Motors keep stopping - Need some advice...

Hi Gents,

After literally months of trouble free "motoring", my motors seem to keep stopping during heavy feedback, like a crash or sudden steering correction etc.

First, the left one was doing it quite often, so I removed the AMP limit on the JRK (was 38A) and set it to 0.
This worked for a while, but it's a very random thing.

Then my right motor was doing the same thing about a week ago, removed AMP limit and all good, but again the Gremlin is back.

When it happens, I only loose one side, and when I quit the game, SimTools game engine crashes.

I have to reset the JRKs, power off the PSU/Motors for a few seconds and then I am good to go again. I re-launch SimTools game engine, run an Output test and all is good again.

I suspect it is something to do with AMP draw because if I set the AMP limit back to 38A (I am using DPS-600B rated for 46A) and then set "Max Current Exceeded" to Enabled and Latched, as soon as I fire up the motor to the centre, I get the Max Current Error latch and the motor powers off (due to the Latch state)

I am wondering if my PSU's are slowly giving up the ghost...??

What have other people done to try and smooth out AMP peaks etc?

@bsft - Keen for your feedback given your Hire units never seem to skip a beat.

Thanks

Can I see all screen shots of all the tabs in JRK utility please

Sure.

This is the JRK/motor giving me the most grief. The other one is identical except for the Feedback values.

INPUT

FEEDBACK

PID

MOTOR


(Did not bother with Errors as SIM currently powered off, just USB connected.)

Bring max duty cycle and Max accell both down to 500.
Turn current calibration down to 130
Everything else sems ok

It could also work setting axis limiting. I use 95%.
Axis limiting works with all games, no need to do anything else. With profile editor you have to change it in every game.

Yes, I mean, if lowering the axis % solves the problem, then he's done. Then he can always play with game manager %

Dont lower main limit just yet, drop the max accell and max duty cycle first
After that, @Archie , can you tell us what overall percentage total you are using in axis assignments please

Thanks Guys, I will set my Max accell and Max duty to 500 and re-test.

For pCars and AC I have this:

pCars.
Roll 40%
Pitch 90%
Heave 20%
Sway 50%
Surge 40%

AC.
Roll 50%
Pitch 90%
Heave 40%
Sway 50%
Surge 40%

I don't have any Axis Limiting.
In Game Manager it is 100%.

I do run some smoothing on Sway for both games, but only 10%.

I run pitch at 90% as I like to feel the dips and climbs on tracks more than the sway.

Just reading @Nick Moxley thread about dropping to 95%. He also mentions a filter bug.

I have recently applied Filters to my Sim (Just smoothing on Sway)
I wonder if that could be issue?

But then I wonder why just the one motor more often than not...

I'll do some testing tonight and see what I find. Pretty much any crash on AC / pCars will wig out the motor, so will be easy to tell if solved.

I will run at 500 for Max and Acel first and take it from there.

In my mind, dropping the main output to 95% from the Game Manger will put 5% smoothing on all axis (least that's what I understood the main slider to do)

@yobuddy , this information is for your reference
@Archie
Pcars is 240% total axis, over the total 100% they recommend.
So Simtools is throwing more values and info at the JRKS, hence they drop out.
I have had this discussion with Simtools developers stating that for some of us, it is near impossible to get decent motion on our platforms when trying to keep all forces at 100% total. Most probably run slower or less power than the simtools developers simulators.
I have to run my desk racer at about 130%, and for the red racer, i dropped the main level to 99% to stop overshoot and errors. I simply cannot get decent motion at total 100% as well. But near 130-150% is sort of acceptable.
If you can, go back to square one, set each force at 20%, work with tuning centre numbers and try to see if you can get decent motion. if you get near that, try turning up forces a bit, but try to keep them under 25% each force.

Thanks @bsft . I guess it all makes sense as we have a 2 DOF system but are expecting to process 6 axis..
If we had 50% Sway and 50% Pitch then no worries.

However, I think I have solved my specific issue for my settings...

I went back through anything I had done differently recently...
I have re-tuned all my profiles to ensure that my Sim was running as best it could.
Before, I used to have all the forces running in symmetry (box ticked) but re did them all
in the tuning centre with the box unticked to get the MAX and MIN for everything.

Much better motion.

However, likely at the cost of asking too much of the motor's / JRK.

When I set my JRK to 500 duty and accell, that actually made it worse, the JRK then became the bottle neck and the motor would stop as soon as the car was sat in the pits!!

Set the JRK to 600 across the board and all good, but still motor would stop after a crash etc.

In the end, I found what worked for me was dialling back the Master Output from 100% to 95%. (anything below 95% and sim feels too "wallowy")
Then in the Game Engine, I limited the Axis to 90% for Axis 1 and Axis 2.
Having Filters set or not, made no difference in my testing. I have removed them now though to account for the dial down to 95%.

Tested in both AC and pCars and now no matter how hard I crash I can't get the sim to fail. Result!

Thanks everyone. Knew I could count on this forum to get it sorted

I will test the 100% across the board theory though @bsft and see if I can better motion from a well tuned setup.
Something to tinker with at the weekend.

Screens so there is no confusion of terms:

GAME ENGINE: (Per Axis Value)


GAME MANAGER: (Master "Output" Value aka "Main Level")

Maybe I'm wrong but I think that putting JRKs to 500 would allow you to use more than the 90% of axis you're using now (apart from not pushing motors to 100%). And you would have more range to feel all of the forces.

I agree with @bsft that 240% is a bit too much, 90% pitch and 40% surge if you're accelerating on a rising road you're already reaching the limit of the axis. how can you feel a bump if you're already at 100% (summing forces in the same direction) ?

I will have a play with the forces @Blame73 and let you know..

I guess there is some general confusion with forces, as I don't really understand how they all interact in terms of the %.
As @bsft comments, though, I rarely feel much "umph" when my forces are below 40% and that's with fine tuning one of the forces.

My thinking is that if a forces / axis has 90% that is the most it can use, it may not always uses that.
So If I tune my settings and Pitch has -10 and +10, but I then choose a track that never goes above -5 and +5, does that mean I am using the whole 90% in a shorter throw, or does it mean that I have another 45% to play with in the Pitch axis??!?

I know with the settings I have now, I can feel what I need to and I guess that's the main bit

Ok... So guess what I am doing this weekend??

Yup.... retuning all my profiles.

I set my profiles so that I was within 5% and the experience once I tweaked the tuning is the same as I get with the high numbers

My axis are now:
Roll 15%
Pitch 30%
Heave 15%
Sway 15%
Surge 20%

Total 95%.

I really should of noticed this earlier, because once I figure out the direction of my axis for any new game, I turn the main Level down to 10%
and then hit Reset on the Values and turn on Capture Max min.
Even at 10% the Sim gets thrown around because the values in the tuning centre are always changing until you get your Max Min values.

So, it appears having a very well tuned setup with small % numbers is actually much better than just "accepting" the captured numbers and turning up the forces to "compensate"

The Fog lifts...