Thadiun Okona

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FPSVR runs extremely lean and honestly is kinda a must have app for VR, even if you don't actively use it it's extremely useful for dialing SS and whatnot up to max based on real time performance observation.. it gives fps, time, cpu, (per core), gpu utilization and other stats. Has a flexible UI you can use in the dash or an adjustable overlay. One of the better $4 I've spent on VR...

Every time you use anything that makes facebook money, such as: - facebook (through ads) - instagram (through ads) - occulus (directly) Or anything that helps facebook consolidate control over communications, such as: - whatsapp - messenger You give them more resources to, among other things: - condone genocides in other countries like Burma (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/...r-facebook.html) - financially support judges like Brett Kavanaugh (https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-kavanaugh-gala) - provide a shelter online for white supremacy - run the largest news dissemination site in the world, entirely run by ex fox news people - encourage their algorithms to steer more people toward anti-vaxx / extremist ideologies, which the company admits it does but won't change (https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebo...ons-11590507499) This is just the tip of this cancerous corporation's dystopian iceberg It's inseparable now in the context of Oculus because a politically charged far right company that props up the world's authoritarian regimes has chosen to co opt VR for their own purposes. It looked bad enough in 2014 but we now know is even worse. A lot worse.

I'd be looking for a short to ground in the miniDIN or pigtail that connects it either in the grip or in the base. It's pretty easy to pinch a wire in the metal shell if they're not perfectly tucked and I've seen them that way from the factory (I've opened up a lot of these and Warthogs).

Virpil just teased/showed off a new line of modular throttle and panel components and VKB is going to release their big buttony console one in the near? future

It's easy to figure out. Multiply the total pixels first then by the refresh rate and you get the graphical load in terms of pixels per second that need to be rendered 4k: [3840 x 2160] x 60 = 497,664,000 G2: [2160 x 2160 x2] x 90 = 839,808,000 Conclusion: G2 at 90hz is roughly 1.7x the load of 4k at 60hz.

Oveready (USA) sells 10g tubes for $15 and also carry the super hard to find PG44 which is a heavier damping grease than 767a https://www.oveready.com/flashlights/accessories/nyogel-lubricants/

Joystick Gremlin is your friend :) https://whitemagic.github.io/JoystickGremlin/

They do offer cutting/drilling/tapping and quite reasonable prices. I bought extrusions from them for the SFX 100 variant I'm building and had them cut 4 pieces of 8080 and tap 32 holes. Cost inc shipping to US was ~$190. It took a bit to get it all sorted with Fiona via email mostly due to time zones and my wishy washy needs but she was patient and let me go through multiple iterations of my order before *settling on just the parts for my actuators. If I bought a single uncut 1m long piece (same linear amount) from 8020 it would cost about the same or a little more even though they're semi local in the US and there was no machining. *in the end I regretted not buying them all from Langle as it ended up costing me more by the time all was said and done locally sourcing pieces in the US even when buying drop/seconds on ebay

You don't build your own t slot pit to save money, you do it because what you want isn't offered. Unless you're buying hundreds of meters of the material paying bulk rates it will generally cost more than buying a prepackaged set. You can order connector pieces from China for a fraction of the cost of 8020/Item/Modetis/etc but have to wait longer or pay really high shipping. Extrusions for that matter as well. I have bought t slot from Alibaba, Hunan Langle Aluminum (Fiona is the contact) and can recommend them if you go that route. Their shipping is expensive (air freight) but gets to you in like a week. https://cslangle.en.alibaba.com/

Have you done any printing with the newer 3D870 formula PLA? It prints very nicely as far as pla goes but isstronger than abs though likely not quite as strong as sintered prints https://www.natureworksllc.com/~/media/Files/NatureWorks/Technical-Documents/Technical-Data-Sheets/TechnicalDataSheet_3D870_monofilament_pdf.pdf?la=en I'm using Filistruder Veracity Pro to make parts for my SFX-100 type motion platform I'm making. It was the cheapest 3d870 formula pla I could find in the US but in Europe there are other companies that would likely be cheaper for similar filament Hope all's well on your end and you're staying safe, love seeing you continue advancing your offerings.

Super Lube was my initial goto grease but eventually realized it does a poor job over time. It evaporates critical ingredients and becomes sticky/ratchety like most greases do. Molykote is ok as a lube it will last a long time and is smooth but Nyogel 767a kicks it's ass because it's all that but also a heavy damping grease... the effect makes the Warthog -extremely smooth- and much less prone to overshooting inputs. Also lasts a really long time... checked my hog the other day and the Nyogel I put in it 5 years ago(!) is still completely viable with no signs of evaporation or degradation.

When banking an aircraft the forces push you straight down in the seat unless you are flying uncoordinated. Too little rudder (slipping) you feel like your slightly falling inside the turn, too much (skidding) and you feel like your falling outside the turn. Subtle roll cues can recreate this with astonishing fidelity and SFX 100 has 100mm travel to work with. Sure it can only replicate forces to a certain level, but it doesn't take a lot to accurately mimic most phases of real flight. Accurate suggestions of acceleration are the name of the game. Pitch roll and heave like are enough to accomplish this, even with 100mm travel actuators but those 360 carnival platforms are for kids and arcades as they don't' even come close to replicating what flying feels like.

Uhhg... just had a fully written reply wiped by a finger flub... second attempt Nice truncation of your pitch pulley, I've also embraced a partial pulley design for my final drive to further reduce the footprint/form factor, though mine is applied to a double reduction where the first stage is full round but 4" dia. Whether cable or belt, the same radial relationships generate the same mechanical advantages so the ultimate size is still influenced by this. With cable you can only drive it with so-small of a shaft due to cable properties and with belts the lower limit is by tooth engagement (smaller drive pulley increases tactile pollution and belt wear). My planned belt gimbals will only be a 1/2" bigger all around than my current ms hack (6x6x5 enclosure) even though the motors are twice the size. After playing 'musical cockpits' for the last 10yrs I've grown an appreciation for things that are compact and self contained :p As to pulleys/belts not allowing enough torque I think it's just a matter of selection. There are combos rated for more torque than it takes to rip our arms off, at least more than what's safe for a little baseball bat mounted by our privates. GT belts are rated at higher values of HTD due to the efficient tooth engagement by the modified design and are also quieter (lower tactile report). Pulley's limits are more determined by fastening type ie: set screw or screws (ok) or split-collar (better) or collet (best) but I'm starting simple with set scews since they're cheapest. If I have issues I can divot or cross-drill the shafts and permanently mount them, if that fails I can move up the food chain using standard options I can buy and make. Here's a neat chart comparing belts by type/size I can't find a similar chart for the polychain belt version, but they are the type rated for high torque at low rpm that use the same pitches/teeth so there are better low speed options if powergrip is insufficient, but my belt driven ff simracing wheel uses powergrip and works like a champ, which is what sold me on modern belt drive capabilities. Here's a Gates pdf on polychain belts, which are similar but tailored for applications under 500rpm https://www.ahrinternational.com/PDF_catalogues/Gates/polychaindesignmanual17595.pdf (p25 chart shows 8mm polychain rated ~.8hp and 14mm rated ~6hp at 10rpm) I fly irl and used to obsess over achieving 100% force value, which in most circumstances is pretty low but corner cases can be quite high for sailplanes but applies to most general aviation. Warbirds and big boys of course generate much higher forces but I scaled back my ambition after observing how readily the human brain accepts lighter forces. So long as they accurately resemble what my brain expects based on flight condition it's quite convincing. Same applies to motion of motion platforms... timely suggestions of accelerations that are short of full value, so long as accurate, are enough for your brain to accept. I worked for E2M Technologies for a few years, and got to build/play with high end belt driven electric ball-screw motion platforms rated at 3000kg (they make much bigger ones but switch to direct drive much beyond 3k and those weren't built at our facility). Their control loading hardware was all direct drive (didn't get to play with any but motors were yuuge), however my boss there worked on the Air Force One Blackhawk simulator some years back and that utilized (wait for it...) shaft winding for some of the ff power transmission :) Got to spend a lot of time picking his brain and talking shop which was helpful for adjusting my priorities. Kinda rambling here I guess so to summarize I don't see torque limitation of belts as an issue, even for powerful sticks and my belt driven 6Nm Fanatec simracing wheel regularly tries to break my wrist without any tactile artifacts. You do have to select the belt type/pitch/width suited for the application though. In my case it's 3mm GT2 9mm (may use 8mm polychain) but a warbird setup might benefit from say 5mm GT2 15mm (or 14mm polychain) for example. Shaft winding is good too of course, and could be made compact with similar tricks if desired.

Thanks for the kind words Miles. Ironically using the shaft winding technique was my original starting place on this project and I designed a stick around it in 2008, though never got around to the actual build. With improvements in HTD (rounded tooth) type belt drives, notably GT2/GT3 (rounded tooth modified for better engagement under load) the most compelling reason imo to use shaft winding, the lack of tactile pollution, was no longer an issue. To that end, I switched to belt drive due to off-shelf components making one more part of the build accessible, especially now that printing is viable for the larger pulleys. True it's not practical to achieve huge ratios without a double without or triple pulley setup, there's also a practical limitation on how small a shaft you can wind around (and hence size of final drive) before doing damage to kevlar with constant cycling. The other thing is you can't go crazy with drive ratios due to inertial influences. The MSFFII engineers chose 24:1, which seems a great tradeoff of power vs unwanted inertia from spinning armatures, though I haven't done any real testing yet to see how much is too much. At 24:1 the motors go through 2 full revolutions when moving the stick from stop to stop with the stock mechanism. I do prefer kevlar family ropes to aircraft cable though, it's much less elastic... more than an order of magnitude! Steel aircraft cable stretches like 20% @ 50% the break strength whereas kevlar stretches 1-2% at the same mark. It's harder to work with for terminating cleanly and tensioning installations, but there are enough advantages to be worth employing solutions. For me it was in the zone of diminishing returns in the face of GT3 belt though since they behave so nicely and are easy to work with and I don't desire super high ratios. Being able to print the large pulleys makes it economically sound. Here's a drawing of my shaft winding design from 2008 long before I knew now to use cad lol. That iteration had the pitch motor going for a ride, but mounted directly on the roll axis (with a miter gear) to mitigate its swinging mass. My current form factor has the roll axis moving with the gimbals and is near the axis but also augments the counterweight and after thinking about it, pitch is not operated vigorously enough for it to matter so the previous iteration was a solution looking for a problem. My new design is far more compact. I bought 1/4 hp Yaskawa 3ph ac servos/drives for this and had a full diy scheme for ff but now that msffii is hackable it's a silly wheel to reinvent but that was before Roland pioneered the mods. May still employ those solutions for ff pedals and possibly airbrakes down the road, but that's a whole nother can of worms :p

Thanks, the counterweight does a nice job keeping pitch balanced with the offset grip. I kept it all as light as possible so reduce the mass needed to keep it upright and can adjust the weight as needed. Not sure if you saw the link to the album I started but it has more pics and descriptions under each one https://imgur.com/a/4PHsM3V I just printed in PLA, however none of the critical load paths rely in its strength other than the 45deg elbows, so they were printed at 100% infill and have really thick walls. The base of the shaft has a brass tube to reinforce the fulcrum and there are printed bosses that engage the stock mechanism that have m3 screws running down the center of them. I might make an updated version in abs or petg but probably not since this is just my stepping stone stick before I build the 'real' one using motors the size of coke cans and a belt drive, though will retain the form factor and will basically be the same stick but on steroids

Here's a shot I just got after some bench testing a few minutes ago. I still have some wiring/soldering to do. It will have an enclosure and properly mounted boards soon but the important parts are all present and work nicely together. I'm making a breakout board to connect the grip to the shaft using standard 2.54mm plugs/wires/boards. I'm retaining the led/photodiode circuit, but it will be mounted in the sailplane cockpit it was made for so the stick will be active if I'm sitting in it vs mounted in the grip. Here's a link to an album that has more pics and descriptions: https://imgur.com/a/4PHsM3V I don't want to drift this thread too much by dumping all the images here and again will be making a proper thread for it here soon. Heh, thanks, but mostly I have the advantage of riding the shoulders of giants like Roland van Roy, who has kindly helped me with other related projects in the past. At one point I came up with a new scheme for full homebrew diy ff which was tested to good effect by Roland, but once the MSFFII hack became viable it makes a lot less sense to reinvent so many wheels when a good effects library of DirectInput can be extracted and utilized to good effect by such inexpensive hardware

The stock psu might not even put out what the motors can drink with the stock value at max draw which is 1.4A @24vdc. Doubling the current draw makes them capable of accepting up to 2.8A. Not sure the rated output of the stock unit is but the input is 1A @ 120vac. My 3A psu draws 2.8A @ 120vac to produce 3A @ 24vdc using similar circuit architecture. As to the psu being separate, while MS put them in the same enclosure the power supply is a discrete component so yes it's replaced. I'm not using the stock enclosure because my gimbals are a completely different form factor so it was not a huge leap from there. Even with the stock psu I was quite surprised how much more powerful the stick was after the resistor mod though. Unless you're holding both axes way off center (not a realistic flying condition), the one that's displaced more is getting more juice so in actual use the stock psu is likely fine but it seemed low hanging fruit to bump it up after coming this far :p To that end I have a 7A psu that I'll be using to power my newer conversion with the Pittman 14203 motors which should equate to somewhere ~3.5Nm final drive. My estimate based on similar sized motors/draws of the stock ones with the 24:1 ratio is ~0.8Nm, so the simple resistor mod we did should bump that to 1.6Nm or so which seems plausible. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow, it's still a wip but at this point is finally cohesive enough to see what's going on. I plan on doing a proper thread here on it once it's in its 'final' form. The gimbals are a combination of printed parts with bronze bushings pressed for pivots along with aluminum parts for mounting the motor assy's, using the stock pots for simplicity

Roland van Roy figured this out and has good documentation if you want to do this. The stock circuit can be made to run up to 400% the stock torque by swapping some transistors and adding some caps/diodes/resistors. It works. http://www.simprojects.nl/ms_siderwinder_ff2_hack.htm As to motors, he has guidelines on motor selection. For one you probably want a brushed DC with a skewed armature to reduce magnetic cogging. Beyond that you select them based on the voltage drop at full load using Ohm's law. You want the voltage drop to be 12v at full power. I'm making such a mod now and have settled on 38.8v Lo-Cog Pittman 14203 motors (about the size of a coke can and have skewed armatures), which also need 25w 1/2 ohm resistors to bring the voltage drop to close to 12v since the terminal resistance was a bit low. My ideal motor would be a 48v Pittman 14204, a bit stronger and has the correct native terminal resistance. Pittman motors are not cheap new but can be found as surplus if you have patience. I paid $60 for a pair of 14203 recently. Using a 25:1 belt drive for power transmission (5:1 into 5:1). I currently run a modded MSFFII using the stock motors running at double the power by halving the resistance in the current sensing circuit and a 24v 3a psu to supply them with full power. Much stronger than I expected it to be. My gimbal is custom for my sailplane cockpit and pitch axis is 50mm longer than roll, but I kept the stock motor/gear assy's. Printed a glider grip and made a carbon fiber/printed elbows stick to achieve a full length offset stick that closely replicates typical sailplanes. This iteration of the stick is just to tide me over until I finish the one with the Pittman motors.

Might have already been mentioned but I didn't see it but in VR the effective resolution is basically half of its stated value because the left/right screens (or sides of the panel) are generating nearly the same image for stereoscopic 3d. Between that and pixels per degree of fov is why VR requires so much higher resolution to be on par with seemingly equivalent monitors

Neat to see this shaping up, the gui looks fantastic and I have a few questions. What is the torque of the motors, as in holding torque and peak/transient torque? Being direct drive, knowing that that would allow anyone with force questions to easily extrapolate how much to expect in their configuration like length of shaft and grip type. The base seems pretty compact so presumably the brushless drives are external? If so, how big are they and are x/y mounted in the same enclosure?

If you have an Nvidia card you may need to install their hd audio drivers but eitehr way it sounds like a driver issue

Haha, forgot to check which side the notch in the ball was on when you greased your Warthog? Easily repaired honestly, you can solder the wires back and put tiny pieces of heat shrink on them (slip a piece on before soldering). I've done this repair before without splicing in new wire and it's fine.

If you have your desktop up in the menu (pull up desktop in menu while controllers are still on) you can use kbm or just mouse

Damping makes it much easier to put the stick where you want without overshooting.