OK please don't laugh, but I had been looking at some of the simulators online ,particuly the full degree of movement sims ,the ones that appear to be very expensive like the F1 simulators and others. So after getting some inspiration from the Ab doer/Abswing the exercise thingy you swing side to side on a seat with rollers my obsessive compulsive kicked in and I had to design one that I thought could be cheap and didn't use expensive electronics ,I was wrong. So after a couple of weeks of design I came up with this . I still need to understand I bit more such as the actuators ,electronics and software needed or any advice on how to improve what I have, i did look at some electric actuators for $130 but not sure if they would be suitable ? The interesting thing about this design is that all movement rotates around the center of the wheel and would give you a more connected feeling . At the moment its a bit over engineered and I recon I can reduce it a bit.
Very interesting. I take it you haven't made a CAD model and done stress analysis on it yet? What calculations have you done? I figure those things I see at the bottom of each image are motors. Looks like you'll need rather powerful motors for that
The motor on the bottom wouldn't need to be very powerful pretty much what you would find on a cement mixer only it would have to be able to handle reversing the polarity ,with a 30 mm cog on the motor and say a 300mm cog fixed to the bottom base will move this easily infact I would probly have to gear it up. I think with a single outrigger in the center would be sufficient and could probly cut those rings down a bitto the extent of the outrigger wheels. As far as forces you will notice that the cockpit balance are reasonably close as far as screens and driver ,Pretty much like a seesaw maybe the driver might be about 20kg there abouts heavier than the screens ,meening the actuator is only dealing with small weight ,you could even add some weight behind the screens to balance it to zero force. As far as side movement the center of balance is similar but I'm not sure if the wheels alone would hold the top weght hence the outrigger
@Gabriel ,ive seen a few of the tripod setups and it seems to me the actuators would be very expensive and custom built ,also I recon the software would be very complex ,I was hoping to use off the shelve parts and simple programing to try and achieve the same' Here's a similar one, even though they look impressive i'm not sure if 3 actuators can deliver all the movement faithfully without getting lost in space somewhere but once again expensive software might do it and custom built expensive actuators . Also these sims use a similar working area and looks like the same concept with the base on your vid
My mechanical knowledge is fairly limited but I'm gonna ask anyway... Even if the center of mass is the same as the center of rotation, don't you still have to consider a fairly hefty moment of inertia? I don't know what your chassis is made of, but most of the material seems to be on the outside so I can imagine quickly changing directions could be a problem. But there mostly seems to just be a discrepancy of what each of us considers "powerful"... And there is also the fact that I didn't take any mech-e courses besides statics at uni. Might I ask how you get in and out? Just through the gaps in the cage?
LOL I was waiting for that question, and if I used I use a single out rigger raised to the center ,i would curve the center piece in the middle upwards or if the forces on the outrigger aren't that much remove it all together ,the splay on the outer screens is too narrow also the drawing doesn't show the true dimensions of that side screen so there is a bit more room, also there is an upright bar holding the table i would angle that back to give leg room. EDIT. The cockpit would be 25mm aluminium which is quite rigid enough to handle the forces ,idealy i would like it all to be alloy. CAD is that a pencil or stationary brand ?
Oooh, interesting. Yeah, I was wondering because it would be unfortunate if you had a nice, fully functioning setup that you couldn't get into Yeah, aluminum is pretty sturdy, very easy to work with too. CAD? I think that's a type of sandwich is it not? Can't think on an empty stomach!
Heres a top view ,but lol will probly be more confusing But it shows measurement for the outrigger in the center
HEHE geez that's not complicated,it say 6 DOF but doesnt have yaw yet well maybe some but no donuts ,literally,but i notice neumatic actuators would these be better than electric?
(from what I've been told,) pneumatic and hydraulic is too slow to cope with all the movements required to keep up with the forces being used. When the output of the motion system is too slow in response, people tend to get sick very quickly. It's also, supposedly, more maintenance intensive. yaw is definately in there but you are limited to the travel of the small actuators used. As far as this stuff goes, you get what you pay for mostly... And what you get when you have a lof of money is the desdemona sim for example About the title, full g force, I'd be impressed if you managed to pull 1 g
lol i think the key word here is simulate and the only way to do that is trick the brain ,in my design i think there enough movement to simulate exceleration and brake closely enough and corner g's as these are gradual forces and yes probly not many G's its just the colissions that would be slow but hey who wants to crash
That is one of the points which is hard to do, corner g's, even the state of the art F1 sims can't do those justice. What is needed to do that properly is a constant force, and that simply is not possible to generate from a stationary position. Mercedes or Toyota have tried to counter this by filling up and entire freaking hangar with rails, for a 6dof sim to move on, but still, they are limited to the size of the hangar Think of the 130r at Suzuka as an example, I don't know how many g's the F1 guys pull through there but that would be quite hard to pull off in a sim through motion. Steering wheel is no problem however, but it would great to have the same effect in motion! G's hardly only apply to collisions, hitting the throttle, shifting, braking, everything influences that. I drove a rig once which was setup too slow, and just the steering feedback through motion alone felt like I was driving a boat and almost made me projectile vomit all over the workshop... Instead of actuators, you could try and source car wiper motors, believe it or not, rigs were made with those edit: More info for you here: http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/portal.php edit2: getting your design in cad software seems a very good idea as it'll probably shows you where problems are with your design or you find stuff you didn't think of yet.
But don't you think the side ways tilt (gradual tilt) is enough to trick the mind into side ways G's when turning a corner and the base would simulate sideways slip
To some extent, for sure, that is how all these things operate. But I don't see it built that easily the way you drew it, might cause more problems than solutions the way this is designed. I for example don't know if the motors are strong enough to move everything properly and bring it to a stop as well before the moving parts run out of travel. All in all, you've kind of drew the desdemona, only the difference is a couple of million dollars. One actuator in there is probably already 10k There is a reason the 6dof setup is so popular, because it is quite 'cheap/easy' to get movement going, since there are 2 actuators on every axis, one always pushing and one always pulling, or vice versa. This makes for a lot of different angles and a large motion envelope. What I don't see in your drawing (or just fail to notice), is vertical movement, and that is a very large contributor to motion, under acceleration or breaking for example, you want a real 'heave' like motion, fast for heavy breaking or acceleration, very cool also for turning into corners going downhill, 'falling' into the apex, on the throttle, and oversteering it out into the next turn or straight that comes up. Imagine the au rouge, feeling the drop in your stomach once you get at the lowest part of the turn and then go upwards*. *No sim does it really justice though.
lol ye the point of this was to be cheap but even now its about 3k to build but that's a lot cheaper than the couple mil for that, i found actuators for $130 and $90 for the speed controls but would this be enough for this,like i said off the shelf hardware stuff and would be as close to the expensive stuff . To simulate real G's you basicly have to throw them at the relative speed in the relative direction such as the astronaut G focre centrifuge ,this just isn't possible at home.
If you ask me, cheap and motion rig don't mix well I really encourage you to check out that forum as there is probably a lot of information on there. Also, 3000$ for a full motion rig isn't all that expensive. Cheap is very relative here. These guys charge comparable money, using flimsy looking actuators: Can't tell you if you're cheap actuators are strong enough, but something tells me that the saying you get what you pay for, applies in full. All in all, if you want to spend your money well, I'd go with something which has proven it is working, giving you experience with how these sims feel, how the motors and actuators work, and what you have to do to get it to feel right. This stuff isn't easy I imagine!
That does look sweet ,but i believe mine spins 360 or atleast is supposed to also i think the screens should move aswell to keep the eyes fixed . I think the actuators i looked at were a 160lb which would be plenty for this ,it wouldn't need to move more than 40 kg i recon, its just the response speed ,a second and half would be good open closed speed
