F1 Motion Simulator // 5th monitor

After about a month of other projects, i've started with my simulator again.

I have build a small test setup to get a the settings right


This worked great, after that i rebuild al the electronics on the simulator. Everything worked but I am not really satisfied with the result. The motors will get really hot when the load is high, and cooling doesn't seem to do the trick. We've also noticed that the acceleration isn't that great.

After changing some settings and some more testing was decided that some stronger motors are needed. BUT... I dont like these smaller, incremental changes. Later pneumatic cylinders crossed my mind. Those react a lot faster so the movement will be more realistic. And on top of that I can get a bigger stroke, what means more movement. I've done some reseach on the forum and found out that a large number of the members doesn't recommend pneumatic cylinders, but I want to test it anyway. It is my hobby to build and engineer stuff haha.

That was quite a story, now I am left with one question:


This photo, from the SMC3 tutorial, show that each motordriver recieves one PWM signal, enable left rotation and enable right rotation. I've checked that with my drivers (that was the reason why they didn't work the first time). And there the pwm signal goes to both enable left en right. And the enable left goes to pwm left, and enable right goes to pwm right. In my opinion it doesn't add up. Can someone please verify where this goed wrong.

Thanks!

Which motor drivers are you using ?

Are the motors 12v or 24v how many amps ?

Do the motors move correctly in the smc3 test program ? You may need to do some pid tuning

Change of plans, thanks to @speedy 's posts I started interesting myself in AC motors with VFD. Had some stuff laying around so I thougt, why not give it a shot.

First I etched the PCD. After finding some faults I measured all copper trails en solderd any mistakes lose contacts:


Then I build a test setup and it seemd to work. I didn't had any shielded cable available for the motor and the VFD so I noticed a few malfunctions. But that should be solved with a shielded CY - cable.

A ''little'' bit more serious than a whipermotor:



Sadly I am facing a new problem.. the analog voltage 0-10, created by the pcb, that is used to set te frequency of the vfd, is inverted.

That means: when the potentiometer gets close to te centerline the motor speeds up. And when the green potentiometer line gets away from the blue centerline, the motor speeds down. So it is the wrong way around.

Does anyone have some knowledge of speedys pcd? And can you help me with that?

Because you don't like the technical questions and only like the fany pictures, i'll skip the questions:

First complete build



The control box



Mechanic part and electronics done







Next step - Software

What technical questions? Unfortunately, I don't think @speedy visits here anymore? Matching motors to a sim design is not always a straight forward exercise.. Depending on the requirement - Big is not always better.

The motors look really big, but they are only 240Watt.

A quick question, I'll upload photos later this week..

I have an issue with my motor settings. When the motor turn to the target, the motor travels past the target and then back. Past the target and back. Past the target and back. This goes on for a while and it eventually flattens out. The motion goes fast, and the computer recognizes the motion. The but somehow it reacts late and doesn't brake on time. I've played with the Kp, Ki and Kd values. Downsizing Kp seems to work but does not solve the problem. The other values make the problem worse. Can anyone help me with the settings to extract this problem?

Thankyou very much, tomorrow I'll look into it!

Being AC motors, I'm guessing most of your issues will be with the settings of your VFD. Having used SMC3 on a variety of DC motors over the years - never had to do too much with the PID for stable tracking.

Sorry I forgot to post an update. With a lot of lot tuning i managed to decrease the back forward part. But it 's not completely gone. Overall it works well.. but it results in some weird movements (shocks) while playing.

The VFD is set to maximum speed. It takes 10 milisecond to increase or decrease the frequency to the max or min. Which is I think fast enough..

Does anyone have a wild thoughts with some things I can try?

Update!

I added a gas strut to lock out any laterhal movement in the CV joint. It works great so that is a tip to other builders.



After that I build a monitor support:






Just ordered two extra gas struts. They will be used to damp the motor movement. I hope this prevents the overshoot and siplifies the PID settings. (don't mind the mess (; )



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I've got CMPS working, so the rpm leds (simhub) runs while simtools runs. Now it's just tuning the PID and waiting until @yobuddy adds gamevibe to the F1 2017 plugin so I can get on with the bass shakers hahah

Yes! A friend of mine changed the arduino code. Used a mapping to invert the signal.

Hmm I can try that, i'll update later!

Thanks you

Better pots made the tuning a lot easier. The movements are still hard to tune, but i think it is possible.


Ofcourse i have printed some new brackets, this thime i've used flex couplers to fix the pots to the motor axis.




And I've added two transducers








The power supply is probably too small, but a capacitor or battery will absorb the power demand.


Next steps --->

- Driving wind simulation
- Setting up the software for the transducers
- Again, tuning the PID
- Add some nice features like led's, buttons, dispalys, etc.

Update!

All my friend have short legs and long backs ;p so I've build something to move the pedals:



And I printed/glued/sanded/ a new steering wheel, cause the logitech one is a bit boring haha






That will be it for today! I'll be working more on the simulator lately so more updates will follow

Have you checked the settings on the vfd to see if it is a coast to stop mode? There could be a way so it actively breaks the motor in its settings. The could be why it's over driving the stops

Thanks for your input!

I've messed with almost all the settings on te VFD. It seemed to help to increase the braketime but eventually I set it back to 0.0 because it didn't solve the problems. (to much increasement did, as you said, move it way past the stop).

Another update!

Speaker brackets: