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Linear Actuator with a bunch of stroke options?

Discussion in 'Motor actuators and drivers' started by narthur157, Apr 2, 2015.

  1. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    My teammates and I were looking at these actuators: https://www.firgelliauto.com/products/deluxe-rod-actuator

    Has anybody used these? They've got stroke options between 3" and 30", 2.5"/sec, 100lbs (45kg)

    Probably not fast enough for racing, but what about flight sims?

    How does that compare to actuators like those from the BFF design?

    We'd like to move to actuators on our flight sim if we can for simplicity.
  2. bsft

    bsft

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    BFF can move at near what is stated and at less cost, but you have to build them yourself. 400mm per second is damn fast.
    @SeatTime is building his own actuators as well.
    as for those actuators, a bit slow yes, and you have to work out how to power and control them.
    Theres no real "simplicity" when it comes to actuators. SCN6 is probably what you would need, but they are expensive.
    DC motors and a lever drive like BFF shows on his site would do it.
    That and someone here has already done a Joyrider with large DC motors on it.
    That would be a simpler option.
  3. SeatTime

    SeatTime Well-Known Member

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    Normally anything around that price point will not be fast/strong enough for a sim. Always carefully read all specifications. Eg. Can push/pull 100 lbs not lift, and the 3 inches a second is at no load (still slow). I think that even a flight sim still needs to be reasonably quick, so that the motion keeps up to what is being seen on the displays. The BFF design is much quicker/stronger. What is driving your sim now?
  4. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    Gotcha, given that I don't even know what SCN6 is, I'd guess you're correct. What are you referring to specifically with the lever drive?
  5. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    Right now we're using some modded wiper motors (ground isolated by the people we bought them from). It's not up and running yet, so we'll see how that goes.

    Sounds like we might be better off just upgrading to better DC motors. We're applying for $2,500 in funding from our school to make a better model, so we're trying to figure out the best thing we can do with that much money in the time we have (1-2 months?)
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. SeatTime

    SeatTime Well-Known Member

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    If you can supply a picture/drawing of what you are building, we may be able to advise more, it could save you some time/money.
  7. bsft

    bsft

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    @narthur157 http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/jugles-flightsim.6470/#post-71639 heres where they do a motor gear drive lever thingy.
    I am guessing you have not gone through the BFF site much then. Theres a lot of info there.
    Seriously ,set up a nice DC motor and maybe put a cover over it if you have to.
    Take the time to get it right. Looks like you have had a few issues relating to the rush and time frame.
  8. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    That's a really nice build..Here's what we've got at the moment: [​IMG]

    It's still very much a hack. We just got our motors running with the jrk tonight. PSU seems to be tripping though, because we can only run it in one direction or the other. Reversing it doesn't do the trick (99% sure this motor is grounded correctly). We're definitely looking to transition away from the pulley system.

    Our outer part of the frame bends in under load, which needs to get fixed.
    • Like Like x 1
  9. bsft

    bsft

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    Frame looks good, and yes, you said you need to spend more time making it stronger.
    I know the issue regarding the motors from Rob, he said get "these" and you bought something else.
    Not sure on PSU tripping, how much output power is it?
    Otherwise, Id really suggest go along the lines of Jugles sim build. That would be a good base to work from, using the motor/lever/gear setup, is strong and powerful.
    As I recall, you were planning this with a VR headset, teh general discussion is that with a VR, big motion is not needed.
    @noorbeast , can you advise further on VR and actual motion?
  10. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    There are some challenges regarding motion simulators and Virtual Reality, particularly with large motion arcs and harsh movement such as when replicating Nords. The way it works is that the Rift tracking camera is tied to the ground as its frame of reference. Huge simulator movement are registered as bobbing your view around relative to the horizon in an unrealistic manner.

    Mounting the camera on the rig itself will work for gentle flight simming. Many of us have tested putting the Rift tracking camera on our motion rigs under actual harsh conditions, like racing at Nords, and you can't isolate it enough from the harsh vibrations and movement, which created tracking issues. I am about to do some further experimentation around those issues, so will report further on the outcome.

    In a nutshell the technical issue is having a generic way to implement motion cancellation. Motion cancellation is where the movement of the sim is subtracted from the Rift tracking, so your view remains stable, even though the sim is pitching about. Oculus expects it to be done developer by developer, game by game and that is never going to happen.

    Some commercial motion sims like the Atomic 2, which is implementing Rift support, are building motion cancellation in for the same reason. VectionVR is a way to add motion cancellation but it has to be applied at a source level by developers and so far only one developer has done so, Live For Speed. VectionVR was initially free and supplied the source code, which I still have, but have since retracted that on their sit and Github.

    My hope is that Valve will be more open to a generic motion cancellation solution, as VR and motion simulation are amazing together. I have officially asked about Valve's Lighthouse system working with the Vive as a means of motion cancellation, but am still waiting on a response, which I don't really expect until after the Dev kits have been distributed.

    In my view the best Rift experience is on motion simulators that target the haptic quality of the sharp forces and jolts a driver experiences, not large movements. The holy grail of VR is achieving what is called presence, and that is a mind trick about having enough cues that work together to make you feel like you are really there. Large movements making your view bob around all over the place relative to the horizon very much breaks presence.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  11. telfel

    telfel Active Member

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  12. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    The stepper motors they are made for are Torque: 175 oz-in, which is 1.23577157083275 N-m. Be interesting to see how they stood up to being hot-rodded with some serious power.
  13. bsft

    bsft

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    I like it. Id bet tempted to order without a stepper motor though and just bash a worm gear or direct drive motor on, make my own feedback and off we go.
    Kinda like what I did with the brikie actuators
    Thats really well priced for a complete kit.
    Have bookmarked it and will have to "find" some money to buy a pair.
    • Useful Useful x 1
  14. telfel

    telfel Active Member

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  15. bsft

    bsft

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    I sent an email asking approximate RPM of motors and approximate linear speeds
  16. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    That sim looks pretty good.

    As far as VectionVR goes, I actually e-mailed them and they said their code is being integrated into the Oculus SDK. So, motion cancellation should "just happen" before the consumer release of the Oculus.
    • Like Like x 1
  17. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Last edited: Apr 7, 2015
  18. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    "We will soon release all the necessay code on GitHub.
    It's basically a modification to do in the Oculus Library.
    If your application is already integrated with the Oculus Lib, it will be transparent for you once you refer to the patched version of the Oculus Lib.

    There is also a client application to fetch the data from an IMU and send it to the Oculus Library.

    Once the code published, we will contact everyone interested to let them know where to find the necessary information.

    Best regards
    [​IMG]
    Jerome Hordies"
  19. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    That sounds to me like what they have already done, release a modified LibOvr, which gets compiled with the game. I thought you meant Oculus was integrating the VectionVR code in the SDK.
  20. narthur157

    narthur157 Member

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    Ah, yeah I totally misread that. I just read "patched version of the OVR" and assumed they meant Oculus was including the patch.
    • Agree Agree x 1