Another 2DOF (with USA-based sources)

I love everything about this and would like to use it as the inspiration for my own build, if you don't mind.

My space is also constrained, and am USA based, so whatever you can share would be appreciated.

Right now I am still trying to decide on dimensions, so if you have something with the dimensions you used that would be great. Also the 3d printing design files?

I have so many questions, but I will hold off... for now.

Thanks!

Hey @Kevin123, glad to hear you could get some inspiration from this! I'm attaching my MayCAD file as well as MayCAD BOM, but that comes with a big warning:

Only use these to see the extrusion dimensions. The connectors are not complete and the positions of the extrusions are NOT EXACT. I adjusted them during assembly.

The small 4" parking extrusions could have been a bit taller. I had to print a pretty tall adapter to get them to work. Also ignore the prices in the BOM. I bought these from Tnutz and the price was much lower.

The basic dimensions are:

base: 32"x26"
seat level: 24"x20"
slider level: 32"x20"

The 26" width was specifically chosen to easily get through doors, as my son also wants to use it in his room sometimes.

Regarding the 3D printing files, I currently have 30 custom parts. You won't need all of these, and some would only fit my boards. For that reason, it may be best to give you Fusion files instead of STL, so that it's easier to adjust. Do you have Fusion?

Let's start with the nylon track, as that's necessary for the sliding tray and not commercially available. I printed this standing straight up for durability. You'll want to adjust the height to whatever you need (the attached file is probably some random height). Note that I had to print two extrusions per side, but you may need more depending on the z-height of your printer (mine is pretty tall). This is how I printed mine:



Anyway, hope this helps get you started! Feel free to ask for more details when ready.

@congb17, Thanks for the info. I understand what you are saying and am planning on adjusting things based on my electronics and seat, but seeing the proportions you used is a big help.

I use Fusion 360, so those files should be great.

What nylon filament are you using? I have a Prusa MK3S+ so my build height is not quite what you have, but I can make it work.

I just got a notice that some of my electronics order from AliExpress arrived in country, so it's starting to feel real.

@Kevin123 Yeah, those AliExpress notifications can be a real tease, but it's great to hear your parts are stateside now!

I use Polymaker Nylon (). It seems basically indestructible when printed well.

There's one more structural part you'll need if you want to do the sliding floor. By itself, the u-joint isn't tall enough, so you'll need some sort of riser. I installed one of these spacers on the base level, and one on the seat level (facing down). That gave me the height I needed. I printed the spacers in PETG with something like 6 walls and 80% infill. That may be overkill, but they're solid as a rock and do support a lot of weight.

@congb17 Thanks for the spacer. I will compare to my u-joint and see if any changes are needed.

I see some builders using the same (or similar) strap/turnbuckles around the motors. What is that strap called, and where did you get it? After getting everything set up, do you think it is necessary?

I found a local shop that has 1.5-inch extrusions and hardware that I can pick up, but I would need to do my own cutting. Trying to decide between getting them local vs ordering pre-cut from Tnutz.

What was your experience like ordering from Tnutz?

Thanks.

@Kevin123 The motors are bolted to the 4545 extrusion, but only one hole can line up with the extrusion slot. (It looks like @scruck managed two somehow, but I'm not sure how.) So, I drilled and tapped the second hole.

The back of the motor is held with a telescope mount (I got mine from eBay--100mm inside diameter). Between the motors I have a 3D printed tube, and then a turnbuckle on top to apply tension to the motors and tube. That made it super solid--like one big motor. Before all that, things felt a little loose, but it could have been my imagination. It's extremely rigid now.

I'm super happy with Tnutz and ended up ordering three times. All of the extrusions are cut with great precision, so everything fits together perfectly and without gaps. I ended up cutting one piece myself and it was WAY worse than the extrusions from Tnutz. The orders took about 5 days to process and then another few days to get here from the East coast. I'd highly recommend ordering from them if the price is similar.

While I'm really happy with the results of this rig so far, I drive a convertible in real life and just felt like the rig was missing that sense of speed you get with the top down. I looked at the various wind projects, but wanted something that could use a large household fan that wasn't attached to the rig.

I bought off-the-shelf Arduino modules and re-wrote the wireless UDP code to work for wind simulation. Here's a view of the electronics (the ESP8266 Arduino is isolated under that riser):



It automatically connects via WiFi when plugged in:



The ability to use a household fan means I get more airflow without compromising the compact size of my rig. We already use the fan around the house, so there's nothing extra to store. I just need to plug it in.



This ended up working much better than I expected. The fan speed synchronizes with vehicle speed perfectly and really adds an extra layer of immersion. NoLimits 2 also feels a lot more realistic!

I should note: working with AC and this type of controller require extra caution and this isn't for everyone. Aside from the dangers of mains AC, it's critical to make sure the fan used is electrically compatible. It's also important to make sure the fan is either off or has enough power to turn--in other words not let it stall in a partially-powered state.

I wanted to try bass shakers but knew that installation would be pretty invasive. I needed to take off the seat, but that also gave me a good opportunity to get a clear picture of the controller housing, heatsinks, and seat mount:



After removing the seat, I found that the screw holes on the bass shakers were slightly over the edge of my seat support. So, I mounted them at a slight angle and drilled/tapped additional mounting holes. It's not perfect, but it's very solid and gets the job done:



Once again, I really didn't want more wires. I want my rig to be fairly portable and setting up an amp and speaker wires each time would be a huge pain. So, I decided to try a Bluetooth amplifier. It's only 50mm wide, so I was able to 3D print a nice 4545 mount for it to attach to the rail under the seat. Since it accepts up to 27V input, I was able to wire it in directly to my power distribution.



So far, this setup has been working well. With no extra wires, the bass shaker connects instantly to my PC when powered, and works really well with Game Vibe. That said, I think that both the wind simulator and seat belt tensioner added more to immersion than this. It helps, but is more subtle, not like the other two.

Like many flight sim enthusiasts, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of the VKB TECS throttle. I realized, however, that even if this vaporware suddenly materialized, I wouldn't have a way to use it with my current rig. So, adding some sort of "arm rest" mounting option became a priority.

The main problem is that the seat is wider than the base, so I can't just run an extrusion straight up from the seat level base. I looked at a lot of options, and finally found a 5mm thick very solid bracket on Amazon. It "wraps" around the seat and lets me mount short 4545 extrusions in the arm rest positions.



When I do get a throttle (or stick shift), I'll design a 3D printed slider mount so that I can slide it on to the arm rest mount. I threaded the hole in the end of the extrusion so that such a mount could easily be bolted in place. For now, they're just great handles for NoLimits!

You rigs ended op looking awesome , like the black alu profile more than my silver.
clean and small footprint , just excellent work.

I'm stil working on my rig and have some questions.
-Is your 480W psu strong enough for both motors ( 250W each).
I have a 1000W psu but fans are really loud , so looking for a fanless solution.

-What are your smc3 settings ?
The movement on my rig feel like litlle steps , not smooth. maybe your settings will work for mine.

-Did the springs you added help with smooth motion?

I am also interested in your settings, and also what software you are using, SimTools, FlyPT Mover, something else?

Thanks!

Thanks! While it looks good, there are a few disadvantages to the black: it's easier to leave a visible scratch and there are fewer extrusion types available.

So far so good! I was originally worried about this and that was before adding lights, servos and bass shakers. But even with all that, I don't seem to have any problems with power. I did turn down the voltage to around 20V but so far it's been 100% reliable.

I ordered springs and tried to install them, but there was just no great place to mount them. I ended up testing with a few temporarily mounted and didn't really notice much difference as the rig is already pretty smooth.

Mine sort of felt like that at first as well, but after some fine tuning (especially smoothing) that went away. Let me walk through my settings.

Before I do, a bit of a disclaimer. I really don't know what I'm doing and am not an expert at this. These settings work for me, but I know some things aren't recommended (like 80% x2 for pitch). Here are the main settings:





Axis 1 & 2 are the SMC3, and axis 3&4 are the belt tensioners. While roll felt pretty extreme at 50%, pitch didn't feel quite right and felt like it wasn't moving enough. That's why I changed to 80%, which seems to work great. (I just noticed my sway is 35 and 34--there is no reason for that, just a typo. Should be 35/35)

The filter helped a lot, I used 30% smoothing:


Here are the settings for my fan:



When I first started, I didn't pay any attention to game optimization in the tuning center. That was a mistake. The tuning center helps bring a game to life. At the very least, capture the min/max for each game just to be sure you're in the proper zone.

One interesting problem I had was that the bass shakers were constantly on for No Limits 2, regardless of whether I was moving or not. This completely broke the effect, and made it seem a lot less real. I fixed it by setting the minimums to a small value above zero. That way, when the vibes are set to zero, they are actually zero. This, and a few other tweaks, make the bass shakers MUCH more realistic and a better addition to the rig than I previously reported. Here's an example:



The rig moves very smoothly and quietly. It is completely silent. I don't feel any "stair stepping".

That said, I do have one problem. When using SMC3Utils with say a sine wave, the rig will go forever perfectly smoothly. Same with the SimTools output tester. But when a game is loaded, it occasionally "hiccups", like I unplugged and re-plugged the USB or something. I'm not quite sure what causes that, but it is relatively rare so I haven't paid a lot of attention to that.

If anyone has any suggestions for improving my settings or fixing the "hiccup" please let me know! Again, I'm not an expert. While these settings work for me, they may not be correct. Hope this helps!

Using SimTools with SMC3. I started with the SMC3 mod for SaberTooth, but added an LED light controller. Eventually I'm planning to move to a wireless ESP32. I have the code working, but need to make a custom PCB for that and have been too lazy recently, haha.

Lazy... I would not have used that word to describe you, at least from what I have seen in this thread.

Thanks for the info on the settings and software!

Thx for your reply.
I ordered a meanwell 480-24V Psu (fanless

I mostly use Flypt with MSFS and haven't used simtools besides some testing.
I was looking for your settings on the arduino (so in simtools utility)
my settings are KP 350 en PWMax on 130 PWMrev 100, but still find it not smooth enough.



I got 2 bungy cords on the back of my rig to get rid of the lash on the motor and it does seem to help.

Thank you @noorbeast for this gentle reminder! After reading more and experimenting with the AxisCompare utility, I realized that my settings were way off and I was clipping a lot. It felt generally ok, but since this is my first simulator I didn't really know what it should feel like.

Additionally, I think combining the belt tensioners with the main SMC axis was a mistake. So, I separated the two and made sure that no DOF exceeded 100%. The movements are less extreme, but more accurate and life-like. I haven't really fine-tuned anything, but these seem to work much better than the settings in my last post:




I'm really glad @Kevin123 and @SaintFrank asked about settings. Otherwise I wouldn't have realized my mistake. Thanks again @noorbeast!

I hope the power supply works well for you--I'm really happy with mine. For my job I have dealt with MeanWell and their team before and am really impressed with their quality and company.

Here are my SMC settings. I am sort of hoping that I've made some mistake here as well so that I can get even better results. I forget what my thought process was in selecting these, so again please don't assume my settings are correct:



Does your rig also feel choppy in the SMC3 utility or only in-game? Mine was very smooth in the utility but choppy in game until I turned on the smoothing filter. Anyway, hope this helps!

@congb17 and @SaintFrank (and possibly @noorbeast ) I noticed that your SMC3 version is 0.80. Mine is 0.70 . I am using MODE2 with the Chinese IBT-2 driver and source from GitHub. Is there a new version available, or maybe the 0.80 is for a different driver?

Thanks