Yet another SFX100

I will be exactly a month from a point I decided my old wooden rig with second hand T150 and office chair top is just not enough. Don't get me wrong - I used it for a few years and it worked very well and always bring joy to me. It was not ideal but definitely usable.

I was casually searching and building my dream rig when I noticed this site: https://opensfx.com/

It clicked in that exact moment. Alternatives were much pricier or looked kind of fishy - DOF H3 and Prosimu 3M. My wife always supported me and wanted some gift for me for a long time that I really want. I dont even know how but I started to order everything on the list. I was very excited as I created few phase build.

Phase 1 - Orders and Printing

I started with creating orders for everything that I needed.

My wheel pedals and accessories somehow went for Fanatec DD1 with standard kit of everything else.

For a static rig I liked Simlab P1 but they are usually out of stock with long waiting times and as I was already making motors DIY than why not to do the rig DIY as well?

I found this perfect website with plans for their products:

https://sim-lab.eu/downloads/
I didnt liked few decisions on P1 rig - e.g. that H shifter mount is not adjustable vertically so I did clone the design and make few adjustments.

https://imgur.com/a/lKJVvYa
This was created in very simple MAY-CAD software.

I got very good recommendation on Thanos Discord (join for tips or play games there) for this site to get aluminium profiles:
https://www.motedis.com/shop/index.php

They aren't the fastest but they have really good prices and everything that I needed.

Last part of orders were dedicated to SFX100 motors and I used german sites listed in shopping section on the official site. But most important was to get 3d printer as this on itself was exciting and new thing to play with until my orders arrive.

I went for Ender 3 Pro printer which is reasonable priced and offer very good out of the box quality. I didn't used Simplify 3D as Prusa Slicer (free) have original profile for this printer and it offers all requested features for printing the parts. Once again I got to perfect hints for faster printing of some of the parts here:
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/diablo2112s-4-axis-sfx-100-build.13571/page-3

Printing of the parts taken little more then one week with all the setup for both 0.4 nozzle and 0.6 used for some parts.


Phase 2 - Static rig

When I received all aluminium parts and wheel I started with static rig assembly. Again it was very fun experience as I like this kind of manual work after long day behind PC. Profiles are amazing as they are easy to connect together and offers adjustability in many directions. The assembly didnt took too long and I was able to play, test wheel and enter completely another dimension in terms of precision, sturdiness and immersion as 3 x 27 inch monitors as close as they can be are huge step up from my single 24 inch monitor very far away with my previous setup. I can recommend this site for setting up FOV and angles of them as this is very important to have exact to mimic real world:
https://forum.reizastudios.com/threads/tutorial-fov-triple-screens-immersion.4009/

Only thin that was missing on this site was calculator so I created one in Google Sheets:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oIUqFudYDpdyPzxx3_Sfosvy2sBnUTK9rB5oHIzAmiA/edit?usp=sharing

Part 3 - Motion

It took around 3 weeks to deliver all needed parts in my home. It wasn't as smooth as possible as some packages were postponed because of customs and some were delivered with few things missing that I had to claim, but in the 2020 COVID-19 crysis I consider this time as miracle. Anyway I really had something to do with printing, building up my static rig and setuping the new DD wheel.

I started to assemble the actuators and actually I can link few posts that helped me a lot:
http://www.bogdanberg.com/2020/02/08/diy-motion-simulator-part-1-intro-photos-shopping-list/
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/diablo2112s-4-axis-sfx-100-build.13571/
and of course official documentation

There is few things I would like to highlight as I did them wrong and they slowed me down:

1. Make sure you have bearings oriented the right way before you tight anything. It happened to me that I tight fixed bearing screw and then I realized it's upside down. It's not really fun to disassemble it if you used a lot of force to tight it
   
   
2. Make sure you orient thread insert with the part that dont have threads first into aluminum. It makes them perpendicular almost automatically. It is mentioned in official guide but apparently not enough as I started exactly opposite and had to use a LOT of force and some of the holes were not straight. But at the end I was able to assemble the motors anyway. I fixed the orientation in the middle of threading.
   
   
3. I bought grease gun but it was such a mess. The grease is coming out every other place just not into the bearing nut. I end up not using the gun and applying the grease directly into the ball screw. I think it will not have any effect. Also there is a lack of info about which grease to buy but I found out it should be Lithium grease (maybe others as well) and you probably find it in your local hardware store without problem.

Last thing I want to mention is that from the start I was thinking that maybe I want to have Traction loss added in future and found out that there is out of the box controller that supports this. Its called Thanos and its amazing as you dont need to assemble electronic parts of SFX100 and it offers connection to SimTools and Max of 7 Axes movement. So future upgrades for Traction loss is very easy.
https://www.tindie.com/products/tronicgr/amc-aasd15a-servo-motion-controller/
or
http://www.pt-actuator.com/a/products/p5/45.html

During reading through the different blogs for assembly I noticed that the power controllers of motors are mostly put into RAC cases that are pretty big and maybe not necessary. I did measure the controllers and started to find PC case that fits and I was able to find this one:
https://www.evolveo.com/sk/caer2

It have glass side so I will see parameters of controllers if I need to and I mounted Thanos at the top of of it for quick access. I think it looks better and it's more compact. Not sure if there will be problem with no cooling but I will add there one or 2 fans in that case.

I want to address one important thing and it is kill switch. I assemble one for Fanatec DD1 as original is in my opinion too much for 2 buttons and cable. I found DIY version that does the same for fraction of the cost:
https://opensimracing.com/blogs/news/direct-drive-emergency-stop

I did exactly the same for SFX100 as Thanos offers this support out of the box with this diagram:
https://github.com/tronicgr/AMC-AASD15A-Firmware

Important part for both of the switches is that safety should be your number one priority. This aren't toys. Both DD wheen and motion platform can harm you and having this right next to you can save your or your rig from being damaged. I think this switches are time well spend and official documentations should spend little more time promoting them. I had this experience with my DD1 with beta drivers and Im glad I had the estop right next to me and could press it:


My current state is motors testing, attaching to rig and my first drive. With me luck.