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

No. In your platform installed plastic wheels, and one spare from nylon. Pls change broken wheel, more nylon wheels we will send to you shortly.

Outstanding support.

Thank you.

Danny

How does one remove the wheels from the tractionloss section of the platform?

Danny

Its easy Danny,

Once you have the cross beam that the traction loss motor attaches to yo can just get a thi screwdriver or something and lever out the roller and the steel axle. Doing that did deform the plastic surround the roller fits in a little but didnt cause any issues for me.
Replace the roller and just press the roller and axle back into place.

It's good that DofReality provide a replacement roller but perhaps the rollers should be replaced from the start. I suggest anybody buying a new rig should relace the roller during assembly and just eliminate the problem from the start.

With my rig being a little older, I didn't have all of these spares but I guess the designers didn't know this problem was going to occur earlier in the design life. And I guess it seems to be only some of the rollers failing. A friend of mine bought his rig the same time as me and he rollers are still working fine.

Or maybe I'm just a fat bloke.

Andy

Thanks Andy. I am hoping I can change the wheels without completely disassembling the platform. I am thinking if I disconnect the tractionloss motor linkage, I can raise the cross beam enough to pry out the wheel/axle assemblies and press the new ones back in. We'll see.

I am sure the wheel issue is more a luck of the draw than anythingelse. I only weigh about 150 lbs and my wheels started throwing chips on the first use. But, to Igor's credit, he is sending me replacement nylon wheels. Can't get better support than that.

Danny

Trust me, if you know which end to hold a spanner, you will get the thing apart easily enough.
I lifted and supported the back of the moving platform and then just unbolted the 4 bolts that join the side brackets to the cross beam with the TL motor mounting. Sorry my description isn't great but if you have assembled the rig you undertand what Im saying.

I'm quite impressed with DofReality after sales service now. To be honest when my friend and I bought the rig from DofReality, the service left a little to be desired. Perhaps it was more my expectations.
DofReality seem to be more switched on to customer service now which is good.

Would be interesting to know how many rigs there are ou there now. I suspect it's low price has made the DofReality rig quite a good seller.

Andy

Hi Mike523, basically by "that arcade feel" I've shortened the min/max ranges in the tuning center to exaggerate the motions so you feel it more. The default Outrun 2006 profile that SimTools had used a larger range (+/-15 vs the 5 i'm using for roll, pitch and sway) which meant you basically didn't feel much motion during normal driving (except in crashes..). I'm still getting my feet wet, but this FAQ really explained the tuning center min/max values to me the best. The 2nd picture best describes what I have done.

https://www.xsimulator.net/community/faq/tuning-centre-and-axis-settings.240/

Unfortunately, after initially being excited by this product some of the reports in this thread (especially Andy Booth's experiences) have steered me away from the DOF Reality unit, as I am looking for as trouble-free a solution as I can find. Something as critical as traction loss rollers should be over-engineered and properly tested, not just plucked from a wardrobe parts list as these appear to be. My concern is that if corners have been cut on relatively low-cost items like these, where else have 'savings' been made? I'm really not prepared to take that risk. Sorry.

I think thats a fair comment Mascot however you do have to consider the other aspects as well

1. The Cost
This rig is considerably chealer than it's direct competitors, and for that price you get traction loss as well

2. The Dimensions
This rig really doesnt take up much roomspace. Its not tiny but because all the motors sit under the seat, the rig isnt much bigger than the seat dimensions (with your legs stuck out obviously)

3. The Fun
Part of what I actually enjoy with this rig is tinkering to make it better for me.

4. The Customer Service
While my experince wasn't the best at the beginning, in the end DofReality have provided a reasonable level of customer support and from reading more recent posts, lots of people do seem to be getting very good support from Igor and DofReality so I do have to say that in reality the customer support is pretty good. It's been almost a year with this rig and Igor still responds to me if I have a problem.

And to be honest, while I did have some issues up front, and the TL Roller design really is awful and should never have been there in the first place, I guess nearly a year on everything on the rig is pretty stable. Nothing has broken and nothing needs to be replaced or modified. Perhaps in the early days of my rig, with the thing being so far out of balance, perhaps too much stress was put into things.
I guess it all depends on what you are actually wanting. If you want something that you will really understand from a 'bolt up' perspective then the DofReality rig is great value for money. If however you want something that is 'plug n play' then perhaps one of the other more expensive rigs are a better option.

For the price I payed for the rig (and I think the DofReality rig cost has gone up since I purchased), I don't think I would have saved much over the cost of me designing and building a rig from scratch.

Buying the DofReality rig got me into motion at a very reasonable cost. I would love a DBox system or something else high end but I have a wife and kids and paying for international schooling and just coudn't afford such a high end 'toy' and living in a condo in Malaysia, I dont have access to tools, materials and a workshop to be able to build my own rig.

Mascot, do get some form of motion rig. I don't think my sim racing would be quite the same without motion. But as for make, hell there are loads of different designs out there to suit most pockets, whatever you buy you will enjoy the fun.

Andy

Anyone used SMC3 Utility to tune the motors in the DOFReality H3?

Danny

Yes Danny

Used it a lot when I forst set up my rig and then use it every time the motor loses its position (because the pot has come lose or something).

But my rig has got pretty stable now and I have not had to use SMC3 much.

Is there something you want to know?

Andy

Thanks Andy for the reply. I was just interested in how it worked with the DOFReality platform, and, to get some insight as to what adjustments others had made to the motor profiles. I have used it a bit since I posted the question, with really good results. I also contacted Igor at DOFReality to get the default setting for the motors. That way I could put them back to their original settings if need be. I have most of the jerky motion corrected and am really enjoying the platform.

Danny

Yeah Danny I messed about with all the motor settings (but without any help from Igor initially) when one ofthe motors went 'hard over' which I still don't really know why it happened but I think it was the potentiometer coupler not being tight.
Anyway I went through the range of adjustments to try get the thing to work again and eventually came up with settings that seemed to work properly. Eventually Igor did come back with a link to a YouTube video showing the settings. Tried those and they didnt seem to work for me and went back to the settings I came up with. I have not had to adjust much since.

What was good however was it made me learn what the SM3 software was showing me and the correlation between making adjustments and understanding what those adjustments were doing.

I didn't blow anything up while making the adjustments however some settings did cause a few funny noises from the motors

I use the SMC3 software a lot to adjust the rig for balance. The software allows me to see if the motor trace is following the simuation trace etc. Ive never been able to get a perfect correlaton between the blue and green lines, but generally, not a long way out.

Anyway, if you are intereted I can send you a screen shot of my settings although its probably pointless because you have the H3 and I have the P3 and I also think there have been quite a few modifications since I bought the rig.

Andy

Andy: I certainly appreciate the "didn't blow anything up" comment. Very funny.... I have gotten the platform to work pretty smoothly at this point. There is still a small amount of jerkyness when making very slight cyclic movements while hovering. I expect the jerkyness is from worm gear slack. Overall, I am very happy with the platform.

Thanks for offering a copy of your motor settings, but, I don't believe they would be useful for my H3.

Danny

Gentlemen - Watch your Welds



Anybody with a heavy set of brakes please take note.

Igor told me at the time of purchase the welds had been strengthened but it looks like its still not enough.

Maybe Logitech or Thrustmaster pedals may be ok but I suspect any Load cell pedals or high end hydraulic pedals are likely to be prone to a failure at some point in time.

I mean, it's OK, I can get the joint re-welded and strengthened but I think DofReality need to look again at their design.

For me, that's Traction Loss roller failure and now major weld failure.

Keep a look out guys, these things wont last forever

Andy

Unfortunately the first time was similar to defect, but now we will pay extra attention to the pedal node .

Unfortunately, you said that when we bought the rigs from you.

When I was buying the rig I saw reports of this fault earlier and I asked what DofReality were doing about it. I guess you were just bullshitting me when you assured me that you had changed your process, amended the design and improved your welding processes.

Perhaps just trying to shut me up and take my money huh?

I do hope you have improved things cos you are charging $1000 more than what I paid.

Ive spent the last six months singing DofReality praises and telling people to take the risk and go with the DofReality but I really have to take my recommendation back. Unless DofReality can clearly show that they are eliminating the problems people are having then I suggest, if you are looing for a reliable and long term rig then I would look elsewhere.

Andy

First we are sorry to see this happen.
This is the only second time in our over two years and hundreds platforms sold practice.
Was there any specific reason for it? did you put more weight compare to your original design ?

as we see that this profile was blended before crack:


Anyway, we always eager to help our customers and can ship you or other customers with same issue extra welded replacement parts and rollers, no mater when the purchase was made and even if the warranty already expired.

Obviously it was fine before the failure. The first photo clearly shows that.

Before I purchased the rig I told you guys what kit I was installing and at no point did you suggest it was too heavy and you told me at the time that part had been strengthened because of the earlier failure. There is no additional metal in the area of the fracture so other than possibly improving the quality of the weld which You may or may not have done, you do not appear to have made any modifications to the design as a result of the first failure that has occurred.
Im an engineer and part of my job is associated with failure analysis so I have some idea what Im talking about. That stress point should have additional metal around the two joints of the dog leg.

The deformation at the failure point I would suggest is down to stretching of the metal as the crack propagated along the weld. The other areas you highlighted are not dents mearly finger marks. Just look closely at the other photo to see nothing. It has not been damaged prior to the failure and I dont like your suggestion that I'm being unscrupulous.

I have generally provided +ve feedback to people who have asked about the Dofreality rig on this post citing good value for money and good customer service from Dofreality however I've had cheap crappy rollers fail and now I've had weld failures and the first thing you do is imply that I was doing something I shouldn't be doing. Of course there was metal deformation at the failure point. It clearly didn't fail instantly across the whole weld, but started to fail at the corners (the stress risers) and as the crack propagated, the remaining metal stretched because clearly that box section isn't strong enough.
Don't you dare suggest it was me.

Good customer service does not include instantly saying "it's not our fault, its your's"

Lets first have a look at your suggestion that there is other damange


The only damage you can see (other than the weld failure) is from manufacture and under the paint.

Now lets have a look at the weld failure



The highlighted areas are where the weld failed. The other darker areas are where the weld had failed some time ago (or not a full penetration weld at all). The deformed area as obviously where the metal has streched.

The wall thickness of that box section just isnt strong enough. The quality of the weld is poor and there is no strenghening.