DIY racing/flight sim, in a real airplane!

Hi everyone, I thought I’d start a thread to document the build of my simulator rig. My current plan is to build a working G seat to use with an Arduino controller and simtools, and eventually a motion platform to move the entire cockpit. The fabrication and mechanical side of things won’t be an issue, however when I get into the electronics and software setup I know I will have many questions, so I’d like to say sorry and thank you in advance! I have experience writing and editing G code for CNC, and some (very) limited experience with physics controllers in the Unity game engine, but that is pretty much the extent of my programming ability. This will be my first time using an Arduino and programming for this type of control system, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.

I race Formula 1 outboard powerboats, and I’m hoping to put together a racing simulator to extend the fun to home and during the off season. Currently using a Rift CV1 with a Logitech G27 wheel, shifter, and pedals, and my desk chair. I love racing in VR, but it’s time to kick it up a notch.

I had the chance to help with the development of Design It, Drive It: Speedboats, so I was very excited to see it on the list of supported sims for simtools. I provided some 3d models including the outboard engines (I’m the “M” in M3 Marine lol), digital dash display in the boats as well as a few other bits and pieces. I also helped with developing the handling characteristics of the default or “stock” tunnel boat, to get it to handle as close to our real boats as possible. As a racer and long-time video game enthusiast, getting the opportunity to help on a simulator for race boats was super cool.

The base for my simulator is a fuselage for a Steen Skybolt aerobatic biplane. I’ll be making 2 VR racing and flight simulator rigs out of the fuselage, for myself and a friend who I race with. His will be a fixed/stationary rig using the back seat. I am using the front seat for mine as it is a little bit larger and still has the landing gear mounts which I plan to use to mount it on a motion platform eventually.


I pulled out the angle grinder and went to work splitting up the fuselage into 2 separate cockpit sections to get started on the build. My friend managed to talk me into making his first, which worked out well because it let me experiment on his and figure out exactly what I want to do on mine later.


I extended the frame to support floor boards for the pedals and added some addition braces.




The next step was to mock everything up and figure out control mounting locations.


All of the control locations are adjustable, with several mounting locations for each. They can also be mounted above or below their respective brackets, giving roughly an inch of vertical adjustment, or more with spacers.






The fuselage had been sitting out in the weather for the past 20-30 years and it shows. There were several spots where it was rusted almost paper thin or had filled with water and froze, cracking the tubes. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a little welding and grinding. It would have been MUCH easier to start with new metal and build a frame from scratch, but how many people can say that their flight sim is a real airplane?



Since it will be used with an Oculus Rift, I needed a way to mount the sensors. I made these stands that the sensors screw on to at the front of the frame.




They fold down out of the way for easy storage as well.


He painted it to match his race boat and used the same seat we run in our boats.



Mine has been patiently sitting in the corner all winter but I finally have some time to start working on it again. Here’s where it’s at currently, with controls just sitting in place to figure out where I want them all mounted. They will be adjustable like the first one I built. My Rift sensor will mount on the top of the triangular frame, which is actually a support for the upper wing. I also have rudder pedals to swap in for flight sims.


This is a side project that I’m picking away at in my limited spare time, so updates may not be as frequent as I would like but I’ll do my best to post my progress as I go.

Good work !!

Good luck for the continuation of the construction !

Hi mo-wills14, I can see its coming along just swimmingly (every pun intended).
Have a great time on your new build!

Regards Jerry

Thanks guys!

I made a cad model and short animation showing how I plan on setting up the seat panels and how they move. I'll post it here as soon as it's finished rendering. Any input and advice I can get along the way is much appreciated!

Thanks, Morgan

The next decision to be made before going much further is how I am going to control the motion of the seat flaps. DC motors or high torque servos?

Right now, I am leaning towards using servos to keep it lighter and compact. I do have 6 24V DC motors (14A, ~330W), but I am planning on using them for the motion platform when I get to it.

I’ve been looking at the GS4 G seat design, which uses 4 servos per panel, roughly 24Kg*cm each, for inspiration. I found some larger 60Kg*cm servos and I’m thinking I could use just 2 of them per panel to keep it simple with fewer moving parts and maintain similar, or better, performance. They would be driven from an Arduino UNO R3 board with a 16 channel servo shield. Links to the parts can be seen below.

Arduino Uno R3
https://www.banggood.com/UNO-R3-ATm...e-p-964163.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN

16 Channel servo shield to drive 8 seat servos, and eventually motors for motion platform. The dc motors will just use the signal output from this through separate drivers and power supply.
https://www.banggood.com/2-Channel-...-p-1051594.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN

8 x 60Kg*cm servos
https://www.banggood.com/4X-JX-Serv...-1164149.html?rmmds=category&cur_warehouse=CN

Here are a few renders and a short animation showing my current design idea. The rusty metal is the existing seat frame, and the clean is what I plan to add. The flaps will be 1/8" aluminum, independently actuated allowing 3 DOF for surge, heave, and sway. Hinge points are under my legs, so the frame is carrying my weight and not the servos.





Do you guys think this combination will work, or am I way off base? I am not dead set on those specific servos, they’re just some I stumbled upon and looked like they suited the application. If there are other servos that I should be looking at or if I would be better off using more, smaller servos, I am open to that as well.

For your servomotor, if you have access to this info, look at its ability to couple.
When I was looking for engines for my simulator, I came across 250W motors that had less torque than 120W.
Since it is the responsiveness of your simu that is important, better have more torque !

Stouuf, when you say the servo's ability to couple, do you mean their ability to maintain synchronization and move together?

I'm sorry but I did not understand the purpose of your project.
Do you want to simulate F1 motor racing?

Lo siento pero no entendí el propósito de su proyecto.
¿Quieres simular carreras de motoras de F1?

Using Google Translate for titomaky's post: "I'm sorry but I did not understand the purpose of your project. Do you want to simulate F1 motor racing?"

My main motivation is to build a working motion rig to use with Design it, Drive it: Speedboats in VR to simulate Formula 1 powerboats. But it will also be used with other racing sims like Assetto Corsa, and flight simulators.

Ohhh Sorry I did not translate my message. Now I understood what you want to do. I would like to know which simulator you will use for Formula 1 powerboats.

Sorry, I did not speak well.
I spoke only of the torque Nm produced by the servomotors.

titomaky, the powerboat simulator is called Design It, Drive It: Speedboats. Here is a link to it on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/501090/Design_it_Drive_it__Speedboats/

As the title suggests, you can design your own boat and drive it. It gives you full control over every dimension of the hull allowing you to make changes that affect balance, aerodynamics, and handling characteristics. You can change number of engines, engine power, gearing and propeller pitch, as well as engine height and trim angles as you drive to optimize the set up. There are also free drive and timed race modes with leader boards so you can see how your designs and driving compare to other users online. Supports VR. It's not as graphically flashy and polished as some games like Project Cars etc, but if you are interested in true simulation and boats it is very cool.

Stouuf, The servos I'm looking at are 60Kg*cm torque, which is more than double the torque of the servos used in the GS-4 G seat (~24Kg*cm) so I think I should be ok using half as many. Hopefully lol.

Ah yes very well, I'm not very good at math, I did not know that kg * cm was a unit of torque !

In converting, it's ~ 5.88Nm, so it should do, my engines are 25Nm but they have to carry more weight so proportionally (without doing scholarly calculation), it should be good !
Especially since you say, those of the GS-4 G are only 24kg * cm !

Do you intend to mount them live or do a lever arm system by a rod-crank system ?

Yeah, I don't know why they use Kg*cm instead of N*m for torque ratings (especially since Kg is a unit of mass and not force so Kg*cm doesn't really make sense as a measure of torque). But from what I've seen, Kg*cm seems to be the standard unit in RC servos for torque specification.

I posted some renders above (post #5) that show how I plan to connect everything. The servo arms will be parallel to the seat panels, and connected with push rod linkages.

thanks for the info, it does not seem to have good graphics, vuscare some demo to try

You can find the plugin for "Design it, Drive it: Speedboats" here.

thank you also for making this a little easier

Oh yes, I had already watched the video and more ...

You already had to see that but otherwise, study your leverage compared to the available space because it does not seem, but it's a lot of weight for small engines so if you want them to last for a long time you have to help them as much as possible !

I'm just breaking my head on the study of a lever on my simulator, I did not think it was so complex so do not build blind !

Here is an example of the G seat using wiper motors you might look into.
He has a website with a good description:

http://bergison.simpit.info/g-seat-how-to