Articsimulator - Joyrider made of wood

Hello. Some of you may have read my posts, and before you get tired of me, I have desided to make a blog for my project. I am still in the beginning of this, but some may be interestet to follow it from the start. Some ideas and problems/questions I will stil post here on this forum

EDIT- okt 2010
I have changed the plans posted earlyer, so it was time to edit my first post.

My first plan was a simulator be based on Thanos joyrider with vipermotors, I have made Thanos H-bridge and Amc, and this was my first attemt to make any elektronic hardware.

I have now desided to build something similar to 2dof-wiper-motor-car-simulator-by-deriy-sato-t2405.html and 2dof-simple-wipermotor-chair-by-ua6aak-t2512.html The reason for this is that ut will be a faster build. I will consider a joyrider-sim later or maybe a combination of this two setups.

My ideas for a joyrider sim is posted in the next 5 pages

Fred

Hello fredspeed,

I´m Happy to see that another one would like to build also his simulator in wood.
My inspiration was alos thanos joyrider and the simcraft wood konstruktion.
At the momen my problem is that i am not sure that a wipemotor ist strong anought to move the konstruktion, a 32TFT an me ...

this ist my actual construktion:

The idea about joyrider is to make it balanced, so that it will need less force to move. In a prototype I think is a good idea to make the pivot points adjustable. I want to use laminated wood and as small dimensions as posible to make it lightweight. I dont know if i will manage to make it work before I have tried. I will use thin spruce planks and glue them together. Wood can be a strong material if you use it right, and I am trying to find a construktion that is as simple as possible. Ideas are welcome! 8)

You are welcome to look at my blog to see my plans so far!

Have you built your construction yet?

Fred

No I have my construction not yet built. I'm not sure whether the wiper motors such strong anought to lift it. I would first try to make some tests befor I buildt the construction.
If the wiper motors should not be strong enough I have switch to actuators and then I would build a different construction.
How do you want to move your construction ? thanos used steel cables with his wipe motors.
I wonder if I should do it with bicycle chains. That would not slip like steel cables or belts.

Martin

My beta Code Stimulator #2 is made of wood. Its not a playseat though... I wanted the actuators to only move the chair so it would be stronger more rigid realisitc movements. There will be more pics posted soon. And a youtube video featuring it action within a week.

To make the wood strong for certain things you can use metal corner brackets and stuff like that. Thats what I used. costs like 60 bucks for all the metal though! however my simulator is verry strongly put together.

I dont think the weight of the construction need to be heavy, compared to the weight of the body and hardware. If the rig is balanced i believe wipermotors will do the job like in Thanos pvc-rig. I am also thinking about using bicycle chains, but I am not shure yet!

Fred

I wanted it heavy.. I wanted it to never budge lol.

I dont know what budge means, but it certainly must be a wery good reason to make it heawy!!!!

Now I am almost finnished soldering H-bridge and Amc, but some of the parts was missed in the order, so i must wait some more weeks for some resistors and capacitors :no: But as said before; this is a project that will need some time. this is the first time I solder a pcb, so it will be exiting when i am ready to test it. I wish i had a local store with electronics...

Hy fredspeed,

great job!
'm already looking forward to new information

regards,

Just a little update: I have done soldering AMC. The leds light up as they are supposed to, but I got the unknown device 24 error message in ponyprog when I tried to program the atmega 8535. I got some help from the forum to check connections, power and cables, an all of it seems to be right, but still unable to programme it. I have now ordered new parts and will solder a complete new AMC. It will be some weeks before there is any progress here!

Did you try other Crystals, for example 22.1184 MHz, 18,432 MHz or 14.7456 MHz?. How do you connect to the AMC board (com port?)

Hi

I too have this problem 24 with ponyprog error, I tried all ways, I changed all the crystal from 18,432 to 14.7456, 22.1184 and 24 with both trying them all and 22pF capacitors 18PF but nothing. I also put the fix to Eric for ponyprog but still nothing, I could only configure the fuses twice but then I was unable to load the firmware. When I try gives me error 24 please a solution now I tried everything.
do you using simple LPT programmer consists of only about three or four resistors would be possible to load the firmware?

Hi Michael. I have tried a lot, and did get some help on the amc-topic-pages from page 76-82. http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/tro...ontroller-with-pwm-servo-output-t559-750.html This is the first circuitboard I have soldered (besides h-bridge) and I have little experience with electronics. So I believe its a good idea to solder a new in case of bad soldering. Before soldering a new one, I will try to replace the atmega. Have also ordered the atmega644 as I understand you have succesfully programmed. you I am using a com port in an older pentiumIII.

Fred

Maybe you make a very high resolution photo from the back of the AMC Board an post it, perhaps someone could have a look on the soldering and find something. .
I have the ATmega644P but i think you better would take a ATmega644 (without P)

Might be a good idea. On the amc-topic I got some tips using a multimeter, and I posted the results there. You are welkome to look at what I found there tronic-s-amc-motor-motion-controller-with-pwm-servo-output-t559-810.html

In my blog http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6MprTsBWm5Q/S ... -h/amc.JPG there is a higher rez picture of the soldering work on AMC. This is not the most beatiful soldering work in the world : . One reason is because I placed a couple of components wrong and had to resolder, Easy to ruin traces on the pcb

I also have one question about motors: I have two battery drills that runs on 12v. Does anyone know if the motors in this can be used instead of wipermotors? and in case not, why? The reason for asking is that i I would like to use them as the batteries are ruined anyway (they were cheap)

Hello again My AMC finally is programmed! Look at AMC topic about what I had to do! Now I have assembled both AMC and DSMHB, and done a test with small dc-motors as Thanos recomend. The leds light as supposed to when i turn the pot. Red light only when no motor is connected and both red and green when motor is connected. I am really happy that it seems like AMC and DSMHB communicate, and i have posted a video of the first test on Youtube.

Troubleshooting:
The motor turns only in one direction as you can see in the video, and i see tre alternatives for that:
-Wrong type of potentiometer ? (The type I have turns only about 300 degrees around)
-something wrong with my h-bridge ?
-Something wrong with programming/settings on the AMC

Ofcourse i will read posts here and try to find the solutions, but if you have som ideas you are velcome to let me know

BTW Thanos: Thankyou for sharing your boards. To me they look like art even before I have my sim up running. I will make a box for them, and I am thinking they should be in plexiglass or similar...like a juvel in a monter. 8)

Fred

-First check to see it you have this trimmer pot turned all the way clockwise.


-Maybe one the mosfets on your h-bridge is bad and cant activated thus only one direction
-Maybe you should check that you used correct resistors values on the DSMhb as proper values needed to turn on the mosfets.

-Last check the connections, you may missing the a contact or have a loose connection on that pin for that direction.

Thanos

Thankyou, that was fast!!! Try this tomoorow (late night here )