Showroom My Second 2DOF+TL Sim with 200W Worm Drives G200-12

Oh no, while testing with Assetto Corsa, my Uni joint (just bolted to the base and not welded), gave away. Now back to the drawing board!

I have nearly completed but not yet finished my new Motion Sim. I have tried all my games (AC, R3RE, CCD on the PC and FH4 on the Xbox X One). All tuned up and working fine.

But one thorny issue I have is that during sway, I involuntarily turn the wheel (my Wheel/Pedal do not move with the Seat mover) thus end up loosing control of the car.

I am seriously thinking of mounting the Wheel/Pedal on a platform welded to the Seat mover. These are the photos of my Motion Sim.

@noorbeast , thanks a heap for your suggestion. I will video as advised and post it. Is there a file size limit for uploading big video files?

Mate, thanks for your offer to help me with this problem. It was noted that the Motion Sim skewing happens only when turning right while I deliberately crash the car. Otherwise it's fine.

This is the status of the Sim after the crash.

The Motion Sim is skewed towards right; the right-side motor M1 is slightly higher than it’s normal position; but the left-side M2 is at the highest point (hence the Motion Sim being skewed towards right); the TL-motor M3 is at it’s normal position.

The Motion Sim continues to have motions, but with the skewed position as it’s new “normal” position. It won’t return back to the proper normal position even if the game as well as the SimTools are shutdown or, if the power to the Arduino is turned OFF/ON.

However, it can be brought back to the normal position by launching SMC3Utils. It works instantaneously. This is my preferred method, or by a fresh downloading of the Arduino code.

I suspect that the game data from the crash is somehow locked in the Arduino's EEProm.

Screen capture of the simTools settings along with the Motor M2 positions before and after are attached.

Video of the game while running and the crash can be found at this YouTube link. Unfortunately, the game screen is hardly visible. I will try again with a screen record app, instead of the phone camera.

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This video shows as to what happens when I reset the Motion Sim back to it’s normal position by launching SMC3Utils.

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It was noted that after fine tuning with the TC, the incident of this happening has been reduced. I will continue to work on the TC and hopefully, get a better outcome.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I wiped my slate clean and started fresh on SimTools settings with LFS.

This is my Seat Mover Motor ID.

Axis Assignment.

Interface.

Virtual Axis Testing.

Moving the Sway slider right.
Moving the Sway slider to right causes M2 up, M1 down, Seat tilts right;
Axis 1a moves right, Axis 2a moves left


Moving the Sway slider left
Moving the Sway slider to left causes M2 down, M1 up, Seat tilts left;
Axis 1a moves left, Axis 2a moves right


Moving the Surge slider right
Moving the Surge slider to right causes M2 & M1 down, Seat to tilts back;
Axis 1a & Axis 2a moves right


Moving the Surge slider left.
Moving the Sway slider to left causes M2 down, M1 up, Seat tilts front;
Axis 1a & Axis 2a moves left


TC capture

This resulted in very jerkier motions. So, I edited and replaced with 100 first, not much motions, then gradually reduced by 10 step by step and finally settled done with 60 etc as below.


BUT, I still have that thorny issue of the Seat skewed towards right after I deliberately crash the car!. Only way I can bring back the Seat to it's normal position is by stopping the Game via the Game Manager and launching SMC3Utils or a fresh Arduino download.

Thanks a heap for your prompt response and suggestions. Certainly, I will follow your advise and include other motion data.

Now the good news.

I have managed to get rid of that thorny issue with the Motion Sim Seat skewing towards right after a deliberate car accident. Well, as I suspected with the Arduino EEPROM memory somehow freezing with the accident motion data, I remapped the Arduino sketch (I am using the SMC3.ino) for Motors 1 & 2., as I found this much easier than rewiring.
M1 L_PWM re-assigned from 9 to 10; M2 L_PWM re-assigned from 10 to 9;
M1 R_PWM re-assigned from 2 to 4; M2 R+PWM re-assigned from 4 to 2
M1 R_EN+L_EN re-assigned from 3 to 5; M2 R_EN+L_EN re-assigned from 5 to 3.
M1 pot re-assigned from A0 to A1; M2 pot re-assigned from A1 to A0.

Tested this with SMC3Utils and confirmed all worked well.

On SimTools, re-allocated the DOF1, DOF2/Axis 1a, Axis 2a accordingly.

Tested with the Virtual axis with the motors powered up.

Carried out game testing with LFS and ran TC.
Played the game for 15 minutes and deliberately crashed the most powerful car
BMW Sauber F 1.06. No problem.

Also tried with AC after re-allocating the Axis and carrying out the TC.

Played AC driving a Ferrari for about 10 minutes, staged few crashes and every thing was ok.

May be the proverbial Murphy was hiding in the Arduino UNO's EEPROM!!! The Motor swap and downloading the remapped sketch somehow cleared it (Recall that a fresh download of the sketch before reallocating the motor I/O's didn't work).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction wrt to the SMC3Utils.

I had a good look at these tuning parameters in the SMC3Util, such as the Clip Input and especially the Max Limits and noted that, if not correctly set, SMC3Utils will automatically shutdown the drivers and keep them disabled until reset, if the motors move beyond these limits, typically through inertia.

I didn't have this problem with my earlier ElChepo Sim, where I used the car windscreen wiper motors and a very light Cart buggy seat. Not much inertia.

Whereas in this rig, I am using 200 W motors and a far heavier real car seat. VERY HIGH INERTIA indeed!!

Now with these revised tuning parameters for SMC3Utils, I am doing well on the LFS, CCD and AC.

No more skewing of the seat mover.

I have now gone back to the original version of the Arduino sketch SMC3.ino without swapping the Motors M1 & M2.

All well that's ends well.