Showroom 6DoF Winch Motor Flight Sim Platform

Hi Historiker, For info - the 43A Chinese H-Bridges are good value as long as you don't need to drive the motors hard. The ones on my seatmover are fine and haven't had problems but the traction loss one that has to move the whole rig shuts down with over temp if I use it too much (with fan).

Rufus, thanks for the update! Have you tested the dual motor Chinese MotoMonsters yet? I have one of those already but have not had a chance to test it out.

A little progress today. I am waiting for a customer to decide on excatly how deep they want their drawers made. So meanwhile I am welding up the framework for my 6DoF and mounting the motors.

Still need to weld the connecting rod mounts onto the top platform but that should only take an hour or so tomorrow.

looks good

That good looking!
Already have 6 engines.
H bridge that you will use? Chinese 43A?

I have two Pololu 755s and a Chinese Monster Moto clone. Another CMM clone is on its way. I did not get much done today, I broke my last metal cutting band saw blade

Oh well, I needed to clear it away anyway and get started on a customers job.

@Historiker not using an angle grider, suppose dont want to burn down the Woodworking shop from sparks.
Bugger really want to see this one boogie, oh well, work must come first so that we have the funds to play with our toys.
Thanks for keeping us all informed.
Watching closely.

Thanks Rob.

Hey Rene, we are going to have to add a new radio button to the profiles page for 6DoF under "My Motion Simulator"

Merchane has his up and running, mine hopefully soon. lol

Mechanically the platform is ready but I am still waiting (and waiting) on another Monster Moto Chinese clone.

I will wire and connect the electronics over the next few days and test out the four winches that I do have motor drivers for but full implementation will have to wait until the part is here.

The connecting rods are a bit long but the longer they are they more range of movement I can get out of the Hiem joints. I had thought to make them as short as possible but that would have resulted in binding at the joints as the range of motion is not more than 30 degrees.

Also added the six castors so I can move the platform around the shop as needed. I might have to put together some type of wheel block if the surge and slide motion ends up moving the contraption around the floor

Hi Historiker !
You deserve many compliments!
What a nice piece of sim now! You will be able to put a whole car on it!

I have some questions for you about your design:

Can your motor's rods make a full turn or not?
I have seen that you did 2 different rod mountings. The left is shifted : is it still strong enough?
I'm wondering how you will be seated: where will be your legs?​

Yours
Mat

Hi Mat,

I am using two different winch motor types. Those from my 2DoF I had to weld steel tube onto in order to have more side strength, the new ones have smaller gear wheels and those I built up and added steel tube to as well. I am hoping the welds hold, they are pretty beefy, but you are correct in your assessment that they may not be strong enough. On three of the winches I had to clear the bolt for the output shaft (smaller gear) and so had to create the offset. Those do indeed spin 360 degrees if I wanted them to. I had thought to add offsets to both sides of the gear and weld the arm all the way across but this raised the question of whether or not I would be able to adequately access the nut so as to tighten the gear to the shaft. If this does not work out I will go ahead and weld another spacer to the other side and make a longer armature for the gear.

Both types of winches have equal arm length and are equally shifted out so there is no difference between the two. Notice the larger assembly without offset on the gear wheel is mounted further out on the edge of the frame. Both are 6" from the center of the wheel. I can shorten this to 4" if that become necessary.

Right now the cross brace rod mount on the upper frame is mounted using hand clamps. I want to run through a few motion tests before I weld or bolt that down. Just to see what mounting point gives the best range of motion. I might shorten that mounting pipe if I need to later, or drill more holes so I can do further refinements.

The upper platform is just a place to put my simpit. I may use the DoF sled for a while if the motors/winches can handle it or I might try to make a lighter sled assembly. I have some ideas on mounting motor cycle spring assemblies to each corner in case the winches need help supporting the weight. The spring assemblies are part of the motorcycle shock absorbers. I can remove the oil from the shock allowing free movement and use the coil over springs to help the winches do their work. If this were seat mover I would have no worries at all. Merchane has already proven this with his excellent build.

I will do weight tests by placing the old 2DoF sled on top with the balance point in the center of the assembly and then adding weight to see where the failure point is. I plan on using 20a fuses in line with the motors in order to protect the motor drivers while testing.

Since it seems that my Monster Moto is on back-order I might have to look into ordering more Pololu 755s or some other replacement motor driver.

All excellent questions Mat, thanks for asking for clarification and I hope I was able to answer them.

Thank you sir!

I built three electronic housings with fans for the arduinos and motor drivers today. Hopefully this will help with the cooling. Not sure I will have any issues with the Pololu 755s but I am worried about the Chinese drivers although Merchan-e has had very good luck with minimal cooling.

80mm fans

With the chineses stuff it all depends on how hard you want to push them, I have found recently the tracks on the pcb are a bit thin, prone to blow out at 30amp which the driver can easily peak at. But feel you are on the right track keeping them down to 20amps. The winchs will handle more had run mine up to 45amps, well 45 amps recorded on direction change, but that was pretty fast and wicked motion from the Jrks.(which has the same driver inbuilt).

Too early to see some sketchs , or you just sucking and seeing and experimenting to find the measurements. Just thinking it might help a couple of more people to get into 6DOF.
Another one on the drivers leave an air gap under the cards too as it will allow for quicker cooling, these drivers can get dam hot.(well to the point of burning you if you touch them).

And still waiting.....

Oh dear! good luck...
Hopefully, you're waiting for something that exists

What I found today:

The Menards winch motors do not reverse.

They have one way bearings installed on the output shaft.

Sorry, I had assumed the motors were reversing. I tested them when I got the first one but did not think to reverse polarity. I got lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) and connected them with the correct polarity when tested.

How I fixed it: Using a drill press I bored out the bearing needles (.450), then I found some brass bearings around the shop (door hinge pin bearings from a 1990 Chevy P/U). I bored these out with the drill press (ok, I actually used my lathe but if you do not have one a drill press works fine) to .395. Then just press or drive the brass bearings into the housing. The original steel outer bearings will remain after you drilled out the needles (what is that part called? Race or some such?) you will need this to drive the brass bearings into. Then take an over large drill bit (I used .5") to drill off the shoulders of the brass bearings as it will hit the motor shaft otherwise. In other words make the inner housing smooth like it was when you cracked it open.

Put it back together and you have a tight reversible motor.

UPDATE: @boosted-lt1 pointed me to the correct replacement bearing, it can be found here:

http://www.bocabearings.com/bearing-inventory/Needle-Bearings/20183/10x14x12-HK1012

Some pictures to illustrate

you is a handy bloke for sure! The set up looks great. As for lockable castors, that will help, but can you imagine the fun of the sim shifting around the floor while in game!