steve2112

now you've got me all interested in the idea. damn you macthai75! i agree the airbag is a bad idea, a mechanical system with linear actuator seems fine, but all the linear actuators i've seen on ebay are too slow, 5-10mm/sec

that's cool. i could use hot water bottles for the chair activators, and for the pump, i guess a foot powered dinghy pump controlled with a worm driver motor interesting idea?

i wonder if i could use some kind of airbags attached to my existing seat. i'm not crazy about the idea of cutting my racing seat into bits, it looks so nice now

does that G seat thing really work? i mean feel like real G forces?

great ideas, thanks most of the time build was waiting for china post (i know you know how that feels!). i would say the mechanical work was about 4 days, the electronics, 1/2 a day and software setup and tuning, 2 days. i should add that info to the video. of course, had i seen my video before had, i could have cut that in half steve

here is the description of how i built it and set it up its working great now so time for some flying, until my next project! steve

i just added the .lua file here this is a major improvement over the standard DCS plugin Export.lua

flying inverted will be exactly like flying level the way i have it set as anything close to roll=180 will generate a roll of close to zero. i don't see any way around this other than one of those full 360deg 2DOF rigs which look awesome but a major building commitment, and not something i have the space or time for. i agree about car racing sims, a few degrees is probably enough and they are concerned about surge (acceleration/braking) and sway (side ways acceleration). except for going up and down steep hills, pitch isn't important for them and a car can't climb a vertical hill, so yes you are right, my only real interest is aerobatic flight sims. even a multi-million $ commercial flight mosim can't pitch and roll like my system can. as many people have said, its almost impossible to truly simulate the real feeling of a aerobatic flight. the only thing that comes close is that huge arm thing in an aircraft hanger size room. so give my constraints, i think my fun/$ ratio is quite high

yes, i felt from day 1 that having a big range, especially on pitch was important. all the sims i've seen on the tube seem to have pitch +/- about 5-10 degrees at the most. i have about +/-25deg usable right now and it feels great. when you are in a near vertical climb/dive you really feel it. i'd love to go more. i know some of the people on xsim were saying don't bother with that, but i never believe the conventional wisdom, i always like to check stuff out for myself and in this case i'm sure i was right. i also think i was right about the 6:1 gear system. its simple math really, that motor we are all using has far too high a shaft speed to drive the actuators directly, but some know it alls on xsim like to make out that i'm "trying to get something for nothing" by gearing the shaft speed down to a more practical value, when in fact what i've done is matched the speed and torque requirements of the system to the motor. by not gearing, people are overloading the motor and effectively getting a lower speed by stressing the motor. also, roll angle isn't so important i think. more than 25 degrees and you are starting to fall out of the seat, so i'm happy to stay where i am on that, but i am thinking about ways to get even more pitch. i plan to do a detailed video on both the mechanics and the software setup here it is with the roll and pitch fixes i added no more jerky movement at extreme pitch and roll angles, and now i can increase the range of motion safely steve

hi everybody, i've fixed all the jumping and jerking around problems at extreme pitch and roll (for DCS) if you want to try it, install the standard DCS plugin, not the one from riftflyer, then go to your DCS scripts directory, mine is at C:\Users\me\Saved Games\DCS.openalpha\Scripts exit your export.lua and change the body of AfterNextFrame to this ******************************* AfterNextFrame=function(self) local altRad = LoGetAltitudeAboveGroundLevel() local pitch, roll, yaw = LoGetADIPitchBankYaw() local accel = LoGetAccelerationUnits() -- convert to degrees to make the math easier pitch = pitch * 57.295779; roll = roll * 57.295779; --dbg_file:write(string.format( "p=%.1f r=%.1f ", pitch, roll)) -- STEVE reduce roll by when pitch > 45deg if pitch > 45 then local multiplier = 1- (pitch-45)/30 if multiplier < 0 then multiplier = 0; end roll = roll*multiplier --dbg_file:write(string.format("PITCH>45: p=%.1f r=%.1f m=%.3f ", pitch, roll, multiplier)) end -- STEVE returns roll back to zero as it passes +/- 90 degrees to avoiding the -179 to 179 flip that occurs in a full roll if roll > 90 then roll = 180 - roll --dbg_file:write(string.format("ROLL>90: p=%.1f r=%.1f ", pitch, roll)) elseif roll < -90 then roll = -(180 + roll) --dbg_file:write(string.format("ROLL<-90: p=%.1f r=%.1f ", pitch, roll)) end --dbg_file:write(string.format("\n")) -- reduce forces on ground if altRad < 3 then accel.x = accel.x * 0.25 accel.y = accel.y * 0.25 accel.z = accel.z * 0.25 end my_send = socket.protect(function() if c then -- socket.try(c1:send(string.format("%.3f; %.3f; %.3f; %.3f; %.3f; %.3f;\n", pitch*1000.0, bank*1000.0, yaw*1000.0, accel.x*1000.0, accel.y*1000.0, accel.z*1000.0))) socket.try(c:send(string.format("%.4f; %.4f; %.4f; %.4f; %.4f; %.4f;\n", pitch/57.295779, roll/57.295779, yaw, accel.x, accel.y, accel.z))) end end) my_send() end, ******************************* if you want to run the debug printouts, add this to the Start function dbg_file = io.open(lfs.writedir()..[[Logs\dbg.txt]], "w") dbg_file:write(string.format("start ok\n")) so what this does, is when pitch goes over 45 degrees it attenuates the roll factor, which as you can seem from the log file below, goes a bit nuts when pitch is over 60+ degrees. this makes loops much smoother then the next bit fixes the flip that occurs when doing a 360 degree rolls. when roll goes past +/- 90 deg, it rolls it back to zero at 180, so there is a smooth transition form + to - roll numbers with a VR headset on, both fixes feel quite natural. i've done about 40 hours of aerobatic flying in real life so i have an idea how it feels enjoy steve dbg.txt

i was thinking exactly the same thing. that is exactly what i'm in the process of implementing now. when i get it working and make a new video to show it in action here's my roll code, its working very well -- returns roll back to zero as it passes +/- 90 degrees to avoing the -179 to 179 flip that occures in a full roll if bank > 90/57.295779 then bank = 180/57.295779 - bank dbg_file:write(string.format("FIX +ROLL: p=%.3f r=%.3f ", pitch, bank)) elseif bank < -90/57.295779 then bank = -(180/57.295779 + bank) dbg_file:write(string.format("FIX -ROLL: p=%.3f r=%.3f ", pitch, bank)) end steve

i'm trying to get the other plugin working, i installed it already but its not doing anything. i need to get on the xsimulator forum and ask why but i started moding the exports.lua myself. that's the thing in DCS that sends flight data to the mosim. i already reduced the problem at high pitch angles, and i think there is are ways to make other improvements in that. macthai, did you get your postal problems figured out yet? is your system running? steve

i'm using standard DCS pluging, about to try the other one now

hi, is there any reason you can think of why this isn't working AfterNextFrame=function(self) local pitch, bank, yaw = LoGetADIPitchBankYaw() env.info(string.format("pitch=%f roll=%f", pitch, bank)) ... etc in exports.lua? i don't see pitch= in DCS.log file but i do see this 00042.548 ERROR Lua::Config: Call error LuaExportStart:[string "C:\Users\me\Saved Games\DCS.openalpha\Scripts\Export.lua"]:29: attempt to index global 'env' (a nil value) so i guess i need to initialize env somewhere? thanks

i just got this working today and i'm not used to flying in a motion sim so still getting used to it. anyhow, it works great, feels very realistic in oculus VR, the VR view is perfect, no artifacts from having the sensor mounted on the moving rig. i plan to make a better video when i have time, showing how its built and how the software is configured. it would be better if you could see my view also, i'll set up the monitor better next time. this whole motion sys cost me about $500 not including racing seat. UPDATE: so i've had a bit of time to fly around and a couple of things i notice. first off, awesome! well worth the effort to build this thing. i'm flying my vegas air race which i made a video about a while ago you can see on the mosim video, when i go vertical climb, at some point the roll starts reacting strange. i'm sure this is DCS that's detecting roll in a near vertical is not very specific, but the motion sim doesn't know that, so it shakes me around, which isn't very realistic. however, when i come over the top of the loop and pull a positive G to head straight down, it feels very realistic, so overall, pretty good. the other thing is when i'm doing a tight banking turn, the mosim is banking (rolling) as its supposed to, but in real life of course, you wouldn't feel that, you would feel g forces pushing you down hard into the seat. now obviously, i have no way to simulate 5 G of downward force, so i guess there is no answer for this problem. just wonder if any setup advice? maybe instead of using roll in the axis assignment, i use something else? and the other thing is, you know if you've been on a boat for a while and you get on dry land and you feel like you are still moving? we'll i'm sitting at my desk now and i feel like i'm still flying!