High angle & Displacement 6DOF

[TripRodriguez]

I'm back from my honeymoon and anxious to watch your progress as well as get back to work on my own 6DOF build =)

I contacted the guy about making the crank arms, he said he will get back to me after holiday.

[DoctorD]

The build continues!
Framing the base and starting to mount gearboxes and motors...

FrameGoesTogether.JPG (115.05 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

GearboxesOnFrame.JPG (111.83 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

...of course, not without the help of my 'Lab' assistant

LabAssistant.JPG (109.46 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

and finally, some motors finding their home

MotorsOn.JPG (124.53 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

That's mostly it for * I've been having some trouble getting the board to talk correctly to the VFDs, but I have absolute faith that it'll be sorted out.
In the meantime I've set up a motor and gearbox for bench testing.

BenchTesting.JPG (109.09 KiB) Viewed 5212 times

[blugreen]

Looking great. I am keenly following this build as building a very similar platform is my next project. I am about to build the cyclic, collective with twist throttle and pedals. I was looking at buying a set from Rainman. His sets are awesome looking but part of the thrill for me is the design and building.

[DoctorD]

I couldn't agree more Bluegreen. >90% of the pleasure for me is in the design and problem solving.
It's an endless cycle of little problems, which are inevitably tackled and solved with what (I believe) is the most 'elegant' solution (given the knowledge/experience I have at the time)... ...and if that fails, just dogged determination and brute strength

I'm planning on making a whole suite of different. high quality and fidelity controls for all manner of flight/driving simulators. Using the CNC I plan to build sets for racing, fighter planes, general aviation fixed wing and helicopter simulation. I'm also thinking about adding a 7th axis and slip ring to the platform to enable continuous yaw rotations (a fair while down the track though).

Design, build and design some more

[DoctorD]

More progress!
The motors and gearboxes are all on board and they are certainly looking like they're ready for business.

Base.JPG (126.97 KiB) Viewed 5148 times

I don't know if the photos do it justice, but it's a little daunting/impressive to look at the now 300kg+ base frame and imagine what it's going to be like riding the thing.
That said, I really can't wait until I'm able to offer rides to my friends and get them to step up onto the platform

InstalledMG.JPG (111.64 KiB) Viewed 5148 times

On a possibly more exciting note, I've had a really big win with respect to getting the controller to output the right signals (Cheers Thanos). I may even have some nice videos to post in the next day or two.
As always, fingers crossed...

[DoctorD]

Great success!
Late night, crappy/untuned PID settings, poor quality video, poor lighting, shaky camera... but a big sigh of relief and a smile as the first motor bursts into life, completely under the control of Thanos' test sequence

[fader]

Hi DoctorD!

I'm a long time lurker on this site, and always love checking out what people are creating. I'm an avid sim racer.. but unfortunately I don't have the capacity/ability to produce something yet, but I hope to at some point.

Just wanted to say I was blown away coming across your platform and the rapid progress, I was even more excited to see you're located in Brisbane (I am too!). Can't wait for the continuing progress! Keep up the amazing work!

[DoctorD]

Massive thanks for the kind words Fader.

I will try and post as much as I can in the coming weeks (especially video as it starts to move).

[DoctorD]

A good few hours of cabling, soldering and fiddling and the position sensors are all in and centered.
Finally, collective motion!

The motion is limited to around 50% travel and 60% speed

Time to tidy up the wiring so I can get on to building and calibrating the top platform and support struts.
I have a timber dummy top frame for initial testing (so as to reduce the likelihood of wrecking something important during the calibration).

Wish me luck!

[RacingMat]

That looks very good! Strong and smooth

Good luck for your next tests