Mobile Driving/Flying Cockpit with Motion and Tactile ( Build )

RCHeliguy · Jan 24, 2020

I've been happy with how my clutch and brake feel, but I've never quite been happy with my throttle. My heel was moving too much. I had tried a heel stop and decreasing the throw of the pedal, but my leg was moving much more than my ankle was.

So I took my dead pedal and a piece of spare 40x40 profile and played around with my setup until I got this.

This feels much better. My foot just pivots naturally on the heel and I have zero heal sliding.

I will need to pretty this up, but it is perfectly functional and rigid for holding the throttle pedal. I doubt it would work nearly as well for the brakes. At this point I haven't decided if I want to come up with a rigid assembly that allows me to invert all the pedals, but I like how this feels. It is a major improvement for easily modulating the throttle.

I flipped the pedal face moved and tried some heel toe action and it felt pretty good.

RCHeliguy · Jan 25, 2020

BTW I just heard from an NLRv3 owner who has burnt up his actuators a number of times because he had his seat belt attached to his frame to give him surge tension. It is interesting in it's simplicity, but not a good fit for this motion system.

Based on that I will keep my seatbelts attached my seat and not spring load them to the frame.

However I recently saw a very compact seatbelt actuator system that mounts high on the back of a seat. It is mostly 3D printed and can be set to specifically work with surge only. It would add a bit of weight, but would not otherwise strain the motion system.

I had seen this shared a while back, but it may have been pulled down. I'm checking to see if these 3D parts are still available.

NeoGrotesk · Jan 25, 2020

RCHeliguy said:
BTW I just heard from an NLRv3 owner who has burnt up his actuators a number of times because he had his seat belt attached to his frame to give him surge tension. It is interesting in it's simplicity, but not a good fit for this motion system.

Based on that I will keep my seatbelts attached my seat and not spring load them to the frame.

However I recently saw a very compact seatbelt actuator system that mounts high on the back of a seat. It is mostly 3D printed and can be set to specifically work with surge only. It would add a bit of weight, but would not otherwise strain the motion system.

I had seen this shared a while back, but it may have been pulled down. I'm checking to see if these 3D parts are still available.
View attachment 345847

I would definitely be interested in something like this, so please update if you find anything else out!

I've seen tensioners that use servos which look cool, but I haven't seen any idiots guides on how to create them so I have no idea where to start.

RCHeliguy · Jan 25, 2020

This morning I was going to pretty up what I had, but then I went in a different direction.
I was surprised that this is extremely rigid and I couldn't see any flex when braking !!!

The great thing was that I used the same plate that was on my P1 foot deck and just needed 4 x 16" pieces of 40x40 and fasteners to make this work

RCHeliguy · Jan 25, 2020

Back to the drawing board the geometry is wrong. I need to raise the pedals so I'll be ordering some 40x120 for vertical posts so I can raise and lower the pedals so the balls of my feet are exactly where they need to be. This was also getting too bulky.

The throttle pedal feels GREAT! However I need to get the brake and clutch higher. Using the angled 40 series profile on the back means that increasing height requires that I keep lengthening the horizontal and angled piece and that becomes very bulky.

jaynny · Jan 26, 2020

RCHeliguy said:
Back to the drawing board the geometry is wrong. I need to raise the pedals so I'll be ordering some 40x120 for vertical posts so I can raise and lower the pedals so the balls of my feet are exactly where they need to be. This was also getting too bulky.

first off, just went thru all pages of your built and so impressed...my gt1 evo is on its way but where do you get you profiles from, sim-lab? or some where else to get them delivered quicker. also, Do you have the link to get those lever bolts to quickly loose or tighten. Thanks

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

I used these.

Amazon.com: DEERU Stationary Bike Seat Clamp Bicycle Clamp Quick Release Seatpost Quick Release, 2 pcs M8x50 Quick Releases In Package, Black: Home Improvement

Buy DEERU Stationary Bike Seat Clamp Bicycle Clamp Quick Release Seatpost Quick Release, 2 pcs M8x50 Quick Releases In Package, Black: Seat Clamps - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

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Along with these which are no longer available on Amazon. In fact I can't find them anywhere. Glad I found some when I ordered them.
Aluminum Spacer 3/4" OD x 5/16" ID x 1/2" L, Round

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

I think I've got the right angle and pedal height now. This is still an experiment to get the angles right for me before I order final materials, but it is definitely solid enough to use and not just a mock up. So I need to get some track time with it to make sure I've finally got it in a form I'm happy with.

I added lines for the center of the brake pedal and the bottom of the seat for reference.

DrRob · Jan 26, 2020

Interesting. I was always eager to have bottom hinged pedals, which in conjunction with the seat postion, will work just fine. With my seat position it actually works as intended.
Seeing your picture I'm trying to understand the foot position, foot/ankle travel, etc. Did you also change the seat angle/postion to make it work?

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

DrRob said:
Interesting. I was always eager to have bottom hinged pedals, which in conjunction with the seat postion, will work just fine. With my seat position it actually works as intended.
Seeing your picture I'm trying to understand the foot position, foot/ankle travel, etc. Did you also change the seat angle/postion to make it work?

The issue I had with bottom hinged pedals was mostly all throttle. My heel would drag across the foot plate and there was some sticking which made it harder to be very smooth with the throttle. I had tried a heel stop and shortening the travel, but I was never happy with how the throttle felt.

The brake feels more natural with a slight downward arc as does the clutch. I've been running with bottom hinged pedals for over 2 years and so far I like the feeling of this better.

I need more seat time. I'm going to spend a few hours trying this out with clutch in Dirt Rally and in iRacing with just brake and clutch.

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

It appears I need an other extension cable so the clutch can reach the other side of the brake. I had hoped the HE pedals would work reversed and inverted without alteration. I've also decide to go to all quick releases on my clutch brake plate since it is harder to see the bolts while it is inverted.

My currently plan is to trim the 40x120 pedal deck profile and get two vertical 40x120 pieces to run on each side. I'll get another of the 2 bolt angles, some end caps and some more bolts and T-Nuts, I can't believe that I'm running out! Wow! I'll run 6 corner pieces across the top ( 3 on each side ), I may put another couple in the inside of the corners. The slots on the corner pieces give me just enough room to rotate the pedal deck to get the angle I want.

That will look MUCH cleaner and be more rigid than what I have now and I can use the new vertical rises as a new place to hang my steering wheels

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

OK, I'm starting to believe these are working better for me. I just dropped 2 seconds off my best time at Donington in the M8 GTE and it only took me a few laps to do that. Maybe I'm just excited, but Wow!

Just ordered all my supplies to finish this off!

Wow! LOVING how these feel. I'm getting very comfortable very quickly and everything just feels much more realistic and much easier. I've centered the brake pedal on the ball of my foot and modulation has never been better

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

DrRob said:
Interesting. I was always eager to have bottom hinged pedals, which in conjunction with the seat postion, will work just fine. With my seat position it actually works as intended.
Seeing your picture I'm trying to understand the foot position, foot/ankle travel, etc. Did you also change the seat angle/postion to make it work?

Sorry, I never answered your question. I haven't changed anything else what-so-ever.

All I'm doing is moving the pedals around, but I have the pedals feeling like they are contacting my feet in a very natural way. I can't get over how much easier it feels to drive around the track. I'm transitioning from trail braking to throttle much smoother, but I think the biggest win is the comfort level. Everything feels easier and smoother and like the pedals are a much more natural extension.

It's also possible that the way I had the pedals before was just a bad fit for my foot placement, as much as I love my Sprint pedals, I don't think I ever had them truly comfortable for me.

If your pedals feel very comfortable and natural to you now, than I wouldn't change a thing. I think I definitely had an issue with my setup to have this dramatic a difference in how the pedals feel to me.

DrRob · Jan 26, 2020

Cheers for the explanation. Good you found the reason for your uncomfortable feeling and are on the way to remedy that.

I know bottom hinged pedal setup from my sportscar, so felt right at home. The most important factor for me is in which angle the ankle sits to the leg and the travel of the foot. If your seating is not right, it will feel uncomfortable. I have exactly that on my brothers rig. After 2 min of driving I have sore ankles.

For my setup the lower leg and the foot are in a 90°-95° angle when the pedal travel is 0 and the feet are resting on the pedals. Fully pressed pedal results in maybe 130° between lower leg and foot.

RCHeliguy · Jan 26, 2020

I never had sore ankles, but I couldn't find a way to use my throttle where my heel didn't drag and it made my throttle control less than smooth.

The arc downwards with my HE pedals never felt quite right to me. My CS 3.0 pedals had less of a heel dragging issue on the throttle, but the stiffest spring was still way to soft for me. However since they controlled the geometry of the heel plate to pedals, they may have had a better setup for hinge down motion.

So this is the first time in 2 years that I've been truly happy with my throttle. The travel is perfect, the spring tension is perfect and my foot rotation feels very comfortable.

The brake feels much better too. Once again I think the geometry of the CS 3.0's was good, but even with the PBK, I never got it feeling just right. I hated the clutch on the CS 3.0, it was just weak.

Hopefully this isn't sounding like a broken record, but everything has come together finally.

I think the double edged sword when buying very configurable pedals like the HE's is that it up to you to get the geometry right.

RCHeliguy · Jan 27, 2020

I've had some discussions with some other people about pedal placement.

It appears that there are a LOT of variables involved including:

Your body height and foot size.
Your seat angle and relative height to the pedals.

Depending on those things, you will want the pedal height and angle to be different and where the pedals are hinged will feel different.

One guy inverted his clutch and brake, but had his throttle hinged at the bottom. This is the exact opposite of what I started this experiment with. He said he was 5' 4" and it took him a while to get his pedals to feel right. This is what he came up with.

Another guy did this which matches what I'm looking at much better. I'm thinking that I may want to raise my clutch and brake, but I like the gas where it is now. He created a larger throttle pedal to allow for exactly that.

When I setup my rig initially, I was in a much more upright stance and having the pedals hinged at the bottom seemed to work well. Once I got more reclined they didn't feel as good to me.

So it looks like this is an incredibly personal thing!

DrRob · Jan 27, 2020

RCHeliguy said:
When I setup my rig initially, I was in a much more upright stance and having the pedals hinged at the bottom seemed to work well. Once I got more reclined they didn't feel as good to me.

To be fair my pedal tray sits slightly above my "bum-line" as it is advocated here and there. I raised it about 2-3cm above that and it felt much better. Maybe also food for thought...