Zee Sim Rig

[Zeeflyboy]

Thanks!

@koolpc - Quite a difficult question to answer as so much of it is made of scavenged parts and leftovers from other projects, a lot of custom bits are 3d printed and the chair was a gift from a couple of years ago... so short answer is not really got a clue lol. Probably about £250-300 of new stuff to build the thing itself, wood and miscellaneous parts etc... I think the shakers and amp together come to about £500 although the big one (BK4-A) was £270 of that on it's own and again was a gift. The tablets I got for about £60 each in the sales.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

so maybe around £1000 if you was to build using second hand parts and maybe £1500+ as new?

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Probably as good a guess as any!

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Mostly finished the button box now, mostly just waiting on the 3 sqaure buttons for the centre which seem to be stuck in a post office somewhere.

Zee M-FCU button box build | Overclockers UK Forums - I am posting a continuous log there of the button box if anyone is interested in more details (by lack or replies there I guess no one is lol)

In other news I made a start on my pedals after finalising the design:

3D printed and CF Electronics box I whipped up housing the Leo bodnar LC-USB

Cutting frames out of chunky 3mm plate

Brake pedal is up first (printed bushings are temporary, waiting for some oilite bushes in the post :

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Almost done on the brake prototype, currently a mix of 3d printed components and parts made on the lathe... most of the 3d printed parts will eventually be replaced with milled/lathe parts once I'm happy with the design.

Few shots of parts in the making:

And where I'm currently at with the prototype - I'm waiting on a few parts such as oilite bushes, springs, and a different damper. The small black spring on the main rod is temporary just to see how it works, the final spring will be like in the render where it goes over the guides. The idea is to give an adjustable distance travel before hitting the elastomers to simulate that first lighter bit of travel where you are just pushing the pads onto the disc.

The "elastomers" are also 3d printed from 85A durometer TPU (orange is all I have!)... they are possibly a bit hard so I'm looking into alternatives but can decide that once I've tried it.

Only thing left to do before the brake is functional is to machine the side mounting brackets.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

I apologise for the crap photo quality - my phone died a while back and I've been using an old one which really struggles with lower light pics. I'll break out the proper camera and take some proper photos at some point!

Anyway, resonance speaker arrived, just had to make a little adaptor piece for it

how she comes:

Adaptor nubbin:

And mounted:

I remade the thumbnut and upper spring guides in brass rather than 3d printed:

You can see there I've also been playing with designs for 3D printed elastomers - those are 95A and just too stiff even with zero infill, but switching to that ribbed design and gyroid infill using 85A ninjaflex works great. Unfortunately I only have orange for now but will be changing that over to something a little less garish. It's quite cool 3D printing them as you can vary the stiffness even in the same material just by varying the infill...

I also got around to machining the side brackets:

Which all takes us to pretty much completion on the brake unit other than machining the few remaining 3d printed parts but there's no rush for that (if I even bother!). I will just need to wait patiently for the proper spring to arrive (the one that fits on the main shaft spring guides), and I need to hook up some wiring for the resonance motor. I also have a better damper/shock arriving at some point too.

Edit - better pics for the last two

 

[Deus Ex]

Lovely Carbon fibre.

 

[Roadrunner_668]

wow is all i can say !

i love looking through the project logs on here from time to time but while they are awesome they are usually just pcs with case mods and things

this is absolutely amazing ! you are very skilled at this ! sorry if i missed it but do you do this sort of thing as a profession ? are you an engineer ?

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Thanks very much. Nope, not an engineer or anything - just a hobby for me and I learn as I go a lot of the time!

 

[Roadrunner_668]

even more impressive if its a hobby for you then

good job

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Thanks

Mostly done on the accelerator pedal now, and I've had it all set up and working, did some racing in ACC and AMS2 and it's all working well. I need some stiffer springs for both the brake and the Accelerator which are on the way but I'm very happy with the compression of the 3d printed elastomers.

Accelerator is still rocking quite a few temporary parts such as 3d printed brackets, thumbscrew etc.

The small pinion gear for the hall effect potentiometer was giving me grief 3d printing it due to the small size and thin walls, so I turned to a resin printer instead. Here you can see the first resin print vs the 5th attempt at FDM printing! (resin in grey, FDM in orange)

and here is the counterpart on the pedal:

I also got a pedal plate machined out with routing for the wires (including the audio for the resonance motor) to keep everything tidy

also picked up this little amp which will be powering the brake resonance motor

 

[Roadrunner_668]

resin printing ! not heard of that one
is it just the same as normal 3d printing just using different material ?

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Most people probably think of what is called an FDM machine when they think of 3D printing where you have a spool of plastic filament being pushed through a heated nozzle... that’s the stereotypical 3D printer you’ll see and by far the most common in DIY.

Resin is another type of 3D printing (of which there are many), which uses photo-sensitive liquid resin instead of filament. There are a few different types but mine has a powerful UV light behind a high resolution LCD screen, under a vat of resin. it effectively displays a picture of each layer on the screen while turning on the UV light which causes the resin to cure where the LCD lets the light through, then the build plate moves up and does the next layer and so on.

It can make incredibly intricate prints, which is why it’s the default printer for guys that are in to their miniatures, but it’s much more of a pain in the arse than an FDM machine.

 

[Roadrunner_668]

Wow OK I didn't know that existed at all ! Ill have to do some searching because that sounds very interesting

 

[Zeeflyboy]

It's a rabbit hole, have fun!

Just hooked up the resonance motor on the brake and had a quick test, brilliant! Get a nice pulsing through the pedal as ABS kicks in which really gives you a much better feel for where the threshold is... for cars that don't have ABS it looks like wheel lock under breaking should be easy enough to add but need to test it out.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

This sim rig is way more than I expected. Your basically making a real life simulator without the harsh feeling if you crash, unless that's in the build plan? this makes me want to drive again but only in your sim rig lol. Had a bad crash during my test 8 years ago so i was terrified to go out again

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Hah yeah it kind of is in the plan, next step for the rig itself will be G-seat and belt tensioner to simulate the forces of acceleration, cornering and braking.

Eventually I’m tempted to put the entire thing on 4 DIY actuators to give a proper feeling of being jostled over the bumps and lumps, but that probably depends on how well the shakers and G-seat work out together... I may not feel the need for that significant increase in cost, complexity and weight etc.

Sorry to hear about the accident, I can massively recommend at least getting yourself a wheel and a VR headset - you don’t have to go as mad as me to have an amazing time racing!

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

Incredible engineering work. I particularly love the motorised arm and the pedals! Apologies if you've covered it and I missed it, what do you do for a living?

I really want to add butt kickers at some point, is an amp that size a requirement?

 

[Jay85]

As always mate, incredible work. You could make a serious killing out of these if you ever decided to manufacturer them. I'm sure the Sim boys would die for something like this even if you charged £££££.

 

[Opisflap]

If you didn't want to go to the effort of manufacturing it you could sell blueprints, stls and dxf files.

Seriously impressive work.