Like most of you I am shooting for the most immersion I can get. I like the idea of full motion but as you know, that doesnt come cheap. So Ive decided to design and build my own motion rig. I am fortunate that I design/manufacture things for a living so I have CNC machines and am well versed in all of the steps required to pursue such a project. For the design I set the following attributes as goals:
1 Compact. I want the unit to be as compact as possible, not requiring a dedicated room. I want it to be moveable if necessary.
2 Light Weight. To facilitate goal# 1 the unit has to be light weight.
3 Motion. I want to use off-the-shelf components for the motion actuators. I looked at DBox but ended up deciding on SimXperience. After looking at SimXperiences software and the components they use, I feel they offer the best value for what Im trying to do. I love the RTL functionality they have incorporated into their components.
4 Cost. I want to keep costs down as much as I can in case there is any interest/demand for the rig.
So, Ive been working on the design for some time now and am almost at the point of pulling the trigger on manufacturing. My design is somewhat unique so you will probably either really like it or not like it at all. I will illustrate the pictures below with my design thoughts on what I was trying to accomplish.
Below is the full motion rig to give you an overall view.
By now you might be asking yourself, where are all of the actuators? To accomplish the design goals I placed the actuators along with the control box in the base of the unit. Below you can see what I mean. The actuators are placed under the seat and actuate the seat platform via bell-cranks. Ive spent a lot of hours on this aspect of the design making sure everything calcs out correctly. Yes I did my homework.
SimXperience recommends the use of dampeners in line with the actuators so I incorporated this into the system. If you look in the below pic you will see the interchangeable rubber bushings. They are interchangeable so different spring rates can be used depending on what I like best.
I wanted to incorporate rear-traction-loss. Id like to think my approach is elegantly simple, certainly compact. Below you can see how I did it. In the rear of the rig, there is an actuator attached to the rear legs. The rear legs are attached to the rig via ball bearing linear guides. The actuator simply moves the rear legs in relation to the rig as a whole.
The front legs of the unit pivot at the center point allowing the rig to rotate via the RTL actuator.
So, by placing the main actuators under the seat and accomplishing the RTL in the manner I did, the end result is very compact. To give you an idea on size, the below pic shows a transparent box overlayed onto the rig. The size of the box is 20 wide, 24 tall, and 60 in length.
Because I didnt mount the actuators in the traditional manner I saved a ton of space in the rear. Below gives you an idea of where the actuators would be if mounted like they usually are. You can see in the pic that the rear of the rig doesnt even protrude any further than the rear of the seat.
Here is a front view showing the width of the rig.
Below you can see how I designed the pedal base and wheel platforms adjustability. The pedal base is adjustable fore/aft as well as angle of attack. The wheel platform has adjustable rake in a macro fashion at its base as well in a micro fashion at the top. The seat is also adjustable for fore/aft as well as angle via the side mounting plates.
Below you can see the overall structure and how I reinforced all of the components to make the entire rig very structurally sound and rigid.
The next step will be ordering the components and seat to do some measurement verifications before going into the production phase. Hope you like it!
1 Compact. I want the unit to be as compact as possible, not requiring a dedicated room. I want it to be moveable if necessary.
2 Light Weight. To facilitate goal# 1 the unit has to be light weight.
3 Motion. I want to use off-the-shelf components for the motion actuators. I looked at DBox but ended up deciding on SimXperience. After looking at SimXperiences software and the components they use, I feel they offer the best value for what Im trying to do. I love the RTL functionality they have incorporated into their components.
4 Cost. I want to keep costs down as much as I can in case there is any interest/demand for the rig.
So, Ive been working on the design for some time now and am almost at the point of pulling the trigger on manufacturing. My design is somewhat unique so you will probably either really like it or not like it at all. I will illustrate the pictures below with my design thoughts on what I was trying to accomplish.
Below is the full motion rig to give you an overall view.
By now you might be asking yourself, where are all of the actuators? To accomplish the design goals I placed the actuators along with the control box in the base of the unit. Below you can see what I mean. The actuators are placed under the seat and actuate the seat platform via bell-cranks. Ive spent a lot of hours on this aspect of the design making sure everything calcs out correctly. Yes I did my homework.
SimXperience recommends the use of dampeners in line with the actuators so I incorporated this into the system. If you look in the below pic you will see the interchangeable rubber bushings. They are interchangeable so different spring rates can be used depending on what I like best.
I wanted to incorporate rear-traction-loss. Id like to think my approach is elegantly simple, certainly compact. Below you can see how I did it. In the rear of the rig, there is an actuator attached to the rear legs. The rear legs are attached to the rig via ball bearing linear guides. The actuator simply moves the rear legs in relation to the rig as a whole.
The front legs of the unit pivot at the center point allowing the rig to rotate via the RTL actuator.
So, by placing the main actuators under the seat and accomplishing the RTL in the manner I did, the end result is very compact. To give you an idea on size, the below pic shows a transparent box overlayed onto the rig. The size of the box is 20 wide, 24 tall, and 60 in length.
Because I didnt mount the actuators in the traditional manner I saved a ton of space in the rear. Below gives you an idea of where the actuators would be if mounted like they usually are. You can see in the pic that the rear of the rig doesnt even protrude any further than the rear of the seat.
Here is a front view showing the width of the rig.
Below you can see how I designed the pedal base and wheel platforms adjustability. The pedal base is adjustable fore/aft as well as angle of attack. The wheel platform has adjustable rake in a macro fashion at its base as well in a micro fashion at the top. The seat is also adjustable for fore/aft as well as angle via the side mounting plates.
Below you can see the overall structure and how I reinforced all of the components to make the entire rig very structurally sound and rigid.
The next step will be ordering the components and seat to do some measurement verifications before going into the production phase. Hope you like it!
