Spaceship Simulator

Hello everybody
Finally, after more than 6 Months of planning and ordering, testing and drawing, i'm able to start my Spaceship Simulator project.
Earlier this year, i already showed my main joint design here: https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/show-me-your-universal-joints.13026/page-4#post-256511

First, some basic informations:

Motivation:
My 11 years old daughter started to be interested in space and space-traveling. Mostly after watching the movie "Apollo 13" and a visit in a space history museum, she wanted to make her own cockpit made of cardboard.
I got instantly triggered to do this better, and i told her if she's interested in doing it right. She was (and still is)!
So i planned something special.
Not a copy or even near the Apollo Command Module, or the Gemini Cockpit, but it's definitely inspired by these missions.
And yes... of course... i make this simulator also for myself, a dream comes true since i was a kid. In the 90s, I played StarWings on SNES and always dreamed to have something like that.

Basic concept:

• Using an euro-pallet as a solid base, a pallet lid as platform floor.
• One main joint under the seat, two motors with levers for 2-DOF motion.
• The Spaceship is a closed cabin on top of the pallet lid.
• A lot of switches for different systems like climate control, power control, fuel management, communications and guidance.
• Apollo-like Master Alarm system with real time monitoring of all systems, including air quality (co2 measurement) temperature and all subsystems
• Flight controls: 2 Joysticks and 2 foot pedal-switches for 6 axis flight
• Ubuntu based Computer with an RTX 3070 GPU
• A 23" Screen is used as a "front window"
• Audio-Effects for steering Jets, basic noise and engine noise

Software:
Space Engine by Cosmographic Software
- There is no interface for motion control as far as i know. but it doesn't matter to me. Because we're in space, g-force is relatively predictable. Therefore i'll use the steering inputs to recreate the needed motor motions.

Hardware:

2-DOF Motion Hardware:

• 2x ASME-MRB 400kg/cm Servo Motors
• 2x Mean Well LRS-600 27V Power Supply
• 2x Brake resistors 1500W 1.0 Ohm
• 2x Circuit Braker 0-42V 50A
• Arduino Leonardo

Main Joint:

• 4x Heavy Duty 20mm Ball Bearings
• 2x 20mm x 200mm stainless steel shaft
• 1x Pilar cross fixing clamp

Motor Joints:

• 100mm Stainless Steel Plate as a Lever (60mm travel)
• 250mm rod wth ball bearing nozzles

Computer Hardware:

• 1x ASUS Mainboard
• 1x Intel CPU
• 1x ASUS Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070
• 2x 16GB DDR4 RAM
• 1x PCI Harddrive
• 1x 23" EIZO HD-Monitor

Other Hardware:

• A plenty of Toggle Switches 2 & 3 Positions for in-Capsule Operations
• 2x Push Buttons for PC reset and on/off switch
• 1x Heavy Duty Battery Kill Switch used as "Abort Switch" to bring the capsule into a leveled position and turn off the motors
• 1x Emergency Stop Button for real Emergency Shutdown
• 4-6 (to be defined) Backlit LCD Displays 2 Lines / 8 Symbols
• 1x Push Button Panel 4x4 Buttons for Guidance Verb/Noun input. This triggers Autopilot to pre-defined Space-Objects, landing sequence and so on
• 2x Arcade 4-Axis-Joysticks with two buttons
• 2x Foot-Switches
• 2-6 (to be defined) Arduino UNO for Sub-System Controls
• 1x Arduino MEGA for Master Alarm system
• 1x MPU6050 3 Axis Analog Gyroscope for live-Leveling Calibration
• 3-6x (to be defined) Arduino MP3-Player for in-Capsule Audio Effects
• 2-4 (to be defined) 2W mini-Speakers for 3d Audio-Effects
• 1x High Power 6 inch car Subwoofer for basic and engine noise
• 1x Wireless car back drive camera with night vision and wireless Display for remote supervision of the Pilot
• 1x Wireless HDMI Video Transmitter for remote Gaming Screen Mirroring
• 1x Mean Well LRS-350 5V Power Supply
• 1x Radio-Communications device (to be defined) to communicate with ground control (someone outside)

I hold myself back to list the physical hardware, most of the material will obviously be mentioned during the construction.

As you can see, there is plenty of hardware just for the simulated cockpit feeling. It's important to not just play a game inside a box that shakes a bit. it shall be a Spaceship where everything is trimmed to be a spaceship even without playing one second of SpaceEngine on the screen.
Operations of the system is essential, it should feel real and integrated. For example: to power the module up, you have to really start up the different systems in a right order, so that all will operate correctly. Or if the temperature inside the capsule gets too high, Master Alarm will trigger so you have to react to it and activate the fans to cool the cabin down. (Climate control). Same for air quality inside the cabin (co2 measurement)
Therefore there will be checklists for almost anything:

• to power up the module
• to power down the module
• basic operations
• navigation operation
• Guidance module operation
• Master Alarm handling
• Emergency handling

All this should emerge the feeling to really operate a spaceship of the 60s-80s with a futuristic touch.

Building process:
Now to the interesting part.

Basic platform:
I started with a standard Euro Pallet and a Pallet lid. Trimmed the "nose" of the pallet lid to make it a bit more interesting than just a box from outside view. Also every gram that can be saved shall be saved.

First step: installing the main joint.


To spread the weight to the whole pallet, i mounted it on two 20x20mm aluminium rails. The motors are mounted with a metal angle, spared out a bit of the wood of the pallet, so that it still will be possible to move the simulator with a pallet truck.


The pallet lid gets the same treatment, aluminium rails for stability, main joint positioned directly under the seat position.


Sawing two notches for the 2-DOF steering rods.


Looks nice so far. Here some details of the motor positions and of the lever:



Testing the seat position:


Then I added a floor "rug" and the basic aluminium framing:


That's the effort of 3-Days work so far (about 22h)
next step: installing the seat and adding the fixtures for the 2-DOF rods.
*to be continued*

I'm also a bit curious about that, but at the same time i'm relatively positive. They're specified as 400kg/cm @ 28V. My lever is 6cm, therefore i get about 60kg force per motor. The main weight stays on the main joint, so i stay positive about that. Still have the option to add couter weights and/or adding a supportive gas spring

Placed the suspensions and mounted the actuator rods:



Seems to be stable so far, waiting for the brake resistors to arrive so i can test the motion.
In the meantime, i'll continue to mount the seat, power supplies, wireing and also start building the cabin.

You're right about that. I will need to reposition the main joint.