6DOF Motion Simulator by Trip Rodriguez

[TripRodriguez]

Hey guys! I just wanted to show off my recently "finished" motion simulator. I put that in quotes because no such project is ever truly finished and I've got lots of add-ons already on my radar. :music_whistling:

 

In addition to the 6DOF motion I'm running SimShaker for Aviators with two Aura ST bass shakers and my JetSeat will be arriving tomorrow. Even flying with motion but without SimShaker just feels wrong now!

 

 

...and a quick DCS video of it running:

 

I don't know why the video embedding never works for me.. here it is:

 

 

Sim info:

 

Software: Ian's BFF Simulation 6DOF

Controller hardware: Thanos TronicGR AMC1280USB and 6DOF extension board

 

6- AC motor (0.75HP) : MTR-P75-3BD18

6- GearBox (60:1) : WG-262-060-D

6- VFD inverter (1HP) : WJ200-007SF

Edited January 12, 2017 by BIGNEWY
utube embed

[Torso]

Just looks amazing. And you got it really smooth it appears from 1st vid I saw of it. Congrats. If only I could do similar. Would you mind throwing out a ballpark total for motion platform cost(minus chair, hotas, rift..all that)?

 

Again congrats. Real clean and pro looking.

 

PS:Nice to see servers are responding to your player data export enabling requests!

[TripRodriguez]

Thank you for the very kind words. Yeah it's been great, spent tonight on Burning Skies and last night on Steel Balls.

 

It's difficult to give a number on my sim for a few reasons. First I spread the buying parts out over two years and didn't keep track. I maxed out the credit cards, payed them down a bit then maxed 'em again!

 

Doing it all myself, and getting lucky with a few things laying around I could use and a couple things I got cheap or free I think I spent under $6,000 on it but I think anyone going in should be prepared for quite a bit more than that. Maybe $10,000 if you don't have a lot of tools and such and can't weld.

 

Of course if I were to pay myself minimum wage for the hours I spent researching, building, going back to to the drawing board and building again, etc. It' would be over $10,000 I bet =P.

Edited January 12, 2017 by TripRodriguez

[pulf]

That's just amazing. I hope someday I will a rig even half as bad ass as that looks. Cheers

 

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

[ReviZorro]

Wow, very impressive!

[BravoYankee4]

Simply amazing. I want one :)

[BIGNEWY]

Edited the post to embed the you youtube for you.

 

Thanks for sharing the motion platform looks great!

[Hansolo]

Very nice TripRodriguez :thumbup: Congratulations on a beautiful build Sir. Very envious. That looks really awesome.

 

Thanks for sharing your work

 

Cheers

Hans

[TripRodriguez]

Edited the post to embed the you youtube for you.

 

Thanks for sharing the motion platform looks great!

 

Sweet thanks for fixing that. =)

 

Thank you to everyone for the compliments!

Edited January 12, 2017 by TripRodriguez

[Thadiun Okona]

This is truly fantastic Trip, I know it's been a long road getting here but looks like your efforts were well spent.

 

This is real no-nonsense design and function, and I like your use of the box enclosures to serve as guards to keep humies out of the business parts.

 

I would however recommend installing at least a lap belt but more preferably a 4pt harness. Machines can 'hiccup', and if you are on it when that happens, well. Pretty easy to install and cheap too, I can share some pics of Tanaka 4pt harness I just did for one of the machines the co I work for makes. I can post here, but don't like doing that in people's build threads unless they want so either pm me or let me know.

 

Really hard to describe the immersion level once you add realistic and timely suggestions of acceleration when your 'in the zone'. Really great to see someone take the challenges of a project like this seriously. Most motion platforms aimed at VR now are gimicks, designed around the wrong principals/goals things like being able to invert or spin 360deg which impress people that don't understand vestibular disconnect, but make seasoned motion folk groan.

 

The goal of a motion platform in VR is what I have dubbed 'vestibular re-connect', the literal opposite of disconnect aka motion sickness. The problem is a mismatch between what you see (and hence expect to feel) and what you actually feel. Mismatch is determined by your brain to be the effects of having eaten poison and pumps your stomach for you. Wonderful 500k years ago when our ancestors ate the wrong berries, but terribly inconvenient in the modern age. A good platform can remove that mismatch.

 

 

How much of your setup is Thanos off/shelf stuff vs DIY?

 

What motion cuing system are you using?

 

Any idea of your load capacity, latency, work envelope size?

 

What games/sims are you able to interface with?

 

Are you using parameter extraction programs or native motion support?

[Gadroc]

That is just an awesome setup. I already have to many projects unfinished and you have to go show this off :)

[TripRodriguez]

Thanks Okona, that means a lot coming from you.

 

As far as the four point harness I do have one, and had it installed previously, but even during the wild ride I get when racing I don't think the platform could throw me. Check my latest youtube video here:

=). Still I will probably put it on again.

 

I agree 100% on the gimicky motion setups. So many people are fixated on 360/inversions! So many terrible designs showing up. People link them to me all the time.

 

I used Thanos AMC1280USB and 6DOF extension board, and I purchased the motors, gearboxes, and Inverters that he had posted were used in a successful build using his electronics: http://motionsim.blogspot.com/2013/05/6dof-platform-photo.html

 

I used some but not all the dimensions from GA-Dawg 's thread on his forums, namely the upper hex platform. DoctorD on the X-sim forums supplied the drawing for my torque arms. I came up with all other ancillary stuff myself, some through trial and error!

 

So far I've used only Ian's BFF Simulation software. I intend to use SimTools also when v.2 comes out as it has the best compatibility.

 

My capacity is only a very rough estimate but it's supposed to be something like 400kg if I remember right, including the upper platform. I'd estimate that weighs maybe 150 pounds tops. I know it can handle a friend of mine who weighs 240lbs without missing a beat.

 

By envelope you mean how far it can travel? I haven't done any measuring except for heave, that is about 12.8 inches. I don't use nearly all the rotation range I have, in VR less is more. You can see the surge work nicely in that racing video I uploaded to YouTube today as well.

 

So far I'm using it for P3D/FSX, DCS, and Dirt Rally. There are maybe a dozen titles with direct support from BFF Simulation.

 

All of the stuff that works with BFF has proper telemetry export, many of the things SimTools has plugins for are hacked to work but I haven't touched that yet as SimTools 1 doesn't have proper support for a Stewart rig.

 

Okona, thank you so much for talking me into going 6DOF. I'm not going to enjoy paying off the credit debt the next couple years but it was worth it!

 

Trip

 

This is truly fantastic Trip, I know it's been a long road getting here but looks like your efforts were well spent.

 

This is real no-nonsense design and function, and I like your use of the box enclosures to serve as guards to keep humies out of the business parts.

 

I would however recommend installing at least a lap belt but more preferably a 4pt harness. Machines can 'hiccup', and if you are on it when that happens, well. Pretty easy to install and cheap too, I can share some pics of Tanaka 4pt harness I just did for one of the machines the co I work for makes. I can post here, but don't like doing that in people's build threads unless they want so either pm me or let me know.

 

Really hard to describe the immersion level once you add realistic and timely suggestions of acceleration when your 'in the zone'. Really great to see someone take the challenges of a project like this seriously. Most motion platforms aimed at VR now are gimicks, designed around the wrong principals/goals things like being able to invert or spin 360deg which impress people that don't understand vestibular disconnect, but make seasoned motion folk groan.

 

The goal of a motion platform in VR is what I have dubbed 'vestibular re-connect', the literal opposite of disconnect aka motion sickness. The problem is a mismatch between what you see (and hence expect to feel) and what you actually feel. Mismatch is determined by your brain to be the effects of having eaten poison and pumps your stomach for you. Wonderful 500k years ago when our ancestors ate the wrong berries, but terribly inconvenient in the modern age. A good platform can remove that mismatch.

 

 

How much of your setup is Thanos off/shelf stuff vs DIY?

 

What motion cuing system are you using?

 

Any idea of your load capacity, latency, work envelope size?

 

What games/sims are you able to interface with?

 

Are you using parameter extraction programs or native motion support?

[RabidRider]

TripRodriguez

 

Been watching various threads on 6dof for over a year now, but still haven't gotten around it. You say with VR, less movement is more. That's interesting, guess I don't need to look into high-offset joints anymore :) Could you elaborate on this more, what happened when/if you did dial in more movement with VR? In the video you did flying the p-51, there are moments when the movement of the platform seem disconnected/lagging to what's happening in-game. Does it ever feel disconnected when you're flying, or does it just feel naturally, never disconnected? There's a moment when you're at a high AOA, almost stalling and yet the platform is almost level for instance ...

 

About tactile feedback, Roland van Roy wrote: The final result is pretty awesome, and I really believe the vibration system outperforms the motion platform. http://simprojects.nl/bff_shaker_system.htm What's your experience with it. Does it give you enough vibration. Isolation is key for the best result. Here are two great examples, but difficult to implement perhaps with a 6dof platform, maybe :

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/17116-my-special-homemade-simvibe-rig/

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/18674-shaky-rig-2-electric-simvibealoo/

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/17156-my-simvibe-overkill-rig/

[BrassEm]

Grats on an absolutely brilliant build TR. I am sure you have found that there is never enough time now. You do however have me intrigued.

 

So many people are fixated on 360/inversions!

 

Would you be kind enough to post a video of you doing vertical loops please. I would be most interested to see how your rig handles the 180° loop flip from DCS World. The software I use does not handle this inversion properly at all. I would be very very interested to see how your software behaves.

 

Thanks.

[RabidRider]

Have you tried Ian's BFF software for DCS. Haven't tried it myself, but it might give good results:

 

http://bffsimulation.com/Manual-6DOF/Introduction.php

[TripRodriguez]

I use Ian's BFF myself. I will try to get you a loop clip, there's not much to it I think, just pitch up until the top of the loop and then a quick transition to pitch down. It feels pretty decent, especially if you look up as you pull the loop to catch the horizon.

 

I'm planning a G-seat to improve things further =D.

[Krupi]

This is just insane, WOW!

 

Fantastic, you should be pretty please with yourself :D

[TripRodriguez]

TripRodriguez

You say with VR, less movement is more. That's interesting, guess I don't need to look into high-offset joints anymore :) Could you elaborate on this more, what happened when/if you did dial in more movement with VR? In the video you did flying the p-51, there are moments when the movement of the platform seem disconnected/lagging to what's happening in-game. Does it ever feel disconnected when you're flying, or does it just feel naturally, never disconnected? There's a moment when you're at a high AOA, almost stalling and yet the platform is almost level for instance ...

 

About tactile feedback, Roland van Roy wrote: The final result is pretty awesome, and I really believe the vibration system outperforms the motion platform. http://simprojects.nl/bff_shaker_system.htm What's your experience with it. Does it give you enough vibration. Isolation is key for the best result. Here are two great examples, but difficult to implement perhaps with a 6dof platform, maybe :

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/17116-my-special-homemade-simvibe-rig/

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/18674-shaky-rig-2-electric-simvibealoo/

 

http://www.isrtv.com/forums/topic/17156-my-simvibe-overkill-rig/

 

 

Gotta get to sleep but I overlooked this post before and want to get you some answers. I initially used a lot of angle, despite being told for VR it was unnecessary or even detrimental I had my doubts. Two things happen with too much angle, it feels exaggerated for starters once you get past the wow factor of feeling all that movement. In most conditions in an aircraft, say a hard left bank, there is most often another force acting counter to it and canceling out some of the perceived angle/acceleration. In the left bank example it would be the lift perpendicular to the wing pushing you up and left vs. gravity pulling you down and left.

 

The other thing is that using more angle means that when a different angle needs to be applied either it takes a while to get there or you set it faster and it bucks like a rodeo bull.

 

Tuning the motion sim takes a lot of time in general, and each different sim software is like staring from scratch. Same more or less applies to drastically different aircraft in the same sim. I was surprised though that my DCS P-51 settings felt great in the Huey. Trying to figure out how to tune out things that don't feel right without also losing things you like is a constant case of trial and error and I don't consider any of my profiles "finished" yet though the Huey one is close and the P-51 is quite good now (but I still really want a G-seat for airplanes and racing (but not for choppers).

 

When you get it right, it just feels super natural. Getting to that point isn't always easy and honestly I haven't been able to get cues I'm super happy with in FSX/P3D compared to DCS.

 

Your question about vibration is an interesting one. I consider it an apples and oranges comparison personally. A really good Vibe system vs. 6DOF motion sim would be a tough call honestly, if it weren't for the difference in cost. I will say that if you get just the vibe setup you will probably be forever pining to add motion. With just motion I was fairly satisfied and saw it as an incremental upgrade to add vibration but I'd rather saw off my leg than give up either now! I don't find pitch for accel/decel very effective for me in the Rift but that might be just me. I'm definitely planning to build a G-seat to address that. The plan was to make that my poor financial decision for February but now that I've gotten totally hooked on how incredible an experience DCS helicopters are with my current rig (I can't imagine much better) my priorities have changed and it will probably get bumped back a couple months while I feed my love for rotary wing.

 

I hope some of this is helpful or informative, it's tough as this stuff is very subjective.

[RabidRider]

Thanks for such a detailed response! Good to hear that the sensations feel so natural!

I'm more of heli person myself as well, so if I finally get around making a 6dof myself (which after reading this I will :), I might ask you for some info on your settings for the Huey, if that is ok? :)

 

I did try the Simxperience G-Seat a while ago, but was a little underwhelmed. The VR with the CV1 otoh :D Probably hold of for the next-gen version and focus on longer term hardware for now: heli controls and platform ...

 

You say you "haven't been able to get cues I'm super happy with in FSX/P3D compared to DCS."

 

So you mean, it's more difficult to get it right in DCS? :) Frusheen said the same thing, that it wasn't really a question of which 3d party software to use (BFF or ...), but more because of the way DCS uses lua to export telemetry. Frusheen did change some lua files or one file himself I believe (for the p-51) which gave him nice results. Anyway he said it was not optimal, and so the results with his G-Seat left something to be desired.

 

But yes, a combination of the two would be the best of both world.

 

Do you have any transducers installed on the platform? If you get around to this, I would love to see what you come up with in terms of isolation (ideally you would find a way to somehow seperate the seat and platform) Stevant just placed four of them on the four corners of his platform if I remember. But I don't know how effective this was. A 6dof with a seat on springs/isolators would be ideal. Just look at the vibration in the videos under the links I provided (effect of seperating the seat)!

 

 

That's another thing to consider, the GS-4 Seat at least, might not transmit transducer vibrations as well as an ordinary seat, that was my impression when I tried it. I don’t think their power was turned down, just a combination of the G-Seat and placement of the buttkickers.

 

I have this mod/lua installed that links the Huey dashboard vibration to the windscreen wipers. It's around here somewhere in the user files. It would be awesome if that feedback was delivered to the platform or transducers. Do you get vibration effects with the

dof? As the rotor starts moving, the Huey shakes quite violently for a few seconds, is this fed through the platform, noticeable at all?

[TripRodriguez]

I'll be happy to help however I can, but really the settings vary a LOT from one sim to another so mine probably won't be much more than a slightly improved starting point for you when the time comes.

 

I actually meant I was happier with the results in DCS. I'll have to look into what he changed, since I too fly the P-51.

 

 

I have two Aura ST shakers mounted to the platform and they are very effective with SimShaker for Aviators. I think that isolating the platform would be much more important if I had only shakers instead of all the toys. I also have a JetSeat and the total effect of motion+shakers+JetSeat is fantastic.

 

I don't think the shaking of the Huey comes through on the motion platform but that is partly a matter of how I have it tuned. Since I also have bass shakers and JetSeat trying to get high frequency effects from the motion sim (which is not ideally suited to this) was not a priority.

 

Currently I can't imagine the Huey feeling much better than it does for me right now. Soon I'll be doing all I can to try to make the Gazelle settings perfect! For racing and fixed wing airplanes I am really wanting the G-seat, but for several reasons I've decided to focus on helicopters for now instead of making the G-seat top priority.

 

If you ever find yourself in the USA, I'm only 2 hours drive or so from New York City and you are welcome to spend a few hours flying on my rig =)

 

Trip

[RabidRider]

Nice to hear that you get such good results in DCS!

 

Yes, I thought so, that the platform isn’t really ideal for high frequencies, but that shaking of the huey would sure be a nice effect to have, as would the dash vibration. Would seem odd I think to see things shaking while in a certain flight regime, and not feel anything.

 

Anyway, like I wrote, you convinced me to start saving up for my own 6dof :)

 

Thanks for the offer! If I’m ever in the neighbourhood, I’ll drop by!

[Deadman]

Trip I have found the X-sim site Did you used the software to control your 6DOF platform?

How hard was it to work with and would be an easy way to convert real equipment in to a force feed back stick ? Thanks

[Mr_Burns]

Do you have a build thread??

[Deadman]

Reread your original post and found that you used "Software: Ian's BFF Simulation 6DOF" that i find very interesting be cause when I spoke with Ian he told me it would not work.

[Deadman]

Trip could you tell me why you switched from X-SIM de to Ian's BFF Simulation 6DOF?