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[racerg]

Hi everyone:

I have been a member for a while but have not had too much time to contribute here.

I am an electronics engineer and myself and my software partner have been looking at X-Sim and doing a lot of reading and testing for some time now.

We want to offer our expertise to further our sim hobbies and make it easier for all of us to have fun with this...

We will soon offer a full hardware platform, which you can program based on the Arduino system.

It will be a single board that contains:

1) An arduino compatible microprocessor section.
2) 3 high power DC motor controllers.
3) LCD display
4) Encoder inputs, etc.
5) As well as other hardware...

We will sell the complete hardware platform, fully assembled and tested at a low cost (it is all surface mount technology).

Our new company website is not complete, but you can see the start: www.elec-fun.com.

Development of this hardware has not been cheap, and we will soon take orders (and have a full description with pictures) on the http://www.kickstarter.com/ page. Note, not there yet...soon!

The Kickstarter system allows you to order safely and assures us that we can recover our modest investment for hardware development, software development and prototypes.

We will also provide, at no cost, the software drivers for it to work with X-Sim, or another software platform if someone designs it...

So, what I am saying is...we will be your COMPLETE hardware solution to easily drive up to 3 large DC motors, as well as provide the software drivers for it...

Our new system, takes the best ideas we have seen here and, hopefully, integrates all of them into a really great hardware platform that should make talking to motors very fast and easy!!!

Now, someone needs to tell us WHICH software to make it work with...X-Sim, or??

I hope all the fighting can stop and all of us can get back to our hobby!!

-Gary

[bvillersjr]

In case you missed it in the other thread, my two cents:

I attempted to have a business based around X-Sim and provide DIY parts to the community. I invested alot of time and effort in the products and this community over the years.

The future of X-Sim was always in question and to be brutally honest I felt like the developer may be a bit unstable, as the project was always in the process of being cancelled, then revived, as you can see. It nearly gave me ulcers because at that time, my business relied on X-Sim existing.

I finally had to divorce myself from the insanity and make my own software. My suggestion to you is to do the same....control your own destiny, do not leave the future of your investment in unstable hands.

[racerg]

Hi Berney:

Thanks for your reply! I don't know your deep history here and I don't know SirNoName at all.

I only know that many, many people have invested a lot of there monies and time to build sims, as a hobby, based on X-Sim: I have deep respect for you and the others that contribute so much to this forum and I hope I can as well!!

What I said is, we have developed some great hardware for simmers to use. We are happy to support ANY software development, X-Sim or otherwise with free drivers, example code, etc. to run on the product we will sell.

We are not doing this to get rich, we are doing this because we WANT to contribute to this exciting hobby anyway we can...

You said on another post, that you wanted to develop some sim software to work with various games: maybe we can work toward that??

It tears me up to see the problems and i hope I can understand more and I hope it can be solved for EVERYONE's benefit, I really do!!

-Gary

[bsft]

Have you got any photos of your setups you can share as a start?
That is until your website is up and running.
How big a DC motor are you talking about , 50w, 100, 200, 500w?

[racerg]

Hi BSFT:

No photos yet, we did protos (hardwired) then straight to fabrication for the surface mount parts.

Soon, I hope!

It can handle up to about 500 watts.

We design electronics as our business, with the sim stuff as our hobby...

What we are trying to do now, is to get an idea on interest...

As I said before, if X-sim goes away, we will want to work with someone who can do new software, to make sure our product will work...

-Gary

[kubing]

you need to develop your on software for good. i already throw a lot of time and money for hardware research to be used with x-sim.

[racerg]

Hi Kubing and everyone:

Thanks for your reply.

Your systems looks great by the way...!

I should be more clear when I talk about software:

1) Our system is a full 3 DOF system and will include the software to get up and running (PID code, etc.).

2) If the system is to be used with X-Sim, we will also provide the USB drivers for working directly with X-Sim.

3) What I was saying in my post is, IF X-Sim goes away and someone else develops something similar to X-Sim, we want to work with that person to make sure our system is compatible...

We want to be your long term hardware solution for DIY motion sim electronic hardware.

Our solution is a fully integrated hardware solution, one board, nothing external, other than power, encoders and motors required.

-Gary

[Raceray]

Hi Gary,

developing a universal motion simulator software is very complex piece of software which needs hundreds /thousands of man-hours to create it. Creating a free fork of the software is not foreseeable in the next time i think

If sirnoname is not willing to integrate the driver for your 3DOF system you can´t do anything to make your system fully compatible.

Btw. Is there already end-customer price range of your project?

[racerg]

Hi Raceray:

Thanks for your comments. We want to support X-Sim, assuming it's going to be around. We will develop the drivers for our board to be compatible with X-Sim, that is not so hard for us to do...

I know something such as X-Sim takes many hours of work... I hope X-sim can continue!

But, the point I was trying to make is: IF someone else, as some people said, are going to make another software system, similar to X-Sim, we want to work w/them to make it function with our hardware.

We will have pricing soon...we will try and make it as cost effective as possible to support our great hobby here...

Still confused as to what the fight between SirNoName and others is about and if I can help resolve it somehow, or help you...let me know!

-Gary

[tronicgr]

Will be open source? Assuming you are using arduino...