Question Noob Researching VR flight sim build

Checking in: things are going relatively smoothly for the build. I should be finishing up the frame this week. Hoping my motor mounts come in today so I can get started on the powertrain and electrical.

However, I could use some input... so far I have received one quote to cut my CTC levers for $300. I didn't know how much to expect these to cost, but I was hoping closer to $100. I've already designed them with CAD and had a friend do a test 3d print (they didn't quite fit). I'm VERY concerned I drop $300 and they don't fit. That would be a nightmare.

So how much are you guys paying for your levers?

Checking in again. I'm attempting to get everything wired up and I think I have it correct, but I've hit a snag.

I'm using 2x 24v PSU's, going into IBT2 24v drivers. Arduino Uno v3. I'm using attached wiring guide someone else posted somewhere (thank you!) as it is the same equipment. Everything is connected (correctly afaict), including pots.

So when I power up the PSU's without the Ard plugged in, I get no response from motors as expected. When I plug in the USB, Right motor does nothing as expected. However, Left motor does one of 3 things when I plug in the USB (no software running on the pc): it either

1. Rotates continuously at about 50 rpm
2. It rotates at roughly the same speed but changes direction rapidly... it just "vibrates" back and forth.
3. It makes a clicking sound internally with no shaft movement.

Everytime I plug and unplug the psu and/or USB/ard, it does one of those three things.

I suspect I have a loose or incorrect connection but I have to say that working with these little m pins on the ard and f pins on the driver board is a royal pain. I'm crimping the connections onto a solid core 22awg wire and the connectors keep coming out. It doesn't help that the wire is stiff, but the space is cramped and I put some heat shrink wrap around the crimps to keep them from touching each other so there isn't much room at all. I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff but I can usually figure these things out if someone could point me to a better, more secure method of making these connections.

So... best way to connect these things to the boards? And why might my motor be behaving this way?

Hi, you can check next things:

• Be sure the motor 2 wiring is correct.
• Also be sure the SMC motor 2 configuration is the same as the motor 1 (you can share/send the motor 1 conf to motor 2 with an M1->M2 button).
• These cheap IBT-2 boards are a little bit sensitive to some malfunctions due a bad connection/configuration so it is possible that M2 board is damaged. For the price I bought up to five IBT-2 boards and finally i finished with only two of them (the others burned). If is not a problem you can buy another one and check if it works properly.
• Check if that behaivor stills when you start the Simtools/FlyPT and launch the game.

I hope you find the problem very soon.

Josep.

Much appreciated Josh. I discovered that my pot pins going into the ard are loose. If I jiggled them around, I could actually get both motors to turn, jiggle, and or reverse direction. These connections are terrible and I definitely need to figure out a a better solution. Maybe the pins are too small? I'm using these pins (male for ard, female for IBT2....

PEBA Crimping Tool Connector Kit, 24 Types JST-XH/JST-SM 2.5mm/Dupont 2.54mm Connectors, Crimper Pliers, Wire Strippers | AWG30-20 Ratcheting Crimper for JST(XH/SM/PH/SYP),Dupont,Molex,AMP EI Series - Amazon.com

I always use Dupont wires and it works perfectly.

Thanks, I have some, but they're not long enough. The longest run is about 18" and a few of the wires have splices so I decided to get some strip board and solder some pins and my wires. I'm also going to redo all the wiring with stranded wire so I can make it look cleaner. In any case, this was a good test I think.

I learned a lot of new skills with this project and have even found my way into 3d printing and part design in cad, which I now see the incredible value of. This has been a very educational (albeit expensive) project. I'm looking forward to the payoff when I'm virtually airborne, but the journey has been good too.

Ok, I bought a uno shield and soldered it up. Now upon powering up, both motors are "twitching" back and forth when plugging the usb in. This is what I'm seeing in SMC3.

After about 3 months of working on this project, I just did my first flight (vr).... AMAZING. I laughed out loud. Lots of tweaking to do, but thanks everyone for all the help.

Congratulations on your success .
I have a couple of questions:
1. Could you show your settings in SMC3utils ?
2. What program do you use: Simtools or FlyPtMover ?
3. Could you please provide the dimensions of your motion sim according to the drawing I attached,
4. What tilt angles in the roll and pitch axis did you get?

You can see my current SMC3 settings in this thread, although it still a work in progress to some degree:
Bumpy Motion in SMC3 (xsimulator.net)

SimTools 3. I started with ST2 and found it to be a real pain having to restart msfs everytime I made a change. With ST3, you can just double click the stop button, make the change, and restart without even leaving the flight. Much faster and quite a bit more intuitive. Also having a separate profile for ground was critical as my landings were downright violent. Surprised I didn't break something.

Simcalc attached, but this was prebuild. I've made minor adjustments but this is still pretty accurate. As far actual angles, I'm not sure. I'm guessing around 12 degrees. One of my limiting factors if the distance from the motor to the floor is about 3 inches... if the lever goes too far, it hits the floor. This is one thing I kind of overlooked, but fortunately I still have enough room to get the movement I want. Roll is more than enough. Pitch is fine. I wouldn't mind having more, but I don't know if the rig could handle the stress overall (motors, pillar).

Thank you for your responses.
Can you tell what you used to attach the motors to the profiles ? ( red arrow in the picture)
What size profiles did you use to mount the motors ? 60x30 or 80x40 ?
Could you post a video of how the motion sim behaves when moving in the pitch axis ( both sides work equally ? )

The motor mount profile is 40x80. I printed a cradle for the motor and used 4" routing clamp from mcmaster carr... fits great... no motion at all.

Unfortunately I had an incident where the right motor rotated over the top somehow and broke off the edge of the pot gear so I'll be waiting for a replacement for a few weeks probably. I might be able to solder it back together but I'm also working on attaching a keyboard and trackball tray and working on cable routing, so I've got some time.

I re-designed the pot brackets and reprinted so there should be about 1mm clearance between the lever bolt and the gear now so it won't happen again.

I replaced the broken pot belt gear and ordered a couple more versions of the CTC levers with tighter tolerances. I keep having an issue with the lever "breaking" loose due to the key not fitting tight enough. Even if the bolt is still in there real tight, it can come loose as there isn't much friction between the bolt and the lever. So far so good with the tighter version. It's still got a small bit of play in it, but it's staying tight after one flight. The right-side lever is still staying tight so I won't mess with it.

I printed an electronics box that someone posted here somewhere. Looks much better.

I also installed a keyboard and trackball center mount that folds down for easy entry/exit.

I'm still having trouble with the motion not being smooth.... it feels "lumpy" and really breaks the immersion. This is the highest priority. Also, the seat is quite hard and not comfortable at all. I can get about an hour flight with it before it gets to be a real pain.

Did you manage to finish the project ?

I haven't touched it since last post. Higher priority stuff. Hoping to fire it up in a few days to see if I can smooth it out. It's a pain because I have to make an adjustment at my desk, get up and go see if it had any affect. However, now that I have a keyboard and trackball installed on the chair, I should be able to mod while seated so I can feel the change real time.

Still no dice for the smoothness. It improves if I lower PWMin and if I lower Kp, but just when it starts getting smooth, the motors don't seem to be getting enough power to put the seat where it needs to be. I guess I'll try messing around with Ki, Kd, Ks next. I was also wondering if it would help much to shorten my levers? I don't think it's a weight or balance issue as it's not smooth whether I'm sitting on it or not. The motors seem to have plenty of power as long as my Kp is above 200.

Could you show a video of what the lack of smoothness is with KP greater than 300. I in my motion sim extended the arms to 85mm and it works fine , power consumption is less than 10-11A per motor.

A video of smc3 or the actual lever motion? I don't think you'd be able to see the non-smooth motion, but you can definitely feel it.

It's hard to understand what the lack of fluidity is according to you, if it occurs regardless of the weight that the engines have to move then the cause should be sought elsewhere.
Show a screenshot of SMC3Utils with the motors powered on.
Below is a video of my motion sim, the quality is poor but somehow I can't get along with the OBS program support.

To connect the arduino I use a galvanic separator on usb ADUM 3160.
Below picture from motor 1 and motor 2