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Showroom Grigory’s 6DOF 24V DC

Discussion in 'DIY Motion Simulator Projects' started by Grigory, Aug 9, 2016.

  1. BlazinH

    BlazinH Well-Known Member

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    Pitch, roll, and yaw may be base coordinates and and surge, sway, and heave vehicle coordinates also. @yobuddy or @value1 are our main experts though.
  2. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, 6DOF
    I decided to modify the cockpit to better suit a new seat that I purchased to replace the burned one.

    Here is the result:

    IMG_3681.JPG IMG_3682.JPG

    IMG_3683.JPG



    IMG_3689.JPG IMG_3688.JPG


    Mechanical part seems to be mostly ready (I use one motor for testing electronics, so the stick works as a place holder for now):

    IMG_3697.JPG
    • Like Like x 6
  3. bruce stephen

    bruce stephen Hammer doesnt fix it, must be electrical

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    45degrees.png
    be sure to set your start/rest point at 90degrees.
    keep it up. it looks awesome so far.;)

    edit: i see it is correct on your model. Sry if you are already aware.....
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2016
  4. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Yup, thanks :) it will be 90 degrees between the rod and the lever when gas springs are in the middle of their travel.
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  5. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Received the Sabertooths today: tested them with LiPo battery, Arduino and one of the motors with mounted Hall effect pot. Seems to work just fine with SMC3 code, which I slightly modified to support Sabertooth packet serial mode.

    I also bought Kangaroo X2's just in case, but I am wondering if it would actually make any sense to use them instead of PID implemented in SMC3.
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  6. BlazinH

    BlazinH Well-Known Member

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    RufusDufus did a great job of adding comments to the SMC3 sketch making it quite easy to follow didn't he @Grigory? Since you seem to be handy at figuring things out you yourself and seem to like doing it too, I challenge you to do the same with the Kangaroo! Dimension Engineering says it will work good for motion simulators but so far no one that has tried it has come up with very good results so people aren't wanting to use them much yet. It would be great if you could change that! :cheers
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
  7. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Another weekend and some more progress.

    Finally painted the base:
    IMG_3724.JPG


    and the moving platform:
    IMG_3727.JPG

    Installed the new seat:
    IMG_3728.JPG IMG_3729.JPG IMG_3741.JPG


    Started to put the power supply wiring together:
    IMG_3730.JPG
    • Like Like x 3
  8. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    Absolutely!

    Well, I'm a bit anxious to get this thing move for the first time :) I'm thinking that Kangaroo research will be my plan B, if arduino/smc3 route does not work as intended.
  9. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Received the diodes today.

    IMG_3755.JPG

    Meanwell technical support says that SDR-960-24's have no built-in protection, so diodes are required to make sure reverse currents from the motors do not harm the PSU's.

    The four PSU working in parallel may provide up to 52*4=208 Amps and my motors consume up to 29A*6= 174 Amps at max load, so the diodes are quite beefy, each of the two modules handling 2x96A.

    I am not sure how much current the rig will consume in normal operation and how hot the diodes will get. Anyway, I will mount them on a heatsink and add a fan on top:

    IMG_3756.JPG
    • Like Like x 1
  10. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    Ok, after almost a month of travels I finally have enough time to dedicate to my build.

    I have finished manufacturing all needed mechanical parts, placed motors on the base, assembled power supply system and wired all arduinos and sabertooths. Moving cockpit is not yet mounted, I want to make sure first that the levers themselves move in a reasonable manner.

    Each individual motor seems to work just fine when commanded through SMC3 Windows Utility -> Arduino running SMC3 code modified to support Sabertooth packet serial -> Sabertooth, however I've encountered strange problems when trying to run all six motors with Simtools.


    The situation is as follows:

    1) I have three arduinos with SMC3 code, each connected to two motors through Sabertooth 2x60A
    2) Arduinos are connected to a powered USB hub and then to a laptop running Simtools. Laptop sees three COM ports.
    3) I've set up interfaces like this:
    1.png
    2.png
    3.png

    4) Axes are set up like this:
    ax.png
    ax lim.png


    As I wrote earlier, each motor can be very well controlled through SMC3 Utility, however with Simtools the motors behave strangely:

    1) Jump when axis value crosses zero:

    2) Only one motor in each pair rotates when slider is moved by a small amount:

    What can be a reason for this? Did I set up something incorrectly?
  11. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Trying to understand what's going on I used this great ability of SMC3 to interface with Simtools though UDP. Here's what I am getting:

    Simtools is sending some strange values for axis positions below zero. There is a gap between zero and +1, then nothing between zero and about -80, then some random fluctuating values between -80 and -100.

    I am wondering what have I done wrong?
  12. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Experimenting further (PC is not connected to the rig, so no feedback, just target values showing):

    int.png

    ax.png


  13. SilentChill

    SilentChill Problem Maker

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    I'm not totally sure but I don't think you can run scm and simtools at the same time using the same comport ??

    I might be wrong though
    • Agree Agree x 1
  14. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    I'm using UDP. Simtools sends through UDP and SMC gets it and passes through to COM
  15. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    Problem solved. Somehow it was related to my laptop: everything works (almost) fine on the stationary PC.

    Almost -- because when using COM ports directly from Simtools motors get a bit out of sync, with 0.5-1s lag between motors in pair. It all works great, however, with three instances of SMC3 utility listening to to three UDP interfaces and forwarding commands to COM ports.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  16. bruce stephen

    bruce stephen Hammer doesnt fix it, must be electrical

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    Smc3 Should not be running on your PC along side simtools. Maybe I missunderstood? It should only be running on your Arduinos. The data should come from the game (Via the pluggin) then to simtools then to com port interfaces as set in simtools then smc3 running on the Arduinos.
  17. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    It is possible to setup Simtools to send commands over network through UDP and then listen to these commands with SMC3 PC utility. Utility may then pass commands to Arduinos. It's recommended to run SMC3 on a separate PC, however I run three instances of SMC3 utility together with simtools and the game itself on a single computer without visible issues so far.

    I do not know why with direct interfacing to COM ports I get non-synchronous motor movements, but anyway I like the UDP solution as it also allows to live-tune PID while in game.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  18. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    I finally got it moving!




    I probably need to make the rods stiffer...
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  19. SilentChill

    SilentChill Problem Maker

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    I think your arms are just too long,.

    Awesome work tho great to see it moving :D another 6DOF is born
    • Agree Agree x 1
  20. Grigory

    Grigory Active Member Gold Contributor

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    I actually think that I may eventually need to make the arms even a bit longer -- my gas springs do not fit under the cockpit. Right now everything moves just fine with me on top, Sabertooths not getting too warm, but the test sessions were not very long.


    Thank you! There is so much still to do with tuning (I tried riding with Oculus and the current moves cause motion sickness almost immediately), but I am so satisfied to get to this point finally! :))