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Traction loss without the hardware?

Discussion in 'News' started by leonard, Jan 11, 2020.

  1. leonard

    leonard New Member

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    Hello :)

    Just lifting the idea of "if" possible to implement traction loss for fully suspended systems without physically moving the rig in the actual direction. Dbox users for example, claim to be able to feel traction loss on a 3dof system (heave, pitch and roll. they call it 4dof because of the number of actuators). I also spoke once to someone using a different 3 dof setup (pitch roll, heave) that was able to pass that info.

    On a (3/4) (actuator/motor) fully suspended system, my idea is a light lift on the back actuators for example to just inform that the back is sliding. I will also maybe add some heavy filter or smoothing effect so I can make the difference between that and just the pitch motion. like going over a newly paved spot, where things gets really smooth for a short time.

    I have not used simtools for a year, so i dont know if there has been changes in the way the maping is done, but from what I recall, this wasnt possible to test because it was possible to only map traction loss left and right and not traction loss on/off.
    I did not test this before on my system because I had the traction loss hardware, but I am about to get a new system and wondering if I can achieve traction loss somehow with only 3 identical actuators ment for pitch roll and heave.
  2. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Dbox users do not experience genuine TL, you can give a sense of TL with well defined motion profile, much as you can simulate heave on a 2DOF, but you can't create a force that a sim is not physically capable of producing.
  3. leonard

    leonard New Member

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    Thats my point. I am aware that they cant experience real TL, but while thinking about how I can fake it or give a sens for it like you said, the idea of a small smoother lift on the back actuators could work for simtools. The issue is that you cant do that since its not an on/off mapping but a left/right. Do you have an idea of how you would do it?
  4. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    I don't get what you mean by on or off mapping, the primary axis influencing a sense of TL will be sway, with smaller influences from heave, roll and pitch settings.

    In a drift the primary movement of the vehicle is a sway away from the corner, irrespective of the driver balancing that on opposite lock plus throttle and brake. As the car drifts, presuming a relatively smooth skid pan to start with, there should still be small but perceptible movement on heave, roll and pitch, as the vehicle moves both in response to the road surface and also because of the effect of driver input, with the latter largely being responsible for a sense of TL, even though the rig can't physically represent that.
  5. Trigen

    Trigen Active Member

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    Im using TL in my G seat. TL overrides the sway and perhaps roll but i havent tested.

    You can get this to work somewhat without writing your own plugin but TL will directly counteract sway/roll so you get less range on sway/roll. What you can do to avoid most of that is to use a large tuning center value so its very slow until the point where it snaps completely over.

    Ive written my own plugin to avoid moving the TL until a specific range has been meet. You can also define how far its allowed to go. Combine that with the tuning center i can adjust it to kick out just before or when the car looses all traction. TL will then kick the flaps in my gseat to center or completely over depending how you set it up in the plugin. You can probably program something similar with a 3dof system. Depending how you set the flip axis you can get both the back actuators to either lift or lower or set it to give a good opposite kick.

    Code:
                            ' Tune for kick at snapout or overall feel
                            If ._Snap_TL = True And Axis1_Value4_Out > -0.4 Then
                                Axis1_Value4_Out = Axis1_Value4_Out * 0
                            End If
    
    Code:
                    'DOF4 Traction loss
                    Select Case "Extra1"
                        Case "-"
                            Axis1_Value4_Out = 0
                        
                        Case "Extra1"
                            'Get percent used for DOF
                            Axis1_Value4_Out = _Extra1_Input * (._Axis1PER4 * 0.01)
                            'Flip if necessary
                            If ._Axis6DIR3 = True Then
                                Axis1_Value4_Out = Axis1_Value4_Out * -1
                            End If                        
                            ' Tune for kick at snapout or overall feel
                            If ._Snap_TL = True And Axis1_Value4_Out > -0.4 Then
                                Axis1_Value4_Out = Axis1_Value4_Out * 0
                            End If
                            If ._Snap_TL = False And Axis1_Value4_Out > 0 Then
                                Axis1_Value4_Out = Axis1_Value4_Out * 0
                            End If
    
                    End Select
    
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2020
  6. leonard

    leonard New Member

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    What I mean with on off is that my idea was to map when traction happens (ON) the rear will slithly go up while the front doesnt. When the vehicule regain traction (OFF) the back will go back to its original position. This kind of crashes with heave and pitch but keeping the front at the same position might help distinguish TL.
    From your explanation, it makes sens and it should be possible to feel it especially on a well tuned system. I was probably just thinking of a clearer cue.
  7. RacingMat

    RacingMat Well-Known Member Gold Contributor

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    maybe you could render the "Traction Loss effect" into a vibration of the Gseat actuators
    I'm pretty sure that your brain could be trained easily to interpret this vibration into Traction Loss.
  8. Trigen

    Trigen Active Member

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