Low cost 2DOF/3DOF/6DOF motion simulator - DOF REALITY

this is mine bro

pretty light, don't think you can find a lighter one. BUT, this one came without an "included adjustable slider" so it was a pain in the ass to fix on my seat. I emailed the company saying they didn't include the slider and they refunded me and said to buy from ebay...which came one week after and i had to pay like 30$ shipping...

so before you buy make sure the slider is included

While I agree with what you are saying in principal, if the rig is balance evenly then weight becomes slightly less of an issue.

When moving the the wheel or pedals 10mm to the left or right makes the difference between the rig moving and the rig struggling to move then I would suggest balance has a huge factor.

Maybe if you are using a logitech or thrustmaster setup then seat weight becomes the dominant factor, but on my rig with HPP pedals, ECCI wheel with multiple USB hubs and shifters etc, I'm actually using the seat weight to counterbalance all the other weight. A lighter seat would mean I would have to move my seat even further off the center line.

I would suggest having a reclining seat actually beneficial because you are able to fine tune the fore/aft weight balance by reclining or sitting more upright. Lets face it, it's the guy sat in the seat that is the biggest mass and positioning the person to balance the rig is paramount. Without me sat in the rig, the rig is so out of balance, the motors really struggle to drive the rig.

All up weight will come into play however if you are going with 3 degrees of freedom (traction loss). Unless DofReality have replaced the wardrobe door rollers that were used on my P3 rig, then it's those sort of things you need to worry about mre than seat weight.

Andy

Thanks, good points. I'm using Logitech and thrust master for the foreseeable future, so it's me and the seat providing most of the mass.

My goal is to set this up for others to test & demo, so adjustability is important. Sliders on the seat seem important, and reclining gives more options at the expense of weight.

Still haven't ordered a seat... GT Omega has some nice looking options, but the weight is maybe a little higher than average, 18kg

Bendrexl,

Having quite some time with the DoFReality rig, please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any issues. I've helped one or two people get their rig to work right after having quite a few problems with my own rig and learning the hard way.

If you are planning to have the rig used by lots of different people I would suggest you consider adding a slider mechanism to the pedals as well as the seat. That way you should be able to find a nice driving position while still being able to get the rig in balance.
Focus on getting the side to side balance right. Front to back balance is fairly easy to achieve (although a little weight forward will remove some of the play in the worm gears), however it was the side to side balance I struggled with the most. I had to offset my seat by perhaps 30 to 40 mm (cutting slots in the seat mounting rails allowed for adjustment). My wheel and pedals are not aligned which gives me a bit of an odd seating position but I'm sure if I had spent more time I could get seat, wheel and pedals better aligned but just gave up really once I had managed to get the positioning close enough for the rig to move correctly.

Anyway, good luck when the rig turns up and enjoy the build process

Andy

Hey
Your Platform looks amazing.
I'm totally new to motion sims but I d'like to build one myself as a project in school. I was wondering, if you could tell me, where you have your motors from, what specs they have and if you have ever experienced problems with backspinning of the motors?
Thank you very much for your help
Leroy

Hey XSimulator Community,

I have lurked for some time, and have finally decided to take the plunge and get a motion platform. I have my heart set on purchasing a DOF Reality kit, but have a question before making my final decision.
I am going back and forth on the type of model to get, H3 or P3. I know the site recommends P3 for commercial use, but in reading through this and other DOF Reality threads it seems that most enthusiasts purchase the P3 for personal use. I haven't yet been able to find detailed information on the motors in each model for comparison.

Since the price difference is significant ($700), I would love to have the community's input here. How much of an upgrade is the P3 over the H3? Am I looking at a marginal difference or (x) times the quality?

For extra background info, I expect to use the unit several times a week for a few hours at a time. I also plan to bring the unit to my meetup group events a few times a year (large meetups, Maker Faire).

I really admire the enthusiasm of the forum, and cannot wait to get my hands dirty with this stuff!

--Bruce

This is a great question. I just got delivery of my H3 (what I could afford). I can't wait to see how it performs, but I would also like to know how much of an improvement the P3 motors are.

you can email igor and ask him (the maker of dofreality) sales@dofreality.com

also, has anyone tried to play "the crew" with it..? sway doesn't work, surge does, pitch is very weird, and extra 1 (traction loss) moves EVEN WHEN I'M GOING STRAIGHT!

i even captured the min/max settings, didn't help... does anyone know why? is the plugin broken..?

I went ahead and emailed Igor, and he recommended that I get the P3 based on my planned usage, along with this info:
We recommend the P3 to the pilots with weight close or above 300 pounds. It is based on industrial motors that can work hours each day. The only difference [between H3 and P3] is in motors + gear boxes and power supply.
H models have good Chinese motors
P models have industrial Italian motors

That recommendation coupled with the fact that most enthusiasts here purchased a P3 put me over the edge - I ordered one! Hope to be here posting about my experiences soon.

Hi Fellas: I am new here. Just placed an order for the H3. I will be using it with P3DV4.2 for flight simulation. I fly primarily helicopters, so am very interested in anyone's experience setting the H3/P3 up for P3DV4.2 and/or helicopter simulation. I read a post where one gentleman made the point that the traction loss pivot point being forward of the seat caused the yaw sensation during flight simulation to be unrealistic. Anyone tried to set the platform up with the pivot point in the back of the seat? This would require redrilling/repositioning a couple brackets.

Anyway, looking forward to getting the H3 and getting started.

Regards,

Danny

ere

i honestly haven't been able to find or have a good experience with the p3 on flight sims. Driving sims however have been awesome. But this is just from my own experience

That is disappointing. What flight sim and if you don't mind what has not worked well?

Danny

Received my DOFReality H3 yesterday. Outer packaging looks good. Will start unpacking today and begin inventory and assembly. It took 8 days from the date of shipment to arrive in Washington State, USA. Not bad at all. I will post updates on assembly and startup progress.

Danny

Good luck!

Have patience guys.

It takes a while to get the rig to how you like it.
I struggled for quite some time but got there in the end.

And don't forget there is a helpful community out there.

I've just had to reformat my pc and I'm going through the setup process again. You spend hours tweaking to you get it how you like it, but now I've forgotten how to set the rig up again. It's like starting from scratch again.

Just another life challenge I guess.

Andy

I received mine over the christmas holidays and had it installed and moving in few hours. Software was no big issue either and I had great (and fast) support from Igor to solve the problem I had.
Of course then you need some time to set up the software parameters - but that is not related to the rig from my point of view. SimTools offers a lot of potential to tweak every movement for ever and ever. At some point I just stopped and I'm happy with the impressions I get for now.

Till today I'm still optimizing the rig regarding additional features: New controls, VR, platform for controller box, installing USB-Hub and cable management, add transducer, ... but this is also not rig-related and I love to "pimp my ride" ;-)

So have fun with your new rig and feel free to ask if you are stuck at some point.

Also - if you have not seen it yet - this is a good video to see the construction steps if at some point you are not sure about the steps described in the manual:

Nice. I set my H3 up over a weekend. Biggest challenge I had was figuring out exactly which bolts & washer combo to use for each location, since those were not illustrated in the assembly guide at all. Getting it plugged in and moving was very smooth, no problems. Setting up SimTools with all the proper presets is pretty rough the first time, but maybe I wasn't looking at the best instructions for general SimTools setup.

Right now, I'm working to tweak the u-joint location to best work with many different people. I'm not sure which of the crank arm holes is best for the 3rd motor either.

I have a fiberglass seat & bass shakers that I'll be installing this week also

I've been working on getting my Rift working with the platform, but I seem to be hitting the same problems as many others when it comes to motion cancellation. Mounting the camera on the rig works for only a few minutes before things get way out of sync, and the software solution via SteamVR's InputEmulator plugin is challenging, if not just broken (for the Rift).

What is your VR setup, and how is it working for you?

I use a VIVE with the standard setup (2 Lighthouses) and don't use any kind of motion cancellation. I never experienced any out-of-sync issues, motion sickness or strange head positions ingame so I never looked into this. From what I understood this is more a thing for rigs with bigger movements (like 6DOF). Do you have unwanted effects without motion cancellation?

Funny thing is that since I'm used to have VR and motion combined, I'm feeling a little motion sickness when I use VR without motion.