My 2DOF DIY sim.

I got a lot of work done this weekend. I decided to make brackets for the aluminum frame instead of welding, because it lets me modify and recycle the materials if I decide to change the sim later.

This weekend I have made all the hinges, milled mounting feet, milled aluminum brackets and angles, mounted the servos, and test assembled most of the parts. I will paint the MDF parts before I try a complete assembly. Assembilng and disassembling it is a lot of work.

Looking professional man.

Yes it does, but Barts...he is using wood.... :mug1:

Hey. Wood is almost carbon fiber... almost, sort of.

Nothing wrong with wood...is good....is well designed....is easy to work with and is strong.
I was having a dig at Barts..... ;P

Test-running the sim now, with me in it. It's plenty strong and fast. So much for specifications. The gear backlash is a bit of a problem though, and will have to be fixed later. It's really fast and throws me around pretty well at 13 V. The noise is not loud enough to be a problem with headphones. I the pitch control rod while jerking it back and forth in the Pololu software so I'll have to lathe some stronger rods, at least for the pitch, which has to move the most weight. I'm going to order a couple of 500W 15 V power supplies now that I've tested the servos and established that they will do the job.

I will have to add limit switches and an E-stop to this thing to avoid breaking stuff if the feedback circuit is broken. I prepared a cable for it inside and will wire it up when I get the parts I need.

Hopefully I can get the monitor stand and wheel support mounted tomorrow and try it out properly.

Looking forward to some action video of it

I'll shoot some video of it tomorrow if I get it up and running with the monitors. I have to work as well tomorrow.

groovy....... ;D

I just came up with a way of reducing the backlash without major surgery, I will use concentric bearing holders in the existing bearing holes, with slightly smaller ball bearings. That will let me adjush the gear mesh accurately. Ordering bearings now.

I take back what I said about the noise before. It's really noisy. I hope it won't be too much trouble while playing. I think it's the mod 1.0 spur that's making most of the noise. That gear could probably be made from plastic since it's such a low torque stage, which I think would kill the noise.

I tried driving in LFS with the sim running, and it works well, but I can't run at full power because I will bend the rods. It still throws me around pretty good when limited to 10 A. I'm going to get some thicker rods tomorrow. I'll also try to find some headphones. My speakers are downstairs on the desktop, while I'm testing upstairs, which doesn't exactly help to drown out the servo noise. :

Lots of work left, I'm going to enclose the rear part of the bottom frame with aluminum sheet. I just need to wait until I get all the componets I will install so that I know how big holes to route of the sheets.

If all else fails, I can always get a couple of these: http://www.motiondynamics.com.au/worm-d ... 0-rpm.html

As I am limited to 10 A I am achieving a max torque of 50-55 Nm now. 72 Nm should be enough for this rig. I'll try to modify the winch motors first though. I can mill plastic spur gears myself if I can find some delrin.

The motors you list are what I use, they may work, but you would need better leverage, They are good for a frex style and may work on yours, just calculate it up.
Also, the motors will realistically need 30+ amps each to run properly. I know because I run two of them and they drink power like no tomorrow.

In my opinion wood looks unprofessional + wood = horrible noise with screws but that depends alot on the way it goes together. Wood is also a living thing that changes with temperature by expanding etc etc it does also have a cocoony echo noise which is why I dont like it.
I dont mind when other people use wood, I can also appreciate a quality sim despite the wood, such as derity rig, I just wouldnt have it for my rig, I need pure rigid solid feel + I taught myself to weld by ARC. So I invest in 25 x 25 x 3 mm square tubing, 50 x 25 x 3 mm square tubing and also hoping for 100 x 100 x 4mm square tubing for my center main vert axis and a fast 100kg gas spring.
I really like the pro cnc work of this rig, it make the wood kind of ok to use + this rig looks very cool too.
The only bit of wood on my rig will be in the stickers. BSFT.

Cant wait for the Vid

I replaced the pitch rod with a thicker rod, and it works, but as I was playing just now the roll rod broke in two. Guess I'l have to replace that one as well.

Didn't have time to make new gears though. I made a short video of me riding it. Bear in mind I need a stronger counter balance spring on the pitch axis, and it hasn't been optimized at all yet. I'm just too excited to not play with it.

Have you uploaded it anywhere?

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11ZhAECb ... e=youtu.be

Tomorrow I'll experiment with PID setup. The roll axis needs to be optimized as it's quite jerky.

I like it very much, looks like a floating magic carpet ride.
I imagine the long + lateral force feels great from what I see, but is the roll and pitch limited to the strength of the long lat force. So you cannot move pitch and roll without moving long and lateral.

Yeah that is awesome. It looks soo smooth. Congradulations it seems to be a completely original design.

One thing I have to say tho, Why does everybody use ear plugs? I am plannign on mounting speakers to the back somewhere.. so I can hear the roar.

Yeah...looking good, real nice movement and a great design. It would make a good flight sim as well with those movements.
As for earphones - headphones, sometimes we have to keep the sound quiet....not everyone appreciates a LOUD sound system. :rofl: