The SimFeedback-AC DIY Motion Simulator thread

sjb266 · Sep 17, 2018

Hey guys. Thought I’d create a thread for those taking the plunge into this brilliant DIY project..
I will be starting mine soon and I know there are others thinking about it.. so feel free to share your knowledge and experiences so we can all enjoy this platform to its full potential. A huge thanks to the developers who have really knocked this one out of the park!

Website: https://opensfx.com/2019/02/20/welcome-to-our-new-site/

Github: https://github.com/SimFeedback/SimFeedback-AC-Servo/wiki

For all the internals for the actuator contact Amy - skye@ntl-bearing.com
She can supply everything you need. Just remind her you want the ends of the shafts chamfered and make sure she sends the right sized ball screw - we have had a couple of issues reported. She is very helpful though and the cost is pretty good.

Huge thanks to @RowanH for writing a comprehensive user guide which can be accessed here - https://www.rowanhick.com/sfx-100-build-and-running-guide

In addition, @anton_Chez has contributed a list of post numbers for some of the important settings etc..
Post #320 SFX-100 thread
Post #327 SFX-100 thread for Discord correlation
Post #339 SFX-100 thread
Post #418 SFX-100 thread
Post #424 SFX-100 thread
Post #439 SFX-100 thread
Post #449 SFX-100 thread
Post #517 SFX-100 thread
Post #554 SFX-100 thread
Post #580 SFX-100 thread
Post #826 SFX-100 thread
Post #837 SFX-100 thread
Post #864,866,867,868,870,887,889,897 SFX-100 thread
Post #911,914 SFX-100 thread
Post #988,992,998 SFX-100 thread
Post #1147 SFX-100 thread
Post #1492 SFX-100 thread
Post #1511,1517 SFX-100 thread

I will try to keep this page updated with links to source the parts in other parts of the world. Just post whatever links you have and i'll add them here.

Please note: Not all the parts listed below are essential for the project. For the essential parts refer to the original shopping list.

Australia:

Thanks to @AussieSim for the following links:

10A power lead(s) * 4
https://www.jaycar.com.au/2m-black-mains-extension-lead/p/PS4152

Top quality wire stripper
https://sydneytools.com.au/product/boxo-cutws205-multifunction-wire-stripper

RCD/safety switch power block
https://www.bunnings.com.au/arlec-4-outlet-heavy-duty-portable-safety-switch_p4420028

WD-40 lithium grease for the ball screws
https://www.bunnings.com.au/wd-40-specialist-300g-high-performance-white-lithium-grease_p6100408

Vibration pads
https://www.bunnings.com.au/whites-on-site-100-x-12-5mm-rubber-anti-vibration-mat-4-pack_p3961547

WD-40 Dry PTFE spray for the slider (free shipping)
https://au.rs-online.com/mobile/p/lubricants/7577134/

Arduino Leonardo (free shipping + frequent 10-15% off discount)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/a000057/arduino-corporation

DB25 cables * 4 (free shipping)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/ak401-2/assmann-wsw-components-inc

PETG * 3 (free shipping)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/petg17bk1/mg-chemicals

WAGO-like connectors to avoid a breadboard (perhaps use genuine ones if you are doing 240V AC)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32906719488.html

D-Sub breakout boards * 4
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32297675967.html

3D printer Creality Ender-3 Pro
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32918302452.html

Wires from Arduino to D-Sub breakout (remove black plastic from the WAGO end)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32887680826.html

Crimp connectors for AC wire leads
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32813550981.html

C64 · Oct 22, 2018

If anyone is wondering how hard it is to do this... I have got this far working on my dining room table over the weekend... including the rig. Hoping to do a bit of "commisioning" in the next 24 hours ( work and wife permitting )

RaceNut · Oct 22, 2018

I think, as with tactile, the trick is to find the sweet spot or balance in effective noise-filtering while not sacrificing too much of the vibratory or motion effect. Over-dampening is also going to mute the effect felt by the user so using a more moderate controller profile may be the easier solution in some cases. Still, a combination of solutions may be needed.

I like the tennis ball approach as it allows for experimentation without a large investment.

Moxley6969 · Oct 22, 2018

sjb266 said:
So i've run into a problem..

This is what happens when your print comes unstuck from the bed 30 mins into a 7 hour overnight print..

All that plastic is rock solid.. it took me ages to chisel it away trying to save the electrics but alas it was no good.. Thermistor and Heat cartridge are cactus!

new parts on order... set me back at least a week.

What are you using for bed adhesion ? With Proper adhesion and first layer, Its Ni impossible for a part to come undone, Especially with the size and foot print of these parts.

Overall PETG isn't needed for any of the parts, Rookie printers will struggle to get the Base layer to actually stay Flat for the larger parts ( as proven earlier in thread ) And PETG while not super difficult to print, Isn't as Cheap/easy as PLA. So best to suggest New guys use PLA, Experienced printers will use what they feel necessary.

Also having printed One of the Fixed bearing Mounts on the "default settings" Imo everyone's wasting a whole lot of filament on Excessive perimeters and the "solid layer every 20 layers" Is imo completely pointless. All your doing is slowing down your print time and wasting a "Stringy solid layer" thinking your getting some additional strength.

C64 · Oct 22, 2018

I printed with 6 layer and 6 perimeter layers... with 0.3mm layers, the only one I printed with 0.25 was the slider, mainly because of the fine threaded holes. The only significant structural part is the top bearing mount, this transfers the weight of the rig to the 30mm shaft. I cut my printing time by 30 - 40%

cprelot · Oct 22, 2018

HoiHman said:
The noise levels are quite a bit higher than on the next level motion V3. I'm getting complaints of the family when driving in the very early hours with a very very "silent" profile. So i thought

When i listen the noise levels are on par with the windsim, however they seem to travel better through the entire house. I'm on a concrete floor on the ground floor.

So i'm still tuning what so see can be done to have a very quiet profile. The noise comes from the spindles and they are already in the aluminium profile, so there's no way of isolating them any further.

Hey Henk, maybe something to try is to replace the insert bearing with this Drylin IGUS polymer bushings, It appear that this make less friction and less noise, there are not expensive.
it come from a guy on other forum (Hoddem's Diy Linear actuator) that I follow long time ago
what do you think?
Chris.

Michal Burisin · Oct 22, 2018

HoiHman said:
The noise levels are quite a bit higher than on the next level motion V3. I'm getting complaints of the family when driving in the very early hours with a very very "silent" profile. So i thought

When i listen the noise levels are on par with the windsim, however they seem to travel better through the entire house. I'm on a concrete floor on the ground floor.

So i'm still tuning what so see can be done to have a very quiet profile. The noise comes from the spindles and they are already in the aluminium profile, so there's no way of isolating them any further.

Hey, can you pinpoint what is causing trouble? You write it's spindles, but from video I cannot hear what do you mean.

All I hear is banging noises when there is quick change of direction of actuators. The action in between bangs seems really silent. I attributed the bangs to the rig jumping off the floor which is beside noise causing lot of vibration which travels more easily through structures.

What is the main source of the problem? Also you write the problem persist even with very low settings for night mode

From my experience with the tactile, the vibration and noise can be controlled to very high degree. I think the vibration pads on the feet you have now are not up to the task for quiet operation. Do you think the problems you are having can be resolved with some dedicated proffesional vibration & noise control?

I'm asking because I live in concrete flat house and I have neighbours under and above me and I'm not sure now if this project is even worth pursuing for me. However my initial tactile experiments were very loud with lot of vibration and now I can run 6x BK Concert + 2x TST239 without any issues, but it took a lot of effort and quite expensive materials.

I hope there is some solution to this, as the motion feedback looks great. I imagine I could use some soft profile for motion and let the harsher feedback be handled by tactile, which does it really quietly.

But I guess if it wouldn't work out for me, there wouldn't be that much trouble to get rid of it.

EDIT: Also what's weird to me, is that clicking when shifting is much louder then the actuators. You sure it's the spindles causing the trouble and not the vibration going to the floor and spreading through construction?

HoiHman · Oct 22, 2018

First of all, i'm not having any trouble

(besides getting my GS-4 to work again)

The main source of the noise are the spindles inside the aluminum profiles. As soon as you have one in hand and spin the nut fast you will know what i mean.

Fast and large movements = more noise
Slow and short movements = less noise

That's just the way it is and can not be solved in anyway buy further ground isolation or placing bushes inside.

The clicking of the shifters might be louder on a recorded video, but doesn't travel that good through doors into the house. The noise of the spindle travel much further even though it's nog as loud.

It's not super loud, but for now i won't be using motion in the early hours.

Michal Burisin · Oct 22, 2018

HoiHman said:
First of all, i'm not having any trouble (besides getting my GS-4 to work again)

The main source of the noise are the spindles inside the aluminum profiles. As soon as you have one in hand and spin the nut fast you will know what i mean.

Fast and large movements = more noise
Slow and short movements = less noise

That's just the way it is and can not be solved in anyway buy further ground isolation or placing bushes inside.

The clicking of the shifters might be louder on a recorded video, but doesn't travel that good through doors into the house. The noise of the spindle travel much further even though it's nog as loud.

It's not super loud, but for now i won't be using motion in the early hours.

Thanks for explanation.

HoiHman said:
That's just the way it is and can not be solved in anyway buy further ground isolation or placing bushes inside.

What do you mean by placing bushes inside?

Do you think weight of the rig is also major factor for the noise? I guess my rig might be about 80 - 100 kg more than yours by the looks

I'll try to trim it little bit, but I can't see too many places where I could shave more weight.

If I want to put this motion solution to use. I will probably have to do some vibration and acoustic isolation. I have read something on the topic - for example Wolf PhoneStar Tri for keeping the sound inside (the sound will bounce off it back) and something like Silent Foam to absorb the sounds. From what I read it should help plenty. I'll probably have to build like a big closet around the rig to contain the noise inside

but I will see when I get it done and how big problem it would be in my appartment.

I guess motion makes driving closer to the real life, as you don't want to crash / run on the grass so much as it unleashes hell as seen from your videos

HugoB · Oct 22, 2018

Michal Burisin said:
Thanks for explanation.

What do you mean by placing bushes inside?

Do you think weight of the rig is also major factor for the noise? I guess my rig might be about 80 - 100 kg more than yours by the looks I'll try to trim it little bit, but I can't see too many places where I could shave more weight.

If I want to put this motion solution to use. I will probably have to do some vibration and acoustic isolation. I have read something on the topic - for example Wolf PhoneStar Tri for keeping the sound inside (the sound will bounce off it back) and something like Silent Foam to absorb the sounds. From what I read it should help plenty. I'll probably have to build like a big closet around the rig to contain the noise inside but I will see when I get it done and how big problem it would be in my appartment.

I guess motion makes driving closer to the real life, as you don't want to crash / run on the grass so much as it unleashes hell as seen from your videos

I think the rig doesn’t really make that much noise into the air, but more that it transmits low frequency energy into the floor? I don’t think you’ll need any noise dampening around the rig, but you’ll need a platform to put the rig on top, that can absorb the energy from the feet, so it won’t go down into the floor?

I keep seeing this solution for drummers, maybe with enough tennisballs it is rigid enough for a motion platform?

Michal Burisin · Oct 22, 2018

hugo bokhorst said:
I think the rig doesn’t really make that much noise into the air, but more that it transmits low frequency energy into the floor? I don’t think you’ll need any noise dampening around the rig, but you’ll need a platform to put the rig on top, that can absorb the energy from the feet, so it won’t go down into the floor?

I keep seeing this solution for drummers, maybe with enough tennisballs it is rigid enough for a motion platform?

As HoiHman said audible noise is also problem (from spindles), I think it's best to deal with both (at least in my case), best would be to have some garage and then there wouldn't be need to deal with it at all

, but that's not my case. Maybe d-box is little bit better in this regard, as it doesn't rely on mechanical parts, but it's out of my price range. Also SFX software offers much more flexibility.

Regarding vibration, I have good experience with AV Mounts, but it's not cheap. There are many more solutions to the vibrations, so hopefully it will be possible to deal with it somehow. I have seen also some air bags, springs etc.

Using specialist antivibration mounts I got vibration from tactile going into the floor basically to zero, but this is another level as the weight moving is really big and acceleration is also large. Also question is if the too soft isolation won't kill the vibration going "above" to the rig. Maybe little, but hopefully not that much.

Tennis balls might work, but I guess for the weight of the rig you'll need quite a lot

EDIT: Something like this looks interesting to eat up big impacts:

EDIT: These air springs might be even better! Some has adjustable stiffnes. Used in car industry, it's not that expensive - around 75 EUR for one in my country.

HoiHman · Oct 23, 2018

GS4 is fixed. First test drive tonight

HoiHman · Oct 23, 2018

So what's it like? The combo GS-4 + SFX-100?

I only drove DTM in Raceroom tonight. Raceroom has arguably the worst motion effects support of all sims.

It's ........

Simracing heaven,
The holy grale
and i truly believe it doesn't get much better than this.

Tonight it all came together. Over 100 hours of work, all those long evenings, short nights and early mornings for the past few weeks. But it has all been worth it.

As i expected the GS-4 was the final piece that was missing in the puzzle.

Is it so much work to build a SFX-100 motion rig?

No, but if you build entire new rig, add windsim, GS-4, some buttkickers and a dashboard it becomes more complicated. From scratch the rig was designed to be mobile. Easy to set up and store again. This means retractable pedaltray, retractable dashboard and the ability to store all the electronics on the rig

Right now it takes me around 5 min to set it up and only 3,5 min to store in the other room again. Setting needs a bit improvement.

I only need to connect

- 1 powerplug
- 1 USB cable !!!
- 1 multi plug

So if i have to put it in a percentage, how much improvement in immersion does the GS-4 add to the SFX-100 motion rig? I say at least 50%

The GS-4 effects are felt much, much better that on the NLMv3, this is because the seat it self is not moving. Wen in a seatmover in the corners sway effects move your body away from the panels.

I know that Raceroom has the worst motion support, but i was haven so much fun, that i just didn't want to stop driving.

Doing some tuning tonight also make me realise how good the Simfeedback software is. For example in simcommander you can only increase intensity and add filters. In simfeedback you can set how you want the effects in a graph and that is simply brilliant.

So i had great fun tonight, awesome motion, went off track a couple of times and got shaken up pretty bad.

The rig has not moved at all.

sjb266 · Oct 23, 2018

Awesome Henk.. great to hear.. now I’m going to have to buy a GS5! Damn you!!!

Congrats on getting it all together.. my profile hasn’t even arrived yet.. it’s been 3 weeks since I ordered it..
Living in Australia is great.. but sometimes you feel a bit detached from the rest of the world!

Stevie_007 · Oct 23, 2018

Ok who wants to sell their gs-4

HugoB · Oct 23, 2018

Congrats Henk! You have the dream rig combo!

It all went so fast! I remember you got interested in the SFX100 from the D-Box vs Prosimu thread just yesterday and now you’re sitting on one!!

I hope you can have some peace now and just enjoy racing!!!

I’m unpatiently waiting for the GS-5 seat to finally hit the market

Meanwhile all the parts for SFX100 are ordered and my journey begins.

Michal Burisin · Oct 23, 2018

It must have all come together! Congrats on putting it together and also SFX authors for creating this project, especially on open license for personal use!

In case anyone missed it, I'm trying to put together G-Seat, thread here. It might suck, but as well might be awesome, who knows

, I'll keep updating the progress. From the progress I have so far, it looks promising. Should be done in around 4 - 5 weeks, as I need to wait for manufacturing of custom parts.

sebna · Oct 23, 2018

I will be aiming to get GS5 and SFX combo one day

Is it still the case that you are not using sway from SFX?

thanks

GEEDOGG · Oct 24, 2018

sjb266 said:
Awesome Henk.. great to hear.. now I’m going to have to buy a GS5! Damn you!!!

Congrats on getting it all together.. my profile hasn’t even arrived yet.. it’s been 3 weeks since I ordered it..
Living in Australia is great.. but sometimes you feel a bit detached from the rest of the world!

My profile is supposed to ship tomorrow I'm in the U.S. Thanks for the Chinese connection have you received your parts from China yet? I'll be ordering my parts from her tomorrow.

sjb266 · Oct 24, 2018

GEEDOGG said:
My profile is supposed to ship tomorrow I'm in the U.S. Thanks for the Chinese connection have you received your parts from China yet? I'll be ordering my parts from her tomorrow.

Based on tracking info should be here today.. but I have to wait for my printer parts now... and the motors.. everything else is here..

metalnwood · Oct 24, 2018

I just got my profile today from germany. Was picked up by DHL on Oct 5. 19 days to New Zealand.

I can't say I have ever paid that much shipping for something to take so long.