X-Plane 11 6DOF motion platform

Ok thanks a lot

my project also keep going. I have to admit that your previous pictures maded me back again in the project. I was near giving up.

I have a question (again) : are your 1605 screw ball reversible ? do your seat go down when you stop motors ?

thanks!

@dureiken
If you are asking whether they will 'unscrew' down on their own if you turn off the motors while sitting in the seat (like if you hit the panic button) then the answer is yes. They don't do it if you are not sitting in the seat. The two front actuators generally are the only ones to do this because they are carrying more weight than the other four. The small 'table' I built yesterday will stop it sinking all the way down to the bearings. There is some rubber under the bottom bar of the helicopter controls which will touch the table first.

Finally the big day arrived - my maiden flight. Still very cautious so I set SimTools Game Manager to 50%

Congratulations! So? Great feeling to get the job done, don't you think?
Gives me motivation to get mine ready too.

Awesome ! congrats

how does it feel like with VR ?

thanks

@mariano68 @dureiken
Thank you! It is difficult to accept that I have actually made this thing. At the end of the video you might just be able to catch me shaking my head in disbelief.

The feeling on the motion platform is like it was when you first put on your VR headset - OMG OMG - except that there is an added element of danger, if I can put it that way. There is an added sense that you can physically crash or to put it another way something is going to happen to your body if you do something wrong. For example, if you have flown the Cessna in XP and gone off the runway onto the grass it can get pretty bumpy. That movement is magnified 10x on the platform - and it feels like you are going to flip over. I will do a short video to demonstrate what I mean - it is genuinely scary.

I am getting the impression that I will have to create a profile for each aircraft once I have a base to work from - certainly between rotor and fixed wing anyway.

As @wannabeaflyer2 said in one of his own posts, I am "one happy constructor"

Awesome just started flying myself using xp 11 and i love helicopters and im now starting to think my 2 dof is not the best option for flight so upgrades might be on the cards lol

Great job !!

Congratulations @SixDegreesOfFlight its an awesome feeling to know that something you put in so much effort and hard work delivers the goods, and believe me from my past small experience it was all worth it .. u effectively have a motion simulator that would have cost 3 or more time that in money but that journey is what made it all the more satisfying ... you have done so much more than the initial concept and things will get better as you learn more about what you want out of the system and fine tune it to suit ....GREAT STUFF ---GREAT EXAMPLE ,, GREAT WORKMANSHIP...... You guys on this forum rock big time ... brilliant Video with informative presentation ..I / we salute you sir
l

@SixDegreesOfFlight just a question about your actuators : how do limit switch interact with command ? it cuts all the power ?

thanks

@wannabeaflyer2
Thank you so much for your accolade. You yourself should be proud that you have spawned this machine from your own design and brilliant drawings. You sir are a legend

@dureiken
I have posted the schematic for the panic/limit circuit towards the beginning of this build thread. I can tell you it works perfectly The 'start' button you see in the video is a 'self latching' relay which is basically a normal car horn relay that keeps itself powered up - that is the relay contacts provide power to it's own coil. In series with that circuit are all the limit switches and the panic button. If any of them are pressed the power is removed from the self latching relay coil and the relay drops out. This removes the power to all the relays whose contacts form a switch between the sabertooth and the negative lead of the motor. So all power is cut to all motors. The power supplies, batteries and sabertooths are still running at this point. To restore operation, I have to hand wind whichever motor has hit the limit switch to move it away from the limit switch lever. I can then press the 'start' button again. I hope I have explained it clearly

Hi Mate, Awesome work on your maiden flight , must be extremely satisfying, really well done... I'm looking forward to mine very soon.

@John458
Thank you! All the best with your build. I will help if you need it

A hardware walk-through of the completed platform
Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Dear @SixDegreesOfFlight ,
tremendous job. Thanks very much for sharing! Thinking about building something similar like you did (I will not be able to put it in such a perfection as you did, though), I would like to aks you this question:
Flying helis in real life, I got sort of motion sick with the Vive in X-plane the moment the heli moved (FPS and so on optimized). Did you have the same experience and did the 6DOF Simulator help with it?

Motion sickness is all about the inner ear not experiencing the motion expected by what is being seen with the eyes. From my experience, any well synchronised motion will help with motion sickness.

@Average Joe
Getting motion sickness is a real show stopper. It would be very frustrating to put a lot of time, effort and money into a simulator only to find that it gives you motion sickness with VR. I haven't had motion sickness while flying in VR before I built the platform but I did get it with the roller coaster and Assetto Corsa. I am keen to try those games now that the platform is built and see if it is resolved. As @SeatTime has said many times if the platform is responsive and properly 'tuned' then it should help with motion sickness rather than contribute to it.

Did you mix something up? At the end of part 2 and part 3 it saids "now watch (part 3) electrical" but part 3 is the description of the top platform

Ha! Well spotted. I was trying to keep the presentations as short as I could and to keep things simple I copied the media from the video before. That's the cost of trying to cut corners

I hope to upload the electrical one in a few hours.

Thanks @SeatTime and @SixDegreesOfFlight . This is exactly what I am hoping for: building a 6DOF to get rid of the weird dissociation between what I see and what my body expects to feel .
I'm looking very much forward to your "experiments" with the roller coaster

In my attempt to share what I have learnt while building the motion platform here is part 4 of a walk-through focusing on the electronics and electrical systems.

Your videos must be added to the 6dof FAQ!