set everything up accordingly and nothing moves on the output test...
This is just absurd....

Wiring is all good, I can controll the motors fine withing the SMC3 utility.
These are my settings for both SMC3 and setting for engine:



I'm really hoping that I'm blind and have missed something...

Should the actual COM port in the device manager be able to be set to 500000?? In the com port settings it doesnt' actually go to that value.

Interface output I think should be [A<Axis1>][B<Axis2>] for SMC3 code with 2 motors

And add [C<Axis>] for the third motor if you go for traction loss

I didnt touch the device manager setting only ths simtools interface for the bits per sec

@Alexey as @Daguru mentioned you have wrong settings in interface settings must be as he said
[A<Axis1>][B<Axis2>][C<Axis3>]

How nice making holes?

I used a tool called Dremel as pictured.
I drilled a hole first then to make the longer cuts I used the Dremel.

Well this has been an interesting weekend. Whilst trawling through the smc3 posts I noticed a post which mentioned the axis labels. I went to see what mine said and sure enough mine was different. Not 10 seconds after starting the output test my left motor dropped and an undeniably fried smell engulfed the room. The motor was burning hot. After cooling the motor I tried connecting it directly to the power supply but no bingo.... One new skill I have learned this weekend is to rebuild motors at 2am. So after rebuilding the motor I put everything back together. No bingo, motors went bananas. Motomonster went pop at the same time as the motor so I replaced both for good measure and bingo! We have motion! Albeit quite violent.

So it's been a thrilling few weeks. I've been busy playing around with settings and profiles and just generally trying to understand how everything ties together. I do have a question to whomever might be able to answer,. How do I set up surge so that I get a snappy gear change but still get a good range in braking/accelerating? Currently I am only using surge and sway with no plans for pitch and roll. Both axis are sitting at %50 in axis assignment. Would I reduce the total range in the profile editor? Currently I like the total range of surge but the gear changes have a long throw which just doesn't feel right at all. This is only a problem for iRacing as shown in the video below



(sorry about video quality, the camera was in the back corner of the room and decided to focus on the turbo . Also an annoying hum can be heard in the mic)

I've got a decent profile sorted for assetto corsa but as of late I have moved over to iRacing and I think it might be a permanent move. As much as I love Assetto corsa and Project Cars they just don't have the multiplayer activity as iRacing. By far the best part about iRacing is the first corner in a race! In Assetto corsa and Project Cars it ends up being whoever survives first turn carnage wins.

My first ever race in iRacing I had qualified 5th and formed up on the grid, as usual I was skeptical about first turn being that the race was full of rookies such as myself. But to my amazement not a single god dam crash! It was so intense driving bumper to bumper that I simply crave the adrenaline now. The players are generally more careful in their driving and have far better attitude to others on the track.

On the graphics side of things yes iRacing is well dated but not by much really. I mean it's great that the newer racers have excellent interiors but considering that I use a view from the drivers perspective its a wasted effort

On triple screens: OMG! the immersion is awesome!!! I can shut the roller blinds in my room and make it pitch black which furthers that sensation of being in the car, add motion and its like a wet dream. I picked up some cheap and nasty 19" screens for a grand total of $50 just to try out and I don't regret a thing. Having different size screens makes the center screen a bit out of wack but with a bit of tinkering it's almost un-noticeable whilst racing.

I've still got plenty to do on the sim like adding traction loss, making up a mount for the triple screens, adding my H-pattern gear shift, adding my sequential shifter, adding the clutch to the pedal setup, and general tidying up of the sim cables and aesthetics.

I'd like to say a big thank you to the xsimulator community and for all those who have helped me get here. An even bigger thank you to the devs of simtools, smc3 and all who participate in their hard work writing and updating the game plugins. Cheers!

@Alexey
if its surge, untick the box above it and use 2 numbers, smaller number for kick in gears, larger number for braking. You will have it tune it a bit till you find a number(s) you like.

Go back into game, test, rinse , repeat.

Ended up removing the bezels on the screens. Major difference in immersion as you don't have a massive black bar over the windscreen. I think I'm going to source another 19 inch monitor for now as the resolution difference with the center screen gets annoying from time to time (top of screen out of alignment with image, bottom side is fine and I can look through the corners of a turn fine). I have one more trick with the bezels. Just gotta source some reflective tape . Eventually I'll aim for tripple 24".

Just out of curiosity I purchased some chap ass projectors, if anyone else was thinking of doing the same I will strongly advise not to. I had a strong suspicion that the resolution would be on par to a potato and I was correct.
480 x 360 is like watching your tv through a screen door. It wouldn't be so bad if the pixel separation wasn't so wide but hey it only cost me $50 to try.

There was an upside to the story though.


I havent been able to play this for a while as new TV's aren't able to tune in to them for some reason.

I know what you mean. I have seen people trying to use cheap projectors before....like you said @Alexey , not worth it. I had even seen some advertised as HD for around $150 and know of somebody who got one...not even close to any respectable resolution. I am using a home theater projector to watch movies myself but I had to spend a little more than a few hundred bucks. Unfortunately, I don't think there are "cheap" projectors worth playing around with. You will most likely be disappointed with what most of them can do in regards to picture quality.
As for the game, it's awesome!!! I still have it for a Super Nintendo Emulator on the PC...must crank it up again one of these days...hehe.

Copied from an other thread:
"I use projectors at 1280x720@120Hz respectively 3840*720@120Hz. Do not wonder my Qumis are not certified by nVidia so I use a edid "hack" and some other tricks to get them working.
3840*720@120Hz is supported at a maximum by nVidia 3DVision. The picture quality is great, but not as sharp if you use displays but great immersion guaranteed. 800 x 480 is too low for sure, already 1024*768 shows visual deficits. Definitely I suggest you not to buy any projectors using such a low resolution (800x480)."