Showroom My 3 DOF seat mover + GS-4 + Simvibe

Finished the design for the main controller box part of the build, still a bit of work to do on some of the panels.

Started the print. This is always the most nerve racking part, did I remember everything? Did I get my measurements right? Will that fancy side nut thing print okay? Will the print stick okay. I had the first attempt fail because it started lifting in the corner so I restarted with a bit of glue stick on the bed.

This is 3:45 in to the print



Then at almost exactly 10 hours, it is done. Didn't take that long, I thought it was going to take longer due to the size.



It took up pretty much my whole print bed. Because of the glue stick it was really stuck down, took quite a few minutes of slowly lifting it off with the scraper



But finally all done and everything printed perfectly. The side nuts look good, all the bottom stand offs and hex nuts look good. I will start mounting stuff tonight then next up is the Arduino panel

Started installing all the hardware in to the box. Everything fits in perfectly. I'm glad I spent so long perfecting the design.



The power distribution looks really good, these were the ones I worried about because I didn't have tech drawings so I had to model everything by hand, the motor controllers weren't much better in terms of dimensions, the only dimension they gave was the hole spacing so everything else was modelled by hand.



Here are all the captive hex nuts underneath, 18 M3 nuts, and 4 M4 nuts, with 4 M5 holes for mounting to the base plate.



The side slot captive hex nuts for the lid also printed fine. I am thinking I might print a little cover for them which I will be able to slide in to the little opening



Next up was the Arduino panel. This was really quick to print, only just over an hour, printed all the stand offs.



Again, more captive hex nuts



Mounted the Arduinos with their custom made circuit boards on top



Slid the Arduino panel in to place



Glad I went for the low profile circuit board, it tucks nicely behind the motor controllers

Wiring!!!!

I have had a cold this week so a bit of slow progress, but good progress none the less.

Printed the upper level platform for the relay, those little slots are for cable ties to hold the wires in place



More captive hex nuts to hold the relay in place



The relay mounted to the upper platform



The upper platform mounted in the box





Next up was the power I/O panel



Installed all the cable glands, the bigger ones on the right are from the batteries, and the smaller ones on the left are to the motors



And from the other side



The slot I printed was a tiny bit tight, like only 0.05mm off so I need to do a tiny bit of clean up



For that I use my vintage 1950's dentist drill. I have a ton of little drill bits for it in all different shapes and sizes so it makes the perfect dremel to get in to tight places



After that it slots in to place nicely



And from inside

Tonight I made a start on the fan panel. It holds the fans plus the fuse and killswitches for the relay.

I decided I would make a little fan header board for my fans and LEDs so I could have them looking all neat and tidy.

I brought a little prototype board and marked out where I wanted to cut.



I picked this board because it has that nice rail down the middle which I can use as a power bus



Soldered on my header connectors. One of them will be 12v in and the others are for the fans and LEDs.



Here you can see the backside and how I have connected it all



Designed a little clip in holder for the board and tested a small test, only took 9 minutes to print so it was worth doing before adding it to the panel



Tested the fit. It fits perfectly and it snaps in there nicely.



Printed the fan panel with the new board mount. Is it just me or does it look like the Eek! emoji on the right



Installed all the fans, board, fuse and sockets for the killswitchs



Nice and neat cable management under the fans



Trimmed the wires to the perfect length and crimped on the header pins and connected them up to the board



The outside looks really nice with the dust covers and black countersunk screws.



Slid the panel in to the case. It is really coming together now, looks really cool



Looks really good on the inside, everything is so tightly packed inside. I was limited by the size of my 3D printer so it was quite a challenge to get everything cramped in there



Really nice airflow over the controllers.

Keep it up bud, Looking awesome.

Looking great @Avenga76 , just take care with those white terminal blocks. I'm also doing a Sabertooth upgrade on my rig and when I was dismantling my old wiring which used some of those terminal strips, found a few were the thread had failed and it had become a slightly resistive joint, to the point were it had started to melt the terminal plastic itself (I had to cut them off) - Decided in this build to either use soldered joints, or were necessary pay for quality terminals - especially with the amount of current flowing through these joints.

Thanks @Nick Moxley

Thanks @SeatTime I will keep an eye on those terminal blocks when I get it up and running. The main battery power in is going in via the big power distribution posts, so the terminal strips are only for the wires out to the motors, because they are straight through then I can actually do away with the terminal strips completely if needed and just run the wires directly out of the box to the Anderson connectors I use for the motor. The only reasons I am running them is for cable management and also if a cable were to get yanked out I would rather it mess up the terminal strip then the terminal blocks on the Sabertooth.

It was the NZ elections today and my sisters birthday party, so I was pretty busy voting and then watching the election results but I still managed to spend a bit of time on the project.

Designed the holes for the cable glands and printed the vent panel



Installed all the cable glands



Test fitted the panel in the case



Heaps of airflow across the controllers



Next I moved on to crimping some more of my tiny wires for the headers on the Arduino. I really like crimping header pins, they are so tiny



Made some super short cables for the Sabertooth and Syren to the Arduino



Plugged them in to the Arduino shield I made



I also designed the lid for my box. It will have a red perspex window. I will also have some LED strips that will turn on when I turn on the power to the simulator

Your Not alone Rich, My collection of Dupont pins is in the 1000's, lol when you order a few 200 packs of single, dual, triple and quad headers....they add up quick lol

it is Chinese on the draw，i got two worm gear motors which can lift 120kg for 500RMB each，the speed is 50rpm， the motor is strong like hell。

Another update.

Printed the lid and did a test fit. Everything fits fine



I printed a cutout for the red perspex window so you will be able to see all the goodies inside



Test fitted the perspex sheet. It fits perfectly but I will keep the protective backing on it until I am ready to glue down the window

Finished off the lid tonight.

Glued in the red perspex sheet, I used my new batteries to weight it down (More on the new batteries in the next update



The perspex window looks pretty sweet with the LED strip turned off.



You can still see all the motor controllers inside



Next up I tested the LED strip, really bright.



Cut the LED strip and soldered all of the connectors between the LED segments and made a little header cable that goes down to the fan header board that I made in a previous update.



Tested the LEDs. Super bright when viewed from this side.



Put the lid back own and tested the LEDs and OMG does it ever look amazing. Looks way better in person because the camera can't really pick up the red, but the LEDs are the perfect brightness



The LEDs and fans are hooked up to the kill switches so when the simulator is turned off then the LEDs will all be off, and then when you switch on the simulator then it all lights up.

I am really happy with how dark the red perspex is you can still see all the components inside when the LEDs are off but it looks nice and dark. And then when the LEDs are on then it has such an awesome glow to it. It turned out exactly how I pictured it when I was designing it.

As usual Bang up job Rich.

Thanks Nick

Finished the wiring for the kill switches fuse and relay.

Here is the wiring for the relay control circuit. red cable goes to the main 12V in, it first goes off to the fuse, this fuse is just for the relay control circuit, not the main fuse for the motors. They then go up to the two sockets for the kill switches, then off to the relay.



Tested the fit back in the case



Made all the leads going up to the relay.



Ran wires back to the fan header board



Connected a battery so I can test the relay. it all works perfectly. When you enable both switches then you hear the relay click and the boards, fans and LEDs all turn on. The big red wire coming from the bottom of the photo is the main 12V coming it, and the one that looks back under to the left is the 12V after the relay, so the relay is just basically a switch that connects those 2 wires

Designed my boxes for my kill switches



Printed the first one out. There is 2 parts, the bottom part will bolt on to my rig and has my normal captive hex nuts, and the switch itself fits in to the top section and then you just screw the top half on



I made it so the switch slides tightly inside the box.



The wires then have just enough room to come out the gland



With the switch outside the box the wiring looks like this, there are some little grooves that you can push the wires in to so they can get past



I also printed the little key ways, not that it could spin inside the box because it is tightly held in by the sides.



This is how it looks fully assembled



Printed the second one



I wanted to make them super compact so they are really tight inside but they worked out perfectly

Man, what a crazy week. I have been really busy with my other hobby (Classic cars) so I haven't had much time to work on the motion simulator.

For any of you who are interested, I'll post a little bit of my other distracting hobby.

I brought myself a Chrysler Avenger wagon, that's my other '75 Hillman Avenger in the background.



Had to tow it home because it needed a few things like the brakes fixed to make it road legal and safe, so of cause I used my '72 Chrysler Valiant Charger.



Got it home, got it all fixed up and put my old personalised plates on it



Had to get a bit creative to fit 3 cars in my 2 car garage but I got them all in there



They look totally sweet all lined up.



I am taking the Charger for a week long road trip down to a car show in the South Island next week so there another lack of progress.

Anyway. Back to the motion simulator.

Designed a stand for my controller box



Water jet cut it and then folded it up



Installed M5 rivnuts





Countersunk the feet, I will just be using so wood screws to screw into the 10mm plywood at the back of my rig.



Used some nice big washers, there are 2 bolts over by the motor controllers



And another pair over by the wires on the other side of the box



Looks pretty cool all mounted



Did a little test fit of where it is going to sit



Not that much more to do, the controller box itself is pretty much finished. When I get back from my road trip I just need to make up the motor cables and battery cables and connect everything up.

I see someone likes to warm his cars up in the garage.

Yeah, none of my cars have fuel injection and all of them have aftermarket carburetors so they take a bit to warm up, doesn't help that I have turn down exhaust pipes on all of them.

first of all @Avenga76 absolutely fantastic job. Now I don't care if you all call me crazy but I was thinking outside the box. I was thinking would it be possible to use 2 big worm drive motors like your 5300 rpm beasts set up with the normal potentiometers for feedback but to jrk 21v 3 controllers which in turn will power 2 small geared motors that turn at the same speed as the big motors, these in turn will turn 2 more potentiometers that will send the signal to the sabertooth set in analog mode. Like I said if you want to laugh at me feel free I was only thinking of this as the jrk's seem really nice to work with but if this way would work you can use bigger more powerful motors.