Showroom No Weld, Mostly Aluminium, 2DOF Seat Mover

Hi All,

Welcome to my first official showroom thread.
I have been working on my rig for around 2 months now, but it has mainly been sourcing parts and redesigning things in my head.

Plan of action: (v2.0 as things have changed in the last month and might change again as time goes on)

Phase 1: Create mini prototype - COMPLETE!
2DOF Seat Mover.
- Lego
- Arduino
- Micro Servos x 2

- Goals:
1. Learn Simtools.
2. Understand 2DOF Seat mover physics

Phase 2: Full Size Seat mover.
- Server PSU's
- JRK's x2
- Windscreen Wiper Motors x2
- Riveted and bolted aluminium frame.
- Separate frame/stand for steering wheel pedals and gear lever

- Goals:
- Learn JRK's
- Learn about Geared electric drives
- Try to make the entire thing as modular as possible, as I know somethings gonna break and i don't want to hassle to replace it.
- Get the thing to work!

Challenges:
- I live in South Africa, so parts are hard to come by and or expensive.
- I have no idea the strength of the motors i am using hence i am going for the lowest weuight and a seat mover only design.
- No welding so there may be structural and strength issues that will crop up in a bit, but hooray for learning via expensive life lessons!

I created a pre-prep thread around a month or so but as i didn't have much to show that thread pretty much died. However thank you to @noorbeast for answering all my questions and for their advice.
Also like to give a shout out to @RacingMat, i am pretty much basing my design on your A to Z 2DOF design and forum. Also @Slider and @RacingMat for the power supply setup tutorials.
And to everyone else on this forum, its this site that inspired me to give this a go and hopefully i can pull it off successfully.

Progress 18/12/2017:

Dell Server Power-supplies 750 Watts each, got 2 for R550 each (Around $40 a piece), Should be able to manage with just one as they are rated for 62 Amps, but its nice to have a spare.



Modular power connectors for the power supplies: (They have since been heat shrunked and cleaned up.


Windscreen Motors attached to their test mounts, was waiting for bigger brackets to be in stock so I am using these small ones to setup everything and test my wiring is working, will move to bigger ones soon. As with these ones I cannot mount the second motor inverted.
Windscreen wipers are from a Mitsubishi 300 Series Light truck (AKA Bakkie in South Africa).
As stated previously, I have no idea the quality or power of them but they were cheap and new and the same so I took them.


Using an old PC Powersupply case to store all the electrical bits, idea borrowed from @RacingMat
I also made a little chip board plank to fit inside to bolt everything to.


Made some nice gold coloured heat-sinks out of an old mother board heat-sink that I salvaged.


And some custom see-through plastic risers for the JRK's


And finally started getting the wiring underway


Hope you guys will follow this thread, I have a crazy ambitious goal of having it up and running in 1 month So wish me luck, of stay and watch me potentially fail, but learn along the way!

Bonus: my Avatar is the prototype I made with Lego an Arduino and Mini-Servo's, works awesomely, unfortunately not big enough to ride on

Thanks @noorbeast I have looked at the ground Isolation tutorial before and performed it but got no buzzing on my multimeter,
However I was a bit confused with it as I don't know if the motor must be powered and turning when doing the test?

Before i just put one multimeter node on ground then checked the body points for buzzing with the other node, then repeated that for low speed and high speed.
No power was connected though.

Didn't get any buzzing so i assume I am okay?

Also in that tutorial, the wire you solder on the inside to ground, I assume that then must be connected to the ground/return wire to your power supply?

So I have made quite a bit of progress since my last post.
Still trying to figure out the JRK's and getting them working correctly. I am struggling in understanding how the feedback works.
The good news is that everything seems to be wired and is responding in the JRK config tool correctly.
Here is the base and chair frame laid out, just need to add reinforcement and set the height of the chair base correctly.

Finalized JRK Wiring



Heres my testbench setup, using just little metal strips to figure out the position of the JRK's

Update 05/01/2017

It works!


However there is still much to do...
I have run into a couple of issues, the main one being that the left motor seems to overheat very quickly which i am assuming means that its working harder than it should be and harder than the right motor.

Probably a balance issue that i'm trying to fix. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

At the moment i am working on LFS with heave, sway and surge, and so far the results are promising.

Next up is to build the front portion/racing wheel and pedal mount.

Then final cleanup and beautification.

But it works!

Hooray!

Thanks for the posiitve words @noorbeast, I have tried to balance the rig as much as possible following those tutorials you posted, but what worries me is that its only the one motor, I have even purposefully balanced more weight on the other motor to see if i can place less strain on the one that overheats and it still overheats quickly while the other one is barely getting warm.
But i have a couple of options. Next week im going to see if i can get another motor, just for use as a spare or to see if this one is maybe damaged.

Also will changing the PWM frequency or max duty cycle change anything? I am current using 20Khz and 550.
I also need to tweak my PID settings, do you think this may help?

Failing that i have an idea of mounting a massive heat sink and fan setup to it.

So progress is moving along swiftly. I have finished the seat and pedal mounts and mostly sorted the LFS settings and balance issues.

One question I have is should my PID settings be different for each motor, the Left motor seems more accurate and responsive with a higher D value then the right motor. Is it okay to do this?

Also a separate question in LFS on the blackwood track, there is a massive role in the dip of the main straight, is there a reason for this and is there a way to cure it?

Will post updated pictures soon.

So i just want to say a big thank you to the community here, today i got my DIY license and its awesome!
Been messing with Assetto Corsa all afternoon, and the difference a laser scanned track makes is amazing!

I'm already thinking of ways of improving my rig and adding to it, so will keep on updating this thread as I go along.
Thank you everyone and good luck to those in the process of building there first rig, its totally worth the time, money and effort.

Congratulations to you and a huge thank you for sharing your project. I will start my build later this month after understanding everything i need to do and gattering all the parts.

So apologies for the lack of updates lately...
I have moved the rig to its final position, however I need to buy a new screen for it, as the PC monitors I have I feel are to small, I am looking for a 39" to 43" model at a good price, so just have been waiting for payday so i can afford one
Will hopefully have new pictures of the almost final build up once the new screen arrives and is mounted.

Hey there all you DIY guys!
Its been over 3 years since my last update but just like to let you guys know the rig is still going strong!
Other than a couple of replacement Pots every half year or so, the rig is working reliably and excellently!
I have made many many additions to it over the past 3 years but the basic layout and mechanicals are all the same.

Here are a couple of pics:

This is just before my final update over the past few months, you can see all the workings and the mess of cable management!


And this is how it looks now, i also added some side platforms for my HOTAS setup for flight sims and space sims.
These can be removed with just 3 quick bolts.
Also added some RGB, because, you know... you need RGB

Hope that this maybe inspires a few guys to go out and build there own, as it is totally worth it!

Good day. I'm also in South Africa your thread has encouraged me to take on the project. Can you tell me where you bought your motor controller?
and did you rivet the frame or is it bolted on with nuts and bolts only?