DIY Console Motion Simulator

Hi

I've been making many multimedia peripherals, and static simulators parts for the last 10years. It has always been done by using of the shelf stuff. (no electronic skills needed).

What I wanna do is build a Driving Motion Simulator that would work on the Playstation 3, and whatever gaming system available on the market. (You will find some of my mods here:
http://gizmodo.com/332341/homemade-head-mounted-display-control-for-ps2-made-of-chopsticks-updated
or by typing the2jakes on youtube

X-Sim is great for PC users, but there is no easy way to link this solution with the Playstation systems...

My goal is to build an easy, and low-cost, Motion system addon for the playseats.

I will first buy a very nice Playseat, like the RR version, with the G27 wheel.


I will then add:
-a buttkicker kit
-integrated speakers
-speed controlled wind turbine for speed sensations

After that I will add the dynamic stuff.
It won't be as accurate as X-Sim dynamics, but it will provide the basic motions needed. It will be a 2DOF project.

How am I gonna do this ???:
Well, I'm gonna use the forcefeedback wheel (G27) as a controller for the dynamic hardware (wiper motors or others).

Turning left of right will accordingly tilt the seat left or right. Same for accelerating and braking.

The easyest (not the most accurate) way to achieve this is to use additionnal potentiometers that capture the position of the pedals and wheel, and to translate the position of the potentiometers into wiper motors positions.

I'm able to do this on a reduced scale, by using the hardware of RC cars. You can use the potentiometers that are inside the RC controller, place them on the pedals and wheel axes, this will control the RC servo motors that are linked to the RC receiver.



But these RC servo motors are far from beeing enough strong to move a real playseat ...

Then my question is:
Are wiper motors compatible with the signals that are send from an RC receiver (inside the Radio Controlled cars) ? if not, do you know what electronic adaptor would do the job ?


-Are there any other way to transform a potentiometer position into a wiper motor position ?

I know all this is very basic compared to what you get by using X-Sim on a PC, but this would only be a start .

After, I will enhance it by doing the following: (if I find a way to to these
-capture the data that go to the G27 wheel motor (this will enhance the seat motions)
-add microswitchs to the G27 gearbox, that will send braking command when you change the gear from a higher position to a lower one, to tilt the seat accordingly (this will simulate engine brake phenomena).
etc... etc...

If anyone of you can help me with this project, it would be very nice :thbup:

You want to implement motion related to the turn of a steering wheel?

It is not the best idea. I've seen Windows XP running on PS3 but it slows the system down. Linux runs better. But you can connect PS3's together so you could have windows x running on one of them. Install the x-sim program. But there lies the problem. There is no coding from games like GT5P and X-SIM is not compatible with PS3. So therefore it is up to developers to make a software that can get game g-force values and transmit.

Gran Turismo 4 . PD did a motion system for it but it was for themselves.But the idea of having motion related to your wheel, i think it is waste of money. Just get a PC and and make a proper simulator where at the end of it you can say yeah that was worth the money.

Hi Fahim ;D

yes you're right, using the wheel to control the left/right tilting of the seat isn't realistic enough at all.

Indeed, I would prefer using the torque of the forcefeedback motor to control the left/rigth tilting of the seat, but I don't know how I could do this...?

When you turn right in a game, you feel a force that is turning the wheel left, proportionnal to the speed you are driving. I'd love to be able to transform this torque (voltage) into a wiper motor position... but I'm not an electronic expert. I believe it's not that hard to do, dans I'd really like to find a small electronic box that can do the job !

For now, I don't really know how forcefeedback signals look like (I believe the amount of torque we feel on the wheel is directly linked to a voltage send to the forcefeedback motor no ?)

As I'm writing I'm thinking of something: the best could be to find a way to get the following info from the wheel: I believe that as we play, the wheel is turning to precise positions. For exemple as we turn right ,forcefeedback will order to the wheel to be on a left position. If you continue to turn right (you feel this torque), if you let the wheel go, you see that it goes to a precise left position (well... you also smash your car . The more you go fast the more the wheel goes left by itself. (as in real driving conditions). What would be good is to be able to grab this position and sent it to the wiper motors... Then the seat would tilt left/right according to the position the forcefeedback wants the wheel to be, and not only the real position of the wheel. That would be much more realistic...

What you think ?

But for example, when you loose the front drive train, wheel got softer. Otherwise wheel is harder at lowers speeds than at higher speed. You will have extreme seat movements at low speeds.

Hi JimiTes,

I believe there is a difference in forcefeedback between constant resistance of the wheel, and when it has to go to a precise position.

case 1: The resistance changes as you loose grip for instance.
case 2: When you are in a right turn, forcefeedback tries to make the wheel turn left.

In case 2, if I use this position the forcefeedback wants the wheel to go to, to control the left/right tilting of the motion platform, I believe it would be proportionnal to speed, because the more you go fast in a turn, the more forcefeedback wants to turn the wheel (speaking about the turning angle, not the torque), no ?

In case 2: I believe that when you loose grip, the forcefeedback is no more trying to turn the wheel, so the platform will come back to its central position... and that would be quite realistic no ? If grip comes back then the platform will tilt accordingly, because forcefeedbcak will order a wheel position again...

Maybe I'm missing something, I don't know since I'm not a forcefeedback expert at all , but is seems fairly ok to use the forcefeedback ordered wheel position to control the left/right motion tilt, no ?

The question is how can I capture this ordered position... ?, and how to convert it to a Wiper motor rotation ?

Maybe I can duplicate the wheel forecefeedback system and plug it to the motion platform: by connecting a wipermotor, (or standard good motor) to the wires of the forcefeedback motor, using relays, and use the wheel sensor (that is indicating the forcefeedback system at what position the wheel is) and put this sensor on the vertical axis of the motion platform. Then when forecefeedback wants to turn the wheel left, the relays will permit higher power to be sent to the big motor, the platform will tilt left until the sensor detects it has reached its ordered position... (well all this is live thinking, it needs to be seriously thought through .

If you have any other idea on how I could achieve controling the tilt of a motion platform by using the forcefeedback system of a wheel, it will help me a lot :

Please, don´t think i want to ruin your work. A lot of great community projects began with a simply idea like yours. Keep on going and good luck.

I will help you on everything i can but i´m not an expert on motion sims.

Hi the2jakes!
Maybe this should belong to a new post, but let me know if you think you can achive head tracking for PC games (rfactor, ...) so that we can race using this free-view. If it is possible I would be interested in it, so let me know.

Never thought that ;D , always good to hear from missed things, that's how I can enhance this project

I just found this: MD03 Motor controller
http://www.robot-electronics.co.uk/acatalog/Motor_Controllers.html


It has an RC mode ! That means it can control a powerfull motor using an RC receiver. I allready have all the RC stuff, as I spends 2 years playing with RC cars,boats,planes...

The MD03 would be nice for the front/rear seat movement, as I would connect the RC controller's potentiometers to the pedals.

For the left/right movement I need to find out what signal I can get from the forcefeedback wheel... voltage variation ?, positioning data... ?

Hi razzta01,

I've done several Head tracking devices for the PC, using leds and usb cams, or tablet PC etc... The easyest and most efficent way to achieve head tracking is buying the TRACK IR device

Here is one of the head tracking I achieved using a tablet PC. This worked perfectly:
hlLRq_biPOM

Here is phase 2, when I added a head mounted display to it.
nM6b517XylE

InventGeek team has made something similar to my project:
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/ForceFeedback/ForceFeedback.aspx




My project will be 2DOF, compared to this 1DOF creation.

They simply used relays, and a winch motor... But, what kind of electrical signal is received by the wheel motor ??? is it just a voltage variation, I believe not... I think their is frequency changes in all this....
I have to find out what type of electrical signal is send by the forcefeedback system, to know what motor control to buy.

FF board send PWM signal(analog -24 V _ 0 _ 24 V DFP and G25)

Hi Mambo

what does DFP means ? (sorry for my ignorence ;D )

Do you know a motor controler that could be a good interface with such signal from the FFB board, and some wiper motors ?

By the way, I'm gonna build myself a J-Dome screen for my simulator.



Well, I don't know what will be the best between a J-Dome and the canopy concepts that X-Sim users have used on their simulators... I guess that the J-dome concept can be used in more types of games (fps etc...) than the canopy (driving only, no ?)

Next step would be adding a sterescopic video projector to the setup (well PC games only, it's a shame

http://www.nixim.com/images/racecraftGT ... Pedals.jpg

hello to everyone,
New here.
So I'm looking for years to get a motion seat for Gran turismo since I played it at the nurburgring which was mind-blowing. (It's a huge rig with big pneumatic arms).
For years I been also trying to find out how to built one. Then I fall over this site. First I was all hyped thinking here was the answer to all my questions. Fail. After searching a lot, many of you thought of very different and clever ways to built such a rig.
Yare supposing to get the signals directly out of the wheel (In which case i would have bought the g27 so I can open up my g25 which has no warrenty no more). Nice idea, but probably a lot of work and programing to do to get it right.

I tought now, (right now) that there must be a better way. Then I tought that gaming chairs have the most we need built in... so I googled for gaming motion chairs available for console. Then I found a seat named Gyroxus. Looked the videos to see how it moves. Seems quite descent maybe a little less stong on the g' forces than the big one for the pc.
But taking this one, maybe ripping it apart. putting in bigger and stronger motors, installing a normal racing chair on and voila we should have something real for gt5.

I fact I really hope, (like i read here) , that either sony will support the one everyone has there for the pc (best choice), either that an other constructor will add support for gt5, That's the only reason i need it. D'box seems interesting too but no console. Worst case no one get's one out, and here nobody could firgure it out too.


it's just a thougt and i would be pleased to get some commentarys about this, if it's a good idea :clap: or stupid. :thbd:

Gyroxus doesn't have any motors. The only power source is the weight of the person leaning in the chair.

Hello People!!

I tryed to conect my pneumatic cilinders to the forcefeed back motors.. It wil work.. look


But it´s realy not real feeling!!!

That was also my first thought.. and then i saw this website.. more people spend a lot of money to try to conect it like this

Greetz Ralph

I thought you might break your neck in that machine it is that powerful.

That is hilarious!

I think Fahim is correct.... that thing might just kill you. I love the part in the other video

at the end when the shift falls off. I thought you might cut your leg off!

Very cool stuff though. I can't wait to see you sort it out. Have you thought of using large linear actuators? They are much more precise. I see your rig bounce around quite a lot.

That second video is amazing where the shift falls off. Awesome video. LOL.