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DIY 2DOF with Traction Loss to come.

Discussion in 'DIY Motion Simulator Projects' started by p00ky, May 7, 2020.

?

How foolish am I?

  1. Very

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. Beyond measure.

    1 vote(s)
    100.0%
  1. yellofella

    yellofella Member

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    Hi @p00ky
    Here is a few answers to some of your questions and a couple of pointers/advice for you.
    Ok so you mentioned that the motors were turning off when they reach the clipping point. This is most certainly the SMC3 disabling the motors when they reach the motor off value in the code. ( motor off value is slightly before potentiometer max/min value and used to stop mechanical damage to the sim rig) Try to use less motor angle by clipping it in the SMC3 software
    You mentioned that one of the pins on the Arduino uno has blown. My advice would be to get a new Arduino and set the blown pin one aside for other projects as you don't know what other damage has been done inside it. It controls a mechanical device that could harm the user if not controlled properly, not worth the risk for a few pounds imho.
    Now the advice.
    The potentiometers and wire that you are using are surely going to give you problems down the line so ill mention it now to save you some agro/frustration later. The cheap pots will give you proof of concept and are ok to setup with but realistically you wont have a good sim with them. My advice would be to use some high end hall sensor pots from bourns ect. They are about £20 each but are well worth it. The cheap pots you are using are very noisy as the wiper moves inside it where as the hall sensor pots are contactless so therefore noise less.
    They will wear quickly on a sim rig and the noise spikes will get worse and that's if you don't break the end stops first. Hall sensor pots don't have mechanical end stops so cant be damaged in the same way, my advice is invest some money into getting them.
    You will need to use shielded cable to connect the pots otherwise you will get loads of emi energy from the motor coupling to the pot wires causing loads of noise on the analog sensor leading to vibrations on your sim. I suggest to get an unused usb cable and cut the ends off to use the wire. Connect the outer shielding of the cable to ground at the Arduino end only to avoid ground loops.
    Back to the frame. Id leave it as it is if the welds appear strong enough for now as you will probably be changing/adjusting things as your sim develops and your sim building knowledge/experience grows. Ive had 3 revisions of my frame now due to upgraded parts and modifications that ive made and this will probably be the same for you so you could sort any suspect welds then. If you keep going back and changing things you will never go forward in the project. At the stage you are at with the build things like tidy wiring, good welding and appearance are not important. Focus on safety and getting a working sim then all the other bits are part of the r&d.
    If you got any questions then tap me up as im always happy to help a fellow uk sim racer and remember be proud of what you have created buddy.
  2. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Hi thanks for that wedge of advice :) Certainly hall Effect pots will becoming & I did replace the arduino. A kill switch would be a good idea & i'll defintely try the sheilded USB cable for the pots, as there is a little jitter there :D Right now however I'm trying to work out my design flaw and I think I've found it. I think I missunderstood how the crank angle effected the available torque & as it stands I think I have loads of torque going up (and at the top of the swing) but very little at the bottom, Im about to move the rod mount position by a small amount, which should at least get me closer to where I need to be. I'll post some SMC3 util pics soon enough and then evryone can have a good laugh at my trouble :D
    • Funny Funny x 1
  3. yellofella

    yellofella Member

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    Hi buddy
    Not sure I completely understand your problem reading the description that you posted but ill try to help if I can. Posting some pics of the problem or a quick video might help.
    Firstly buddy no one on this site will have a good laugh at your trouble. Were a community here and try to help where we can. We all started somewhere and have made most of the same mistakes that you will make along your sim building journey and only offer help and advice.
    Ok back to your sim. When you refer to crank arms we on this site tend to refer to them as lever arms. The connecting rods are the piece between the lever arm and the frame. Looking at your pics I see the lever arms are not in the right place which may be your problem. The leaver arm needs to be as near to 90 degrees as possible to the connecting rod when the motors are in the centre position as this should give you even torque each way.
    Hope this helps
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  4. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Ah yes, Lever Arms :) & yes after a long day of messing, grinding things off & rewelding them into a better position I've managed to cure at least some of my afflictions. You got it in one. When I first started the build I knew the Lever arm to push rod angle should be 90 but along the way I decided that the CTC Rest Angle should be at 45 degrees :/ One half of the brain didn't know what the other half was up to I guess. I then welded the bar that the Push Rod connects too slightly away from where it was suppose to be ( I put that down to to much haste at the end of a long day when I was first welding stuff together. So yes, yesterday I kind of realized what I had done & when I pumped the figures into SimCalc it turns out that at the end of the stroke I only had about 20Nm of pitch/roll torque. Now I must admit I'm a little lost on the whole Newton Metres, I get what they are but how many is enough is lost on me :D Anyways, I figured out where the bar should have been welded & corrected the Lever to Push Rod Angle in SimCalc & it jumped upto 138Nm for Pitch torque and 114Nm for Roll torque. Now again, I don't know how great that is over all but it's a lot better than 20 & Im only a small chap of about 9 stone.

    With all of that done it's made a huge difference. Before I couldn't set the Clip Input to anything, as if the motor hit it, it would stall at the bottem of the Levers swing. Not turn off but become unresponsive. Now I can set it and it does what it's suppose too which is nice. I'll do a post of SMCUtil at somepoint as I still get some weirdness there. Kp is lower than 300 Ki can't be set above 1 with out mad osscilations, Kd doesn't seem to have any effect and nor does Ks but that's for another day.

    One quick question though. If my rig is powered up before I open SMCUtil, it will jump around the room for a while even if it's in the Home position (as in dead centre and level). Is that normal? If I remember to wait and only power it up after SMCUtil has started, no bouncing at all. No such effect with SimTools itself.

    Oh and another quick mention, more for the general build post than anything to comment on. My neighbour let me borrow a second battery so I could try running the rig at 24v and it would just osscilate badly all the time. There didn't seem to be any chance of tuning it out. 12v just seems to work much better.
  5. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, DC motor, JRK
    Disregarding mechanical loss, to know what Newtons it will take to move something it will be Mass (kg) x Acceleration (m/s) = F (N). So to move 100kg at 0.7 m/s needs 70 N. It takes 9.8N per kg to counteract gravity. Keep in mind there is significant mechanical loss in things like the gearbox, depending on the ratio you may want to allow between 10% to 50% loss for worm gears and the greater the gear ratio the higher the % loss is: http://www.meadinfo.org/2008/11/gear-efficiency-spur-helical-bevel-worm.html

    Here is a lay person guide to PID tuning, hopefully it can help you regarding some foundational understanding, rather than just enter random numbers: https://www.xsimulator.net/community/faq/a-laymans-analogy-guide-to-pids-pid-tuning.219/
  6. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Thanks noorbeast. I did find you making the coment about newtons last night some where else on the site. I guess it's one of those... "If I had a penny for everytime some one said they don't understand Newtons" :)

    As for the PID, I shall take a look. I have tried to get my head round them in the past but the knowledge never stays with me sadly.

    Anyways, thanks for your help.
    • Like Like x 1
  7. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Ok, Ive run into a small nightmare. I updated Windows to version 2004 & tried out Dirt 2 and the Axis were moviong but very softly.

    This is edited because I had problems getting simtools to work again after reinstalling it but that much is fixed.

    The very soft movement isn't though :(

    Edit2* So it's something to do with the intensity slider. If I set the intensity to 100% then I get 100% intensity but anything lower and the intensity is like it's set to 0%. Normaly I have it set to 90% as 100% is a little much. Any help would be apprecited

    Edit3* Another observation is that the Game Engine window lags out if you drag it around the screen & I mean really badly. If you drag it in circles for a couple of seconds, it will follow along behind & when you let go of it, it will keep going round in circles for several seconds trying to catch up. I tried running Game Engine and Game Manager in compatabillity mode (Windows 8) & it made no difference to the intensity problem but the Game Engine window no longer lagged out.

    Hmmm, not sure whether to revert my windows install :/

    Edit4* So I did revert Windows back to 1909 & can confirm that everything works properly again. The Intensity Slider works as expected & the GameEngine window no longer lags out when I move it.

    So if you've updated to Windows 10 2004 and your intensity is off revert Windows back to 1909. & hopefully someone on the software side of things might notice this post and look into it at some point.
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2020
  8. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, DC motor, JRK
    As I mentioned that is one for @yobuddy to ponder, as he is the SimTools dev.
    • Like Like x 2
  9. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Ah thanks, I posted it in the support forum too which I see you've also replied too :)
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  10. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    So, traction loss it is then :D

    So first off I made some wheels.....
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    I should have taken some pictures when I made them but I didn't, so pffft. Anyways, I 3d printed them in petg. Not sure how that will fare but I made them the same size as standard skateboard wheels (they do have skateboard bearings in). I welded them to the bottom on an arc so the rig naturally rotates around a single point.

    I then started drawing on the floor :)
    [​IMG]
    It's a little hard to make out but the rotation point is on the far left. I put a nail in the floor and then traced out the wheels route with a pencil on a string.

    Now I know where there needs to be a track, I put the the bottom frame together.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Some may wonder why I used the lead screw as the pivot point. Simple answer.... I had it and matching pillow blocks.... (it also magically fitted snuggly inside my 25x25mm box section.)
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Which I added to the existing rig under the peddles.

    Heres the rig on the platform.......
    [​IMG]

    Im planing on a swing of 150mm which Im hoping is enough, we shall see.

    Heres the the motor driver....
    [​IMG]
    Cytron all the way! Seemed only sensible as Im already using the dual channel board.

    Im waiting on another wheelchair motor as the one I had wasn't going to cut it (long story which isn't intresting). It should arrive on tuesday which is my next day off.... w00t!

    & while I wait I need to read up on motion compensation for VR. I'd managed not bother up too now but I'm guessing it soon shall become a must. The question is how to attach an Index controller to the rig, securely but with out breaking it :s

    Anyways more to come after the weekend.

    Attached Files:

    • Like Like x 1
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2020
  11. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Tuesday came and so did my new motor.....
    [​IMG]
    Similar to the other 2 albeit that the motor itself is larger and the gearbox is smaller but with the same sort of reduction. So it's back to recreating what I'd made before....
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Lever Arm.
    [​IMG]
    3D Printed gearing for the pot (this one I made a bit small and split when I put it on the shaft :s)

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Reprinted gear with the lever arm attached.

    Now to attach it to the machine.......

    [​IMG]

    And some sketchy witing for testing......

    [​IMG]
    I keep on getting wires that are too big for the terminals :D But I'll sort it out properly at some point.

    Everythings working well at this point so I'm happy :D Hopefully this wioll be enough until the urge to completely rebuild happens :)

    Attached Files:

    • Like Like x 1
  12. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    As I hadn't as yet uploaded a video of the Rig in action I thought I best :)

    Dirt Rally 2.0, Argentina, Group B RWD



    I'm not going to complain with 7th :D
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Squarebob

    Squarebob Member Gold Contributor

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    Great job on the rig. I still haven't tried to sort out my MDDS drivers. Got other problems with my motherboard USB ports. Keep on. I love Dirt Rally also!!!
  14. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Thanks man, I appreciate the kind words. Whats up with your usb ports?
  15. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    So, not sure if anyone will see this or be able to answer my question.

    Of late when I go to use my rig it runs for maybe 60 seconds on any particular level, of any particular game but then resets to it's zero position. The motor drivers are still running, just dont respond to input. At that point I have to switch off the game & I will find that Sim tools Game Engine has crashed.
    Ive tried reinstalling the simtools & the game plugins many times but it doesn't make any difference. I've also tried lowering the settings for the games but again, no joy.
    I've also tried a couplke of atmega chips in my arduino (although I haven't swapped the whole board out as of yet) but no change either.
    I have also tried running individual motors on individual drivers at anyone time & I still get the same issue.
    I can run smc3Util forever without a problem but obviously, it's only running one motor at a time.

    Is there anything I should be looking at before putting my hand back into my wallet? As even if I put my hand in my wallet Im not sure what I should be replacing.

    edit* I should note that this happens if Im running on battery alone or battery with PSU, no difference what so ever.
  16. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Try swapping out USB cables, hubs and swap ports, as a micro USB disconnect will crash SimTools. Pay attention to your wiring, so they are not creating interference. You can try clip on magnets to help with shielding.
  17. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    You sir, are a gent and a scoller. I seem to have remedied the problem albeit in a round about sort of way. Your suggestion reminded me that when I upgraded to my 2080ti I had also changed my PC PSU. I didn't have much time for racing at that point so I hadn't checked that everything was still working. After a week or so of using the new psu I noticed that occasionally the boiler (which is in the same room) could interfere with my usb sound card. Again, didn't think to much about it as I simply switched to the onboard sound. a few weeks later is when I finally got an oppotunity to have a race again but it cut out on me. didn't thiunk much of it as I was still busy so left it presuming I might have to replace the drivers. Of course when I finally got back to looking at the problem I had totally forgotten about the replaced PSU & my sound card issues. Anyways, when you suggested shielding it dawned on me that maybe it was the PC PSU. So I popped back in the old one and everything seems to work fine again. Still need to give it a proper go but I got through 2 races and everything worked beautifully..... fingers crossed :D

    Just if anyone searches the tl:dr of it all.

    PC PSU problem - potentially bad sheilding on the 5v line

    Not up to snuff PSU
    Kolink 700w 80 plus bronze modular PSU - works fine in general but not good on the 5v line by the looks of things.

    Working PSU
    OCZ 500w.

    Anyways, if problems persist, I'll no doubt post but thanks for your input. Some times it just takes a little nudge in the right direction.
    • Like Like x 2
  18. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    So yeah, it's definitely working now, although gamevibe doesn't seem to register the game. I get the test tones but when in game I get nothing but that's another issue for another day & probably easily sorted.
    • Like Like x 1
  19. 김민혁

    김민혁 Member

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    Thanks for sharing the process in detail! This article was a great inspiration for me
  20. p00ky

    p00ky Active Member

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    Well I'm glad you liked it :) Does this mean your building one too? If so I'd be interested in your build log if you do one. & if you have any questions, Im happy to try and help, although I'm no expert.
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