Showroom Newb's compact 2DOF build - Moving from a commercial unit to a DIY under seat mover

Hey, so are you back from vacation now and ready to start your build?

Or just sitting on the beach, drink in hand and reading the x-simulator forums while a good deal of us are probably freezing our butts off at home???

Just got back a couple of days ago. My parts are coming from PG Saw and ordered the small stuff from ebay and amazon. It"s a good thing i waited a bit as i was able to save money on the JRK G2 boards. It was 30% off for black Friday. Saved on shipping too as I found out that Pololu is only 20 min. away from where i live. Went there yesterday to pick up the 2 JRK's.
It seems though that there is a delay on the motor and u joint that i ordered. Its not the seller but the postal service is having issues. Once it all arrive it will be on like donkey kong!

Enough about me, how's the rig doing? Bet ur having a lot of fun on it!

I've gotta admit, I'm having too much fun with it...only getting better with learning the software and tweaking it to my liking.


With all of the sales between Black Friday & Cyber Monday, now I pretty much have every motion compatible game in my library.

I was surprised at how much fun some of the Need For Speed games are with their motion plugins, particularly NFS Rivals (gamepad) and NFS 2016 (wheel + pedals).

Didn't even think they were going to work, but they do!

I've also grabbed a few games which work well with the joystick plugin, which is great for titles without any telemetry output.


That's awesome about the BF deal from Pololu!

You had me all excited, as for some reason I thought that you were also in BC, and I'd go grab a couple of boards for a 2nd motion platform.

I see that they are located in Las Vegas, is that correct?

If so, then that's a lot more than 20 mins away for me, LOL!!!!


Oh yes, our dreaded Postal strike here in Canada is causing horrible delays.

Damn that sucks!!!!

Can you track it online?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but now they're saying that parcel deliveries may be delayed into the new year, with International deliveries possibly seeing delays until March 2019.

If yours made it out before this all went down, then perhaps you'll get them sooner than later.

Wishing you the best of luck with that!!!

With some proper planning, you may even be able to get started on some of the other aspects of your rig, and later just slide those parts in.

Cheers!

Yes, we are in Las Vegas NV. I tracked the shipment and its already out of customs here in the US. It just hasn't moved in 5 days. Hoping it didn't get lost and its just delayed from all the wild fires up in Northern CA.

Glad to hear that everything is working good on your rig and that your enjoying it. I really cant start building as everything is dependent on motor placement under the seat so i need to wait for the motors and u joint. I ordered the aluminum profiles that will hold everything together. I suppose i can start soldering wires on JRK's and build control box for now.

Finally received my parts from PGsaw. Postal service is slow this time of the year. Going to start my build and hopefully i dont mess anything up too badly.

Found this thread and I am so glad, I had been using the sabertooth with arduino which I thought worked pretty well and done some testing using a pololu motor driver with the same driver chip as the jrk and using SMC code with arduino which worked well but even without me in the seat the current would peak around 20 amps and the motor driver would shut down, but with these new jrk's and higher amps I decided to buy a couple, just the the 18v 19 but WOW the difference is chalk and cheese with the precise movement, clarity and definition with fine movement, eg: going off track these things are brilliant, just love them and recommend them to anyone is considering them

Hello,

I'm glad that you found something useful here to use for your own simulator build.
I agree, the Pololu 18v19 JRK's are a fantastic all in one solution for 12v motors.
Luckily I was able to to do a simple exchange for them after I had initially mistakenly ordered the older Pololu 12v12's.

After a fair amount of research here when I first began planning my build & ordering parts, it became quite obvious to me that JRK's were a far simpler solution than an Arduino + motor driver (MM, Sabertooth, etc.).
Upon reading some of the issues people were having trying to get their Arduino setups to work properly, I felt that as a newb I was already taking on a big enough task just in building a DIY motion platform itself, let alone using a more complex Arduino solution for the brains of it.

Enjoy your ride!!!

I also went with the JRK G2’s thanks to Kranky’s build log and parts list. I think I would’ve struggled if I went another route.

Nice project, @Kranky Pantz! Even though my project is very different from all the motion rigs you guys are building, I get a lot of useful info from here. I have one question -could you give me a link to the exact LED power supply you are using? Thanks in advance!

Hey, glad you dropped by to have a look.
I'm still having a blast with it, and enjoying it even more now that I've built a far more powerful PC in order to run all of my sims far better in VR.

I'm using two LETOUR S-500-12 power supplies. (500watts 40amp 12volt)
$50 CAD each after applying the coupon code.
For some strange reason x-simulator won't allow me to post a link to them, but just do an Amazon search for that model.

I went with one for each motor, but I'm sure that I could have gotten away with using just a single one for both motors.
I've never had them overheat even during several 6hrs+ marathon sessions.
The way I have them setup on my system has their exhaust fans blowing out towards my feet, so as an added bonus they help keep them cool during the Summer months.


Good luck with your build!!!

Here's a pic of what I mean by having the power supplies mounted beneath the rig, with the fans blowing outwards in the forward direction of the pedals & my feet.



There are two benefits to doing this.

It does indeed keep my feet cool, plus more importantly I would be aware if there were any overheating or fan issues, especially when in VR as for the most part I'm blind to my surroundings.

Thanks for the reply! I went to the local electronics shop yesterday and bought some cheap 12V 29A LED power supply (that makes it around 350W). I was hoping it will be enough but seems that either its bad quality and it can't supply the current specified or something else is wrong.. I connected everything and I keep getting Motor Driver and No Power errors in JRK Config utility while the motor is stopping or changing direction quickly. Also, when that happens the voltage of power supply drops to almost zero.. I have a server PSU lying around, so will need to try that I guess.. Btw, if I check current in JRK config utility's graph, it never goes higher than 18-20A.. I am attaching the photos of power supply I got.

Are you only using a single power supply for both JRK's???

If so, then there's a pretty good chance that's your issue right there.

29A & 350w seems a bit low for what's required of a seat mover, but I could be wrong.


As stated earlier, I probably went overboard with the power supplies which I've chosen, but (knock on wood) the dual 12v/40A/500watt system hasn't failed me yet, nor does it seem to even break a sweat with prolonged gaming sessions.

Better safe than sorry, and I feel more comfortable with each motor + JRK having it's own power supply to draw from, especially when each JRK/Motor is doing a different motion at any given moment.


I only see a single pair of JRK power connectors (+/-) to that power supply though, so are you only testing with one JRK and still experiencing those issues???

I think that when a motion platform is requested to change direction quickly and in a hard manner (especially under load), that it creates a brief voltage/amperage spike and current draw.

From what I recall it could be up to around 30A's or so.

I'm not sure how that also affects your voltage dropping to zero, but it may be some form of built-in protection or just what happens when the requested amperage needs cannot be met by the power supply.



I hope that you figure it out, and a higher rated power supply(s) may be your easiest and simplest answer.

Since you have a pair of them on hand, perhaps try one per JRK/Motor and see if that helps.

Good luck!

I only have one motor and one JRK currently and I was the motor without any load appart from the pot.. I was thinking, maybe 12v 29A is cobined output of 3 ports in the power supply? Maybe one output pair can only deliver part of that. Do you think its possible?

I had the same problem with meanwell PSU and JRK G2's. I contacted Pololu and was told to add either 12v batteries or shunt regulator in between PSU and JRK's. I purchased shunt regulators at pololu and solved my problems. I didnt want to go batteries because it looks messy and i wanted to keep it compact. Shunt regulators are pretty cheap too. IIRC it was <$10.00 USD a piece.

Hey, how's it going?
Your rig is looking insanely awesome, love the new seat + fans!!!
Are you enjoying it a lot, tweaking & tuning your games to your liking?

I've built a new PC, and it's made my rig + VR an absolute dream now.
I can't believe the difference in simply going from a 3rd gen i7-3770 to a 9th gen i7-9700k has made, even with the same GTX 1080 GPU.
It's a night & day for the frame-rates in racing sims, plus I can now add more cars to the grid for the races!!!!

I wonder if going with the slightly beefy power supplies that I chose helped me to dodge this issue of power/amperage starvation/shutdown when quicker movement changes demand it?
If so, then that might be something worth looking into for people who are considering which ones to buy for their rig.
One 12v/40A/500w per motor has been serving me well.
If I ever decide to add a third degree of traction loss, then without a doubt I'll use another power supply for that motor as well.

Take care folks, Cheers!

Hey Kranky,
Awesome! Congrats on your new PC. The extra cores does help.

I'm enjoying the rig a lot. I finally got the settings to where I like. I added 4 point seat harness and springs for tension. It adds to the immersion when turning and braking.

I have the same PSU as you as far as rating wise. According to Pololu, mean well switching PSU's have a built in over load protection for regenerative power coming back from the motors does shutting it down. That's where the 12v batteries and/ or shunt regulator comes in.

Man, I bought a used 3" 5-point harness prior to building my motion simulator, but in the end just figured it'd be more of a hassle to use than it would be worth.

Perhaps I'll re-visit that option and give it a try.

It'd definitely add to the immersion, if not just the overall look of the rig as well.

I wish I'd gone for a 2" version instead though, as the bulky 3" one seem more suited for something like a drag racer...or a tank!

I thought the same before installing mines. At first it just looks like something that makes the rig looks good and doesn't serve a purpose. I had the plan of returning it if it sucked but it does actually help you feel the side to side movement better and braking because of the springs. I can feel it tug on my shoulders and waist when the rig moves.

My only concern is that when I sit down for a gaming session it's usually for up to 8hrs or so.
Time flies when you're having fun!

That's a lot of getting in & out of the seat when you factor in getting up to stretch a bit, grabbing a snack or beverage, pee breaks, etc.


Since mine has those stupid roll-bar wrap around straps for the two shoulder straps rather than clips I'll need to make a bracket or something.

The two side ones have proper clips for attaching to the rig, and I'll just skip using the 5th one which is down by the crotch area (for obvious reasons, LOL!!! )


Hmmmm....this might be my project for today in between reloading game plugins on the new PC.

Cheers!