Question Total noobs need some directions: which way should we go?

Hi guys! I'm from Chile and a colleague from work and I decided to give the motion sim a try, driven by his passion for rally racing and mine for electronics and video games. We're total noobs, but as things are going, I think I'll be in charge of the moving seat system.

We're going for an Oculus-based sim because it seems a more immersive and we have a chance to get our hands on a DK2 in June and maybe get ourselves a Logitech G27 (the one with the gear stick). After reading through the forum now I have more questions than answers, but this is pretty exciting!

I wonder if you guys can point me in the right direction. Our goal is to have a relatively portable system that we can take to car shows and other geeky activities, something that doesn't break the immersion experience, it should be easy to replicate and cost-effective. These last 2 conditions are tradeable if the experience improves significantly by making it more complex or investing more. The idea is to make it a memorable experience and hopefully make it easy for us to guide other people that may be interested in building their own. This type of simulators are rare to non-existent here.

I already wrapped my mind around the idea that this is not going to be a short, cheap or easy task, so I'm not expecting a kit or someone to do our homework, but I would really appreciate your feedback about these questions:

1. Should I go for a seat shaker design or we can go straight ahead and do a 3 (or more) DOF? Which is best to make you feel like driving? I have absolutely no experience with any, so your thoughts are gold. Also not scared about building more complex systems.
2. Should I build a prototype? As I stated before, all I have is this Arduino board and I don't really know which components I should get for a prototype, except for a few small servos, and I don't know which type either.
3. For a full-scale system, what should I look for in a motor? We're considering a system that can be easily plugged in a house, so I guess low power and high RPM should be priority. Do you have any recommendations?
4. Which games and software should I get for the simulator? I mean, which would be the best game for a rally sim, what's the software to be used to communicate with the motion sim and if there are only a few specific games that work with it.

Thanks in advance and I hope you guys can help me out. I'm really looking forward into this.

And thanks in the name of all noobs for making this an awesome community!

Hi and welcome @beatokko a good place to start is the frequently asked questions section.... https://www.xsimulator.net/community/faq/
Also look for inspiration from others builds. With regard to motors, MotionDynamic 200W worm gear motors seem to be a very popular choice.

Welcome to the sickness

Some comments and opinions for whatever they are worth...

The DK2 is old and won't be supported much longer. You can freeze your computer build but it's apparently not to be supported past this year. The Rift and Vive both are much better than the DK2 and will be supported much longer. I recommend against the DK2 unless you get one very cheap.

A seat shaker / bass transducer is much cheaper than a motion seat but really adds a lot to the simulation. I've run just a seat shaker since I got my DK2 (now run the Vive) and if you look around here, I think just about everyone uses them on their setups. I don't have experience yet with motion (just starting my build) but would bet that motion without shaking would be ok but missing something. Feeling the engine, rumble strips, etc, is really cool and in my opinion, a must have even if you don't do motion.

Other than that, I wouldn't jump right in. Take your time exploring the various builds and start paper designing based on what you find. There are tradeoffs and compromise in all the designs. Some aspects of your build will be decided for you based on the parts and price available to you wherever you live. If you start buying without knowing the lay of the land you may buy some things twice as you learn. I'd recommend taking the time to read through each showcase build and make notes on what you like and don't like on each and what fits with what you want. A portable system will need to be compact - be sure to check Noorbeast's build.

As for motors, you need power supplies, motor controllers, and the motors themselves. For motors and gearing, there are straight gears as well as worm gears. Worm gears have lots of torque but you trade speed. Go with a low ratio and you get back speed but lose holding torque. It's a system, really. Some controllers are further broken down into a microcontroller like the Arduino and a separate H-bridge. Some are a single package. One consequence is how much you have to replace and at what cost if you blow one. The power supplies are the interface to hour home wiring and have their own characteristics and features. Lots of discussions here.

As RandomCoder noted, those worm drive motors are popular but a lot also run salvaged wiper motors (very similar), and also entirely different actuators. The motion components you get can rule out some motor controllers too depending on voltage and current. And if you go with wiper motors, beware an internal ground. It can blow controllers.

As to software, for rally, Dirt seems popular. You'll need the sim no matter how you choose to go so might as well get it and learn it, hook up the G27, etc. Later, as you start building or are getting ready to build, you'll also need SimTools from here to connect it to your platform and plugins for whatever sims you want to run. Again, as RC noted, the FAQs are very valuable.

It's very tempting to want to dive in with both feet but as you explore and see the choices others have made and ponder the reasons, you'll see there is a lot to this stuff. And because of that you want to spend time up front exploring and reading and learning. There are a lot of great ideas here and plenty of really cool and clever builds.

Lots to sort out but it's extremely interesting. I read a lot before I started buying stuff and still find things here that open my eyes to other options - better, cheaper, and more appropriate ways to build a rig. It's inevitable. But the more you learn up front, the better and more appropriate your own build will be.

Good luck and have fun!

Would try to make it "commercial" in the (somewhat distant) future, but the primary purpose is to have a show system that can be transported as easily as possible, lightweight and with easy assembly. As stated before, I haven't seen any system like this in Chile, except for really expensive professional purpose systems, which is not what I'm aiming for. I saw you made a build with an aluminum frame and that seems like a very good choice for the lightweight part, also to relief the motors a bit and use power to move the player instead of the whole weight of the chair and frame.

From some other threads I've seen the 2 DOF way seems more suitable for a VR headset, but I'm not sure as I haven't tried any simulators before.

@Zed that bass transducer part sounds great! Also, first time I read about that here. As I'm completely ignorant about which parameters you can assign in SimTools, maybe the engine can be assigned to a vibrator(s) instead of using low freq (inb4, game music/fx may interfere). What's your experience with simulators as a player?

I think I'll get a small set of servos and actuators to plug directly to an Arduino board for prototyping purposes and see how they work, I'll worry about power later.

Thanks guys!

Oh and we're going for oculus DK2 only because it's the cheapest system. It's not the best, but none of us has the money to go ahead and buy a Vive just "because". If we can get a moving seat system to work fine, we'll see later if a higher-tier VR headset is worth the expense.

If your intention is to demo the unit at public events then you will also need to build-in some adjustability to accommodate for various sizes.
First thing to note when doing this it that although it would be easy to buy a seat with runners, this also throws off the center of gravity and so it is preferable to adjust the wheel and peddle position instead.

Whilst searching for ideas, my favourite compact DIY solution is noorbeast's and my favourite commercial sim is the Atomic Motion System... http://www.atomicmotionsystems.com/?page_id=10244



I have no affiliation with this company and only came across their design whilst searching for ideas. I like how compact it is and the adjustability of the peddles and wheel. I have a young son who is always keen to 'help' me with my games and so this would be useful to have.

It also folds away very nicely (not that I'd ever put it away but for you requirement to transport!)...



Finally, it would be remiss not to mention that if you intend to allow the public to ride on your Sim then you will need to take out some form of public liability insurance just incase the worst happens.

OK, hold on a bit. We would evaluate the commercial feasibility in the future, but there's no commercial intent at the moment. This is purely recreational. I just mentioned that because I don't discard it, but there's a long way from an idea to its execution. Trust me, it's going to take us a long time before deciding this could have a commercial use and for sure, every finding we do we'll share here. No need to move the subject (at least for let's say... 2017?). STill trying to figure out how to use SimTools. I haven't even downloaded it.

Thanks anyway!

Both statements true.