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[BartS]

Hi Sim Fans and awesome X-sim knowledgable people,
I'm now ready to start building my simulator, I've been here nearly every day for a year and after reading so much and buying in parts then reading and learning some more then eventually finding out the parts are useless for my intended needs and coming accross new parts that offered more accurate solutions for the accuracy I aim to acheive. I have finally decided on the components I will use to run the hardware of my simulator. My research has been very exhaustive and I wanted to start building as soon as possible but couldn' commit until I was positive each component was correct so I could start seeing something for my efforts, after many dead ends I have finally settled on a very mature configuration and this is it now, I'm finally here and ready, I want my piece of motion sim action.
I am start to build a simulator that will be cost effective, offer sufficient and substantial power, control and accuracte movements. Better still this simulator will be modify to 6 DoF further down the line.

My Components :
1 x Arduino Mega 2560 with an Uno in standby for dashboard related stuff eventually
2 x Sabertooth 2x25 V2s plenty of driving power
4 x 24v pride mobility motors which I anticipate to be around 300 watts each, any way I can test them? theres no manufacture details other than 4-4.5mph available but they look stronger and are bigger than some other fracmo 24v 11 amp units which are rated at 276watts.
Power supply will be batteries 2x12v at 24v for each sabertooth unless I find a better solution.

Due to the 4 motor configuration I intend to make I will have to program some sort of spider pluging to position each motor, they will be driven by a sophisticated PID algorythm tuned for my simulators needs and adjustable to riders weight.

Because of the complexity of this project I have built a model simulator to perfect my development on before building the actual simulator.

So here is my mounted Top Gear Stig skid car simulator model and my intended configuration development platform.

I have no questions yet as I am still putting a few things together like feeback pots on the model and working on some device communication code.
I Hope you all find my project intresting and assist me in my development as I have enjoyed following others altho I my not of been able to help much I certainly did try anyway I could .

[juniou]

thank you for this post.
arduino + sabertooth seens very interesting... :-)
great job

[bsft]

Yeah...looking good, please post a video of it in action if you do so.

[BartS]

Videos to come soon, first I want to get my pots mounted in position and reading the feedback and relaying the position on my LCD.

As I intend this thread to be a documentation of my work, I will post my research, findings and progress step by step so everybody can learn from my experiences. In my next post I will feature some possiblities for sending information from X-Sim via USO to Arduino and reading the data in on the Arduino using the C language and storing it in variables in the correct format ready for use. I have no idea what the right thing to send is yet as it all depends on my research whether it is simple x , y , z's or pre definded actuator positions we will have to wait and see where I end up.

[riton]

very interesting project, I will follow your project!
good luck

[BartS]

Ok so i've got all my pots mounted, they are all hard wired and reading values from low to high in conjunction with the correct direction of motor travel no programming manipulation needed I just inverted the ground and VCC. I currently have the 270deg pots operating in a planned 90deg range the rest is unused and treated as a fail safe incase I loose control of the motors and I can quickly stop them and not break my pots.
I am reading the pot values on the LCD they are all correct but I noticed a couple of high spikes every now and then also on random pots but then returns to the correct reading. Does anybody know what this is ? Could it be insufficent power from usb or are they dud pots or something else.

More pics to come in a few hours of the complete board and a small video perhaps of the motors bouncing on the range limits.

[el_txus]

Hi

Realy Good work, Can you put a scheme of wire conecction?, and can you tell us, how configure the arduinos code to implement the screen?

Thanks

[BartS]

@ Riton : I really like your simulator and only hope to achieve as good a power as you have. Did you ever implement PID and how is your baby sim project going?

@ el_txus : I will reveal all my work in good time, just right now I am too busy working out the basics, controlling motors reading input in from x-sim, calibiration and stuff like that. When I am sure my information is accurate and best solution I will post. I hav 2 choices for driving the motors from the arduino, simplified serial and also packetized serial and that all hangs on wiring too.

[riton]

Thank you!
I always work on "Baby MSXR!" thank you for your interest!
I make a new support base, supports several "motors": AC gear motor, MEG, and SCN5, DBOX.....

I also produced a new cockpit for the baby MSX,
the top of the simulator is also different, lighter, adjustable ...
for this project I will use the card Pollollu JRK 12V12 with PID.

I also changed the potentiometer 360 ° without stops


for my actual MSXR Simulator , I will also use the cards Pololu JRK 12V12 with PID !
it's a important modification!
i have some problem with a lot of speed!

But I must say that your project interests me a lot, unfortunately I do not program! Is difficult for me to do equivalent work.

[BartS]

Just a quick update : I've been working really hard on programming side of the arduino and again I have to praise Arduino, damn this is a powerful little controller.
My looptime for collecting data from x-sim 6 Axis of information, the motor sensors, creating setpoints for a 3DOF system and relaying the output to the motor controllers is all within 12milliseconds which is looking good for atleast 80 updates per second to the motorcontrollers.
Much of the code is in place now and future proofs a 6DOF system. Still to do I have to get my head round and implent the PID, which may slow the loop down somewhat but the results will still be too fast to notice. Then I have to rewrite my sabertooth controls and optimise my code.
We are looking good for a target deadline of getting the electronics sorted by the weekend and I should have a HD video of my model simulator running just to show you guys.
Its all set up to just run on sliders right now so I will be building profiles next week, another thing I got to get my head round.