Racing 6DOF stewart platform

I weighed the 3 corners of the base

The two rear corners were approx 65 kg each
The front corner was approx 70kg

Without me in it all corners were closer to 35 kg

That is complete weight of the rig including the base, motors and arms

Total unloaded 105kg
Total loaded 200kg

Conclusions:
The rig is quite heavy and is of a strong industrial contruction
The motors have quite a bit of power
I am heavier than i thought !


On the plus side the rig seems well balanced

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I looked at the tuning and the rear motors were doing quite a lot of work in surge, sway and roll
I reduced the % and tested a powerful car on a fast circuit. The car had a lot of movement particually under braking and acceleration.

The motors did not really get hot with temps between 25c and 35c

Regardless I will implement a cooling solution to allow endurance racing

Your motors are 400 watts ea and you have commented that they are plenty powerful... I've sort of gathered that a reasonable plan is about 100 watts per motor... what do you think?

100 w will not be powerful enough

my motors are 400w but my gearbox is only 25:1 so they are working quite hard and after a while get hot

since last week I have upgraded to double motors so each arm has 800w

it does not make acceleration faster but each motor is now doing half the work and is cooler

It would be a big help for me if you could share the model / source ( / price)

they are made by Parvalux - used for many purposes often used for wheelchair and winches
around £300 each iirc

pick a wheelchair that has decent motors and buy them 2 at a time when they crop up

these look good value -- https://www.motioncontrolproducts.co.uk/products/8/167/dc-brushed-geared-motor-90zyt--mcp2---mcp4/

made some progress on the sim today - i now have 2 x 400w motors per dof

so each motor is effectively 800w

i have joined the end of the motors together where there was a brake flange and the original motor still is connected to the 25:1 gearbox

i found after extended testing the motors were getting hot and installed a powerful aquarium air pump that pumped air into the motors

now with the twin motors I am seeing about 35C

the original DC motor drivers are now driving 2 motors instead of one and do it with ease

Today we added a VR headset

I went for a FOVE VR headset -- https://www.getfove.com/

2560 X 1440 DISPLAY
42% more pixels than other PC VR HMDs

it has eye tracking so you can see where the driver it looking and it can also be used to interact with games by following your gaze etc

So far i have only tested it with RF2 but it is quite impressive - the screen area seems quite large and I like the way you can adjust your focus to look at the dash and then again out through the windscreen

So far I am very pleased with the Fove it seems to have good performance

video of the sim here







Yesterday I was lucky to have a real racing driver try out the sim

We were using a logitech wheel and he had some praise and some criticism

The turn rate of the wheel did not seem to match a real car
The brake pedal was not repsonding as a real car

However the motion on the sim did feel like a real car and he was able to use the feedback to adjust his driving.

He wanted to make changes to the car setup and see how the car felt

The track was RF2 brands hatch in a btcc ford focus he wanted to change the rear bump from 12 to 8

Immediately the car changed and he was able to push it harder and he felt the feedback enabled him to feel the limits of grip.

He felt it was the best simulator he had ever driven and attributed it to the movements being very fast and in sync with the real physics as they happened in real time

Some of the sims he had tried previously were damped and smoothed resulting in a different less precise feeling.

I was beaming from ear to ear that the sim was doing a proper job, and feeling very proud of what we have achieved.

I have a Thanos DD wheel on order and have built a set of hydraulic pedals to go with it so I am hoping the wheel and pedals will match the motion in terms of fidelity




Thank you xsimulator for all the help and support

hi bro, great build, i use 2x ibt-2 for one motor to give enough power, i ordered 1x 100a driver like you use, but i didnt found anywgere how to wire it could you help me how to wire it by diagram or some photo?

you can see the wiring diagram attached

basically 5v and gnd

a1 / a2 - direction for M1
b1 / b2 direction for M2

pwm motor1

pwm motor 2

thanks for help bro, but you have any photo for your connection? real photo? becuase i'm lost with wiring to arduino , sorry its my problem

how you wire it depends on which arduino sketch you are using

if you are using smc3 - the diagram will be on that thread

you may need to create you own build thread to get help

i have my own thread but no one answer so i message you, i use smc3 but i dont know how to wire the board to arduino exactly

The wiring diagram is on the first page of the smc3 thread

yes i know but its for ibt-2 and MM not 100a? sorry for annoying

hi Gadget999

Very nice build you have, and it is a good thread.

How did you make the rods?
they look like aluminium pipes, and then somehow you have mounted a nut in each end.
they look lite and durable.

Yes they are ally tubes with a thick wall thickness, the ends are drilled and tapped to take m18 rod ends and a locknut is fitted. There are stronger than they need to be. You could use a smaller diameter rod or kart track rod

Lay out your settings in simtools (interface and axis)

HI GADGET999
I SEE YOU HAVE USED THE AIR SPRINGS
WHAT STRONG AND LENGTH YOU HAVE USED?
HOW LONG IS ARM ON MOTOR?
BEST REGARDS
TADEK

The air springs are not in use any longer - they dampened the motion
the arm length is approx 125 mm with 3 holes in it

a more recent video is here