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

[RCHeliguy]

I knew you were and Engineer, but I thought you'd said BSEE---hence, my comment.

Are you trying to pigeon hole me?

PS. You realize that you are setting my expectations for what will be coming out of your 3D Printer....

 

[Tom_Hampton]

Are you trying to pigeon hole me?

As a fellow engineer with two different degrees (CS, EE), who has worked in 4 different industries, for 5 different companies, in 3 different disciplines....

Uh, no.

 

[RCHeliguy]

As a fellow engineer with two different degrees (CS, EE), who has worked in 4 different industries, for 5 different companies, in 3 different disciplines....

Uh, no.

Respect!

I'll just say that my life has been very interesting and a lot more fun since I became self employed. By virtue of being a gun for hire, I am exposed to many lines of business and technologies. It helps make sure that I'm always learning something interesting.

 

[RCHeliguy]

As I've mentioned, I've been very fortunate with my prints to date and it has just worked nearly flawlessly.

However I had my first serious print failure today. The entire print shifted about 1cm to the right partway into this print.

I'm still not sure if this was a gecode issue or something else. I'm going to sleep on this and maybe reslice this using the new beta software and see if it does better.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I used PrusaSlicer 2.3.0 RC1 this time. My last attempt was with release 2.2 However when it sliced it didn't show any offset issue.

I added reliefs in the corners that the panel fit into and I pushed the panel supports that hold the M3 inserts back .2mm and painted supports under them. I also removed a bit of chamfer off the furthest thing edge. Between that and the supports there is more holding this down in the thinner areas.

The print time increased by half an hour with these supports.

Fingers crossed!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I think this print will succeed. It's past the point of failure on the last attempt.
Estimate 1AM completion so I have yet another Christmas present waiting for me in the morning. Love that feeling!

Setting up rotaries on the Bodnar board is very simple.
These rotaries have 16 detents per revolution and are mapped 1:4 starting with any odd pin.

I'll start with the first rotary and then see where I am when I start plugging in the other 2.

I'll start soldering jumper wires to the buttons, and rotary I have setup so far tomorrow.

One of hundreds details. Needed to bump out the side button panel so I could get a ribbon connector on it. Not as pretty. I should have enlarged the whole panel to keep it pretty.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Merry Christmas!

Unfortunately the holes printed sideways were a bit oblong

Fortunately I have a stepped drill bit with 12mm and 22mm steps.
I've found that a wood chisel works really well clearing structural supports away and the little bit of structural supports I did use are hidden once the front panel is on.

Below you can see the nice round holes that I widened. I also gave up on enlarging the magnet holes from the inside. Instead I through drilled the holes with a 5mm bit and then using my master label with a pair of magnets in the right orientation stuck to it's back, pressed the magnets in place. It took a hammer to get them flush. They are not going anywhere and while not what I was going for, this works too.

Also in place are 6 x M3 threaded inserts, 2 x M5 threaded inserts and 7x M3 square nuts

With everything in place except the wiring and some buttons that are arriving this afternoon, I had one more modification to make. The front panel wiring harnes bolts were just barely too high and would have dug into the powder coated vertical mount, so I thinned out the sides where the bolts are on my belt sander.

The panel fits pretty well, however the front surface the button box frame is not perfectly flat and the panel is so it pulled flush on the right, but not quiet on the left side. I could sink the M3 inserts on the left side and chisel them down a bit more to get a tight fit, but it's not bad and for now I have other things to figure out.

So the bottom line is that it is going to work, but isn't quite perfect.

Question: Does PETG warp more or less than PLA ? I have a roll of PETG in Galaxy Black.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm still using the same mounting mechanism, so I was able to test fit this on my rig

That'll do. This is going to look much more integrated than my old boxy button box! it already does.

The rear clamping mechanism is just enough to hold it on, but will eventually be part of the enclosure that holds the button board.

Last but not least a picture with a wheel,

 

[RCHeliguy]

Love it when things come together and love modular wiring!
This will be very easy to update and modify in the future.

 

[RCHeliguy]

These yellow buttons that just arrived from Amazon are much less expensive than the red buttons I've been using, but are identical size. They have no tactile feel other than bottoming out. No click at all. However they are functional and are good placeholders. I have no idea how long it will take for the 25 good buttons to get here, but these will last me until then.

This is the updated side panel with tweaked magnet holes and ribbon connection added.

This panel was sliced with ironing on all horizontal surfaces and I think it did a pretty good job of giving me a smooth surface. The scratches visible when you enlarge the image are only visible with the camera flash. I created those.

I'm not soldering these in unless the other buttons are still not here by the time I have everything together.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Currently printing the top rotary panel and wil print the red phone holder today.

And..... more trickledown....

Once I have my button box in place there is no place to grab getting into my rig. For driving it's not that big a deal, but for flight it is very awkward to step over the large flight throttle on the side and my H pattern shifter is on the other side. I've ordered a 24" marine grab rail and I'm planning to run a couple 40x40 pieces of profile up behind the verticals and then put a bit of angle aluminum at the top where the rail bolts in.

I believe this will work well, BUT I'm concerned it may be ugly. Fingers crossed!

 

[RCHeliguy]

Grab handle proof of concept. It works pretty well. Stepping over the flight throttle amd into the cockpit is a breeze.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The top Rotary knob panel is printed.

Still need to solder the wires.

The pieces are coming together...

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is a modification on my earlier phone holder with M5 holes, extended back for stability and most importantly I wanted it in red.

Matching HMD hanger.

 

[LeeHetherington]

Does it look red in VR?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Does it look red in VR?

Everything looks better in red! LOL!

After finally getting all the ribbon cables thought out I realized that I needed 1 more pair of 16pin connectors, but since 16pin connectors are harder to come by than 20pin ribbon cables, I ordered a 10 pack of 20pin ribbon cables since I have another half dozen 20 end connectors. I ended up not using the 8pin connectors at all. They take up a lot of surface area for only 8 pins. The 16 and 20 pin ribbon cable is still very easy to route, so it only makes sense to have additional capacity. In most places I have extra couple pairs of pins left. I could have run a couple 8 pin connectors to finish this off, but decided I would like to wire this with extra capacity everywhere for the future.

I added some 8mm x 10mm ribs to the front panel since it has two joysticks on it. I want it to be very rigid. So far I have 6 panel screws, but I think I'm goingto add one more for good measure. I want it solid.

BTW the first section feels good to the touch and clicking the buttons sounds good too. By that I mean it sounds solid, without any cheap flex, or hollow sounds.

 

[RCHeliguy]

My wife wanted one for her phone that has a large rubber case.

It's the first time she looked at something I printed and said, "I want one!"

 

[RCHeliguy]

I don't know if the number of hours that went into these came through, but this has been a lot of effort. I think there are a few edges to clean up, but they are complete. Getting everything to fit. Creating slight tolerance spaces so it will fit tother well. There are reliefs in the corners that are hidden so I can get a chisel right into the corners to clean up the supports.

Now I need to layout the replay section and finally finish off the rear section holding the button board and taking power.
I ordered the last part to finish this off, a lockable 12V connector mount.

Amazon.com

Getting close to the finish line now!

 

[RCHeliguy]

Started playing with creating slightly larger labels for the two joysticks.

 

[RCHeliguy]

In between sleding, snow angels, Christmas movies and eating leftover turkey, I'm making progress on this. My wife has given me a few dirty looks over it, so I better save it for early AM before she is awake for the rest of the holiday weekend. I know I'm feeling a bit obessive about it and wander back into my office to work on it. So I need to put the brakes on a bit.

This is the hub of the entire button box. I finally have connectors to recieve all the ribbon cables coming from the other sections I had to enlarge it and move everything around after completely running out of space to mount things.

64 input button board 3 x 20 pin connectors, 5x 16 pin connectors.
There are spares on most connectors which is good because there are 70 total pin pairs.

12V input 2 x 8 pin connectors to run to backlit buttons.

The 12V mount is removable in case I change it or need to beef it up.

I still need to work out the mounting solution for the lit button section above it. Once I have that finalized, I just need a backplate for this section and I will finally be done with the first iteration. Still waiting for the backlit buttons, and 12V quick connects.