Request (Feature) Game Pause, Drop rig down to lowest Heave limit

Hi All,

I have a feature request, not sure if it is just me or if there are others who may have this problem too.

I have a 6dof Rotational Stewart Platform rig, using 600W 12V DC brushed motors, with 50:1 wormgear gearboxes, and Sabertooth 2x60 drivers, with Arduino SMC3 interfaces.

When paused in a game menu such as Assetto Corsa, the motors are holding up the entire rig in a stationary position, and the brushes in the motors get quite hot. I have made major modifications to the motors to add active cooling which helped a lot, however when stationary the brushes do get quite warm.

I have tried setting deadzones in the SMC3 software, and while this does solve the problem somewhat, the resolution of the movement is heavily affected and quite noticeable.

Long story short, here is my question:

Is there a way to implement that, when Simtools does not receive any telemetry, or receives telemetry which does not change (with hysteresis setting) for a certain time period (like 5 seconds maybe), for it to then level out the platform, and lower the heave all the way to the lower axis limits?

In a rotational 6dof rig, this should in most cases then require zero correction from the motors and thus allow for a "cooldown" of sorts.

Thanks for listeneing, and thanks for the awesome software!

Cheers

Just to add: It will also help to get in and out of a rig which is already tall to begin with .

Thanks

Lol ok I guess I'm alone in this one

Thanks for the reply, and thanks for the good coding which allows for this!
It would be quite nice, also because when i switch the power off to my rig while still sitting in it, it might fall to one side and let the motors go past their set limits, which then means i have to go back to the SMCutils for each controller and set the limits higher, enable the motors, then set my limits back again.

If it "parks" at the bottom, then this cannot happen which would allow me to disconnect the power before exiting.

Cheers!

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but how is changing the height of your rig going to change how the motors are driven? Unless they are sitting at the bottom stops of the actuator (which they are likely not) then they still will be supporting the weight of your rig. Also when SMC3 is not receiving data, it still has to control/drive the motors to ensure they do not move off station independent to Simtools. You could also add code to SMC3 driven simply by a switch interrupt in the cockpit to park the actuators at a chosen (in code) height.

Ok, so let me try and explain a bit better.
If the rig is in its center position, the cranks on the worm gearboxes are half way in their "stroke".
When you remove power to the rig, which includes the Sabertooth drivers, then there is nothing holding the cranks (and the rig) in their position anymore.
Because of the height of center position above the lowest position, the rig starts moving down and accelerates past the motor limit set in SMC3.
If the rig was way lower before powering off, chances are that this would not happen.

I could set the motor limits lower i guess, but this causes simtools to change the "scale" as well, and results in having way smaller numbers under the axis assignments.

Granted this only happens when I am seated in the rig, and lean over to hit the power switch, so this might be very specific to my case.

Maybe I'm doing this all wrong though... Perhaps I should remove the limits completely in SMC3, and only set the axis limits in Simtools? I'll try this...

Thanks for the suggestion on the custom code on SMC3, I didn't even think of this. I could let an interrupt ignore incoming data and move to a preset location instead. I might end up doing this, thanks!

This is the rig more or less:




This is the lowest position, motor limits are set to some distance past this though:



This is what happens when seated in the rig and power is disconnected (motors go way past set limits in SMC):



Thanks everyone

Yes I agree that's where the lowest should be, however there was a reason why I set it up like that. I can't remember what that reason was though! Top most position is 180 opposite of what the video's extreme lowest position is. Guess I'll relook at that soon.

I've in the meantime removed the motor limits in SMC3 completely and set axis limits of 75% in Simtools instead.
Same range of motion I had previously, still wondering why I didn't do it like this in the first place. (I have a bad memory)

Thanks again for your efforts