Thadiun Okona

There are good solutions for glasses wearers... instead of uncomfortably wearing your 'street glasses' you can have custom made prescription inserts that snap into your Rift and can easily be removed for non glasses wearers. There are inexpensive semi-diy options using your prescription lens from these cheap 'Harry Potter' glasses and can print frames from Thingverse for them. There is Widmovr that makes nicer versions (custom lenses vs Harry Potters) https://widmovr.com/product/oculus-rift-prescription-lenses-adapter/ The best solution though are these, which install separately on the lenses so adjust with ipd plus allow maximum eyelash clearance https://vr-lens.eu/oculus-rift-lens-inserts.html VR-Lenslab also has similar offerings as well as glasses with a headstrap (no side arms), which are available in several lens shapes https://vr-lens-lab.com/ (I've seen some complaints about optics quality with these, not sure if addressed yet) Glasses wearers might want to bookmark those links, as there are/will be prescription lens adapters for other headsets and it might be relevant to your interests.

Should be able to, the Steam integration apparently works well and the headsets seem to have no problem running Steam applications in VR same as Vive or Rift. Apps that req tracked controller positions that were not possible with the inside out tracking didn't work as well, but this is a non issue for sims.

I didn't think you were considering it, I was offering more reasons in addition to cost as to why it's not a good option here, for the person that was wondering that you were responding to. Makes sense on your drawing now, it's not what you are using to machine parts from just yet. I thought since you were looking for people to cut metal it was your final design. Testing out single axis the most sensible approach, it will let you evaluate the feel of the motor/drive and also the tactile reporting of the timing belt(s). Carry on..

Honestly this type of motion platform is of limited use for aircraft flying... if you are limited to two axis for flight you really want pitch and heave (z-axis up/down), not pitch and roll. Also, with the pivot point located so far below the pilot's sensors (your inner ear), changes in pitch/roll will also have false queues as your head describes an arc vs your body being rotated with your head at the axis. That is one of the main reasons 6dof platforms are used, the additional axes allow the machine to interpolate the pivot point to be at the pilot's head to minimize false motion queues. What they are showing in the video is what is colloquially referred to as 'arcade motion' (I work in this industry). The machine is attempting to mimic craft attitudes rather than trying to mimic craft accelerations. Flying feels nothing like what they are showing in the video... coordinated flight pushes you straight down in the seat... and why roll is not generally included in real 2dof flight systems. What you really need is something that subtly but convincingly mimics accelerations... mild but accurate 'suggestions' of accel are far more convincing than machines that mimic attitude, even ones that spin all the way around and such or put focus on extreme excursion. For a motion sim to work it doesn't need high excursions, it needs accurate ones and also req very low latency from signal to motion and the ability to operate at high frequency so it can handle what is thrown at it. Poorly thought out motion translating programs are a recipe for sim sickness due to vestibular mismatch when your eyes and inner ear disagree though, and a motion sim is only ever as good as the program driving it. There are some good stuff out there, but what is in the video is not worth it or at least not in the mode they are using it... it's possible there are other settings to allow realism. The machine itself might be worth it to you if you also simrace, but not for flight alone imo. Not being a diy guy puts you are a disadvantage in this dept, because all of them no matter what req a lot of tinkering. Even a super rad turnkey motion platform represents a bottomless pit of tuning to your applications and understanding the hardware intimately is kind of important.

Budget and space... motors big enough to direct drive at the appropriate torque/frequency capacities are HUGE. You also can only use one of them 'direct' and the other has to be coupled 1:1 via linkage so the assembly gets even bigger... it's way too much mass to move along with the gimbals so needs to be isolated. High end systems like this that I've seen use 3ph AC servomechanisms vs BLDC though I'm not sure if that is out of performance or practicality considerations. After looking closer at the drawings I am left wondering how belt tension is handled? I saw no provisions for this, which would make installing timing belts like this difficult at best and no way to compensate for stretch. Not difficult to accommodate, but I don't think it can be ignored. My apologies if I just missed it..

Actually I don't recommend using the driven pot circuit at all, or any other diy interface because it represents an astronomical amount of work and very limited usability. I recommend instead using a MSFFII modified to output 400% the stock torque and connect that to real motors using your own psu in the form of simply 24 power bricks. No idea what you mean by 'threat' lol. As to shaft winding, as far as mechanical systems go you are not going to find much simpler an arrangement to construct, especially one with no backlash or cogging which are (or should be considered) deal breakers for what you are trying to do. Steel cable is subject to creep and stretch and would eventually need tightening however kevlar (Spectra/Dyneema etc) is not. Such a system would req little if any tuning and it would be pretty straight forward to incorporate a cable tension mechanism where it mounts on the bellcrank, or even little idler pulleys. Steel cable is like a rubber band made of stabby needles though, where it elongates some 35% at break vs kevlar which is more like 3.5%. Kevlar also doesn't poke holes in your fingers and instead feels like a waxy shoelace. There are rl aircraft that use it over steel now in control circuits. Best of luck whatever you guys decide...

Have any interfacing solutions been worked out yet or is the plan to make the hardware first and then try to figure that out? Also to anyone stumped on how to create -smooth- power transition, read or reread the post I made about shaft winding... https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3274336&postcount=255 this is a viable and accessible option and also used in RL systems for its performance. It's feasible/cheap enough to diy, yet good enough for the Air Force One Blackhawk sim and many others. No belts or gears in this shoestring budget will be able to provide anything near a smooth output. You can't compensate for cogging effects by making the gear ratio dramatic enough to mask it -this causes the motor to spin way too fast and then suffers inertia effects where the stick is commended to stop or reverse but the motor can only sluggishly obey because it's spinning so fast. You lose the ability to have higher frequency effects as well.

Source?

After the permanent price drop of CV1 to $399 it's not really much of a question, get a Rift. It has a lot more comfort features and comes with a bunch of games and while Vive has slightly better tracking, Rift works just fine and for cockpit games this is a moot point. To the guy saying 'don't buy first gen'... CV1 is gen3 for publicly released hardware from Oculus and Vive is equivalent in terms of generational evolution. Sure VR is gonna get even better, but it's already legit and there's no reason to miss out on all the fun that can be had right now...

No, that is truckstock/hardware store stuff and people are assuming viscosity equals damping. Nyogel 767a is a silica thickened heavy viscosity synthetic hydrocarbon grease, but formulated specifically for damping. It's a space age damping grease that remains very stable over a wide temperature range, where the 'breakout' pressure to move it from a standstill is nearly the same as anywhere along the moving stroke. The performance of the 2 greases in this regard (or any grease not formulated for damping) are are not really comparable even they are an improvement over the stock grease. The point of op's thread is not to 'fight sticktion' but to enhance ANY joystick/throttle's ability to be manipulated precisely so those shrugging because they don't have a Warthog are kind of missing the point. Damping grease can make your stick behave better, almost as if it has real hydraulic damping in some cases. VKB found damping important enough to make that the central feature of their newest joysticks (gunfighter), though use a combination of materials in a dry condition but still speaks volumes about the importance of damping itself. Applying smooth/consistent drag aka damping to lever-like devices operated by shaky human muscles has a notable positive effect on the ability to maintain precision. tl;dr: If you have a joystick that has grease anywhere in it where moving parts contact, it will perform better with heavy damping grease like Nyogel 767a. Sticks with ball bearings might not have corresponding parts in contact to grease however so additional mechanics might be needed to achieve damping on those, like VKB's redesign.

There's no way the cams are laser cut that's far too crude of a process to make cams, especially tiny ones like these. The marks along the machined edge are called 'sniping' and is a result of flex in the milling cutter or setup. In this case is a pretty small diameter cutter do accommodate the arc in the center (bit has to be smaller than the smallest radius) so is almost certainly flex in the bit. The solutions are pretty simple so it's puzzling why it's still happening unless it's a cost cutting measure. They are not machining their own parts and the shop in China is probably just trying to get through them as fast as possible or with the least amount of consumption or being cute with tooling, but for cutting cams you need really good bits and operators for really good results. Solution(s) for sniping: 1) more rigid setup -don't stick bit out as far, use stiffer bit, clamp better 2) do more than 1 finish pass. Normally you first rough machine the shape, then go back and shave off the last .005" - .010" to bring it to finish size. In this case I would rough it and do 2 or more finish passes, with the last one cutting only .002" and maybe follow that with a 'spring pass', where the tool travels the same route as the last pass to take care of what tiny amount was still left behind due to cutter/tool flex. Also might alter rpm/ipm for better results (higher rpm+lower feed rate = smoother finish) 3) don't be cheap with milling cutters -replace them more often, use only high quality cutters for this particular critical piece, make sure coolant is up to the task. 4) final finish with grinder vs milling cutter, likely unecessary if 1-3 is followed. Of course by moving manufacturing out of house it's hard to have control over these details, but so long as you are familiar with them yourself it's just a matter of communication to convey this to the people actually cutting them, perhaps paying them a little more to make sure they come out right if that's what it takes to maintain qc.

Holy cow I need to talk to him (we're friends) and get him to edit that part of the video. I highly recommend against making those holes any bigger than they are, it will ruin the white teflon bearing. Warthog already has issues with those getting wallowed out because teflon is soft and has high memory and the asymmetrical load leads to them getting oval'd. They should be exactly 6mm and he says ream it with a 1/4" drill bit. That's 6.35mm which introduces a lot of slop as they are supposed to be a precision fit over the 6mm shafts. Once those holes get big or oval, it allows the piston to tilt badly as it's lifted and ends up a major source of sticktion, one that grease doesn't even fix. tl;dr: do not ream those out with a 1/4" bit if you care about your Warthog, the tighter that fits on the shafts the better it works.

Super easy to replace if you have the part, just a plug on the pcb and a ground wire screwed by an eyelet to the chassis.

Glad to see someone else on the soapbox besides me, I've spent the last 3 years talking a lot about it and making posts very much like this here and elsewhere just never posted it as its own subject :) I also got a message from Oveready that they have it back in stock in those great 10g tubes, and they also have some PG44 for me to test which I requested ages ago and is much harder to find than 767a, which my first time looking for some to test in 2014 was really a saga. Every English speaking company carrying it was out besides Newtagate with their 100g tubes and shipping from the UK (I'm in USA). I talked with Nye and their rep but he only had 50 or 100g tubes for way more than other places retailed them for. Eventually I pestered enough places that requested some from Nye and Micro Tools enough to put in a minimum order req for Nye to finally fire up the grease factory and replenish the depleted world supply, which later led to Oveready and many others being able to stock it again which became the goto spots but eventually they ran out and so did most others until recently. You tested 868V, but really the grease to compare it to is PG44 which is the 'super heavy' version of their damping grease vs 767a which is the 'heavy' version. There are potential advantages to higher viscosity, like being able to use smaller mechanisms at lower pressures to achieve the same amount of damping or being able to exceed the amount of damping possible with 767a. Not sure why they recommended 868VH it's very lightweight by comparison and likely only useful on tiny mechanisms like thumbsticks but something tells me they don't use a lot of joysticks or other input devices with long levers that human's shaky muscles are controlling.

Same, my TrackIR is getting dusty now too. I don't care much about mouse control in VR (gimmie functioning hand tracking, tia) but I badly want eye tracking cause it will lead to foveated rendering so our 'normal' gaming computers of today will be able to run VR headsets of tomorrow, since performance is the main blocker there. Those new tiny scanning beam chips turns current (camera based) approaches on their head and makes the incorporation of really good (cheap/effective/low overhead/tiny/light) eye tracking a matter of time.

The subject is eye tracking, not head tracking

The one that has not been made yet but uses these chips by AdHawk Microsystems instead of cameras. They are tiny (just a few mm), very low power req, way less computational overhead and have a 1000hz polling rate. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-invests-4.6m-adhawk-eye-tracking,35737.html

Thanks Sinusoid. BTW, I'm cavortingweasties on reddit, I used to only lurk this forum till you encouraged me to join and start posting last year. I am already on so many forums that I was hesitant, but I've always liked this one so it was an easy sell. The hardware in the pic is Roland van Roy's yoke, which used to run by his/Ian's FF interface but has since been updated to be powered by an MSFFII (yes, the big Glentek motor has an MSFFII telling it what to do) by modifying the board to handle 400% the current and using his own 24v power supplies in the form of power bricks, and the mods were really simple consisting of some resister changes and adding some diodes. He meticulously documents it all here, where you can see it evolve from: http://simprojects.nl/flight_yoke_FF_mechanics.htm version 1 http://simprojects.nl/forcefeedback_yoke_ii.htm version 2 http://simprojects.nl/ms_siderwinder_ff2_hack.htm -hacking MSFFII For giggles, here's a schematic Roland made from the FF interfacing idea I came up with in 2008, which was tested and found to be reliable and straight forward. It's underlying function is based off extracting the airspeed and assigning it a 0-255 value (if using an 8 bit DAC) and using that to define a force potential. That goes through a DAC to convert to voltage, in this case I was using 0-10vdc cause because with that I could 'jog' the 3ph AC drives I had, bypassing their super complicated functions involving encoders and like 36 wires and a bunch of irrelevant features. An inverted signal is also needed, so a separate part of the circuit generates 0 to -10vdc to match the positive side. That way I could drive the motor with either left or right variable force in a very straightforward manner. (compact Japanese 3ph ac servomechanisms I got on ebay) I say potential because if the stick is centered the output is 0vdc, but it will ramp up to 100% of the current output as you deviate from 'home'. The positive and negative potential is fed into the end taps of a position pot, and resulting deviations from the zero position will range in outputs from 0 to +/-10vdc depending on airspeed and whether the deviation is right or left. It got nicknamed 'driven pot' because it's using actively variable +/- 0 to 10vdc to define the end max outputs of a potentiometer, and the wiper puts out whatever appropriate fraction of that depending on displacement which is being fed into the drive to jog it left or right at whatever force it's calibrated to. It might sound complicated, but it's a very simple way to turn stick position into variable +/- voltage output which can then be used to inform powerful cw/ccw motor commands. ...easy is a relative term though. This setup would only allow variable forces based on airspeed as well as easily manipulated offsets like trim. Everything else beyond that requires extracted 'trigger events', so things like stall shakes/stall making controls floppy, landing bumps, machine gun vibration etc req a pre-scripted/tuned library of effects. Every single game/sim it is intended to use with would req parameter extraction of airspeed at minimum, but you would need a lot more cues to get the full range of effects, though some sims make that data easier to get than others. Each effect needs tuning as well as variations in strength that would also need variable event triggers and each plane its own tuning and as you can see this quickly spirals out of control with busy work. It's a great solution for a setup that is only going to use a single aircraft/sim or at least a limited range, but a nightmare if you want something that 'just works' with a lot of stuff. This is why imo the smart money is on using MSFFII's brain, because all that busy work was already done by really smart people and many sims/games still make use of it. MSFFII in particular was done really well and and is well tuned. There are also 3rd party software programs to gain further control of it for sims that lack it and because of this the heavy lifting is already done, leaving the easy and fun part -making hardware that makes better use of it than the stock arrangement.

Force sensing is only used where super expensive/complicated 3ph ac systems are being used in FAA level D sims or other specific purposes where extreme precision is critical or the precise force is actually relevant to the goal of the simulation. Stuff like this however is done via calculating and correlating the motor output torque curve plus whatever mechanical advantages are inherent in the system and everything is extrapolated via position+drive state, which is plenty precise and reliable for the goals of what is being done. This is already complicated enough without bogging it down with unnecessary considerations. Gears are not ideal due to backlash, cogging, the need for expensive minimal backlash gears, sealed mechanisms/grease/precision machining req, gear wear making things worse over time, and helical gears are impractical which are even more expensive/less accessible and req even higher precision machining to incorporate and unless you buy really expensive ones are still very much subject to backlash. To keep from reinventing wheels and falling short of what others have already established, anyone serious about this would really benefit from bookmarking Roland van Roy's site, simprojects.nl, particularly the http://simprojects.nl/diy_force_feedback.htm section and study what he has done over the years. Real systems tend to use direct drive/pushrods/bellcranks with AC 3ph motors/drives but when they need to be compact tend to use 'shaft winding', where you use pulleys or a pulley/bellcrank combination. The drive transfer happens with a cable fed through a cross-drilled hole(s) on the drive side, then wrapped several times around either side of the hole (or two holes with their own wrapped sections) before it goes to the pulley or bellcrank it is driving, which it wraps around and is fixed to. Steel cable traditionally used but kevlar rope is better due to its very low stretch/creep. Timing belts have cogging issues (even expensive ones with v-pattern teeth), v-belts slip, gears are impractical/expensive/difficult to properly incorporate, direct drive way out of budget and massive in size... Example of 'shaft winding' power transmission: This provides a simple means for smooooooth power transfer at unlimited mechanical advantages at very low cost. Cogging effects are limited to that of the motors themselves which btw FF/control loading systems necessitate special (typically expensive) motors. For DC servomotors (definitely the best option for DIY) you should look for ones with a helical armature, which keeps the torque output smooth even at low rpm. Keep in mind you can't simply overcome a regular motor's cogging by making the gear ratio (or pulley ratio) so high you don't feel it otherwise the system suffers inertial effects as the motor is spinning too fast to stop and reverse directions without some overrun so motors much be chosen carefully because frequency response of the entire systems is critical to performance. DC servomotors are the best option here because driving them is easy (cheap) as well as controlling the drives and their power output constant and well chosen ones have no cogging at low rpm's. Example of a good DC servomotor for this application: note the helical armature, that prevents the length of the polarized bar from coming in contact with it's drive element at the same time, preventing cogging Not to sound discouraging, but hardware is honestly the easy part... interfacing is the real challenge which is why the option of hacking an MSFFII for its brain/drive signals is so enticing because it was actually done well and responds beautifully to many sims already and I say this having already figured out a good way to interface. Source: Years of my own dabbling on the subject plus I work for a company that makes high end professional motion platforms and control loading systems and I've spent a lot of time picking my boss's brain and talking shop... he did the control loading systems on the Air Force One Blackhawk some years back for example

It's possible it doesn't use any (they do call them 'dry' clutches after all), but the evolution of the upgrade started with it as far as I know and branched from there. So far I've found the grease works better than any combination of dry materials I've tried (felt, numerous combos of plastics and metals), but there could always be some magic combination or implementation that does it well or well enough in this application which might be the case here, though when I was using it for primary controls as a means of damping zero-order aim there was no contest and the differences remarkable. Even if they work ok dry, with damping grease and lower clamp pressures I have little doubt the actual performance of the parts as dampers would be better, but this is likely to remain conjecture for a long time as I don't have one here to do any comparative testing with.

derp, wrong thread... carry on

Look into whether there a The Tech Shop in your area, they have everything though you need to take their classes to use the tools but still an incredible resource if you have one nearby. http://www.techshop.ws/locations.html Machining is not something that you can really learn casually by trial and error though, or you won't get very far at least. It's a complicated discipline that req a lot of practice and patience and I highly recommend taking some kind of formal classes (Tech Shop classes are just safety issues and very basic tool use) like at a community college (another good way to get access to machine shop tools/tooling). It's well worth learning. Also, most 'hobby' lathes and mills are kinda junk, though there are exceptions like Grizzly's version of the X3 http://www.grizzly.com/products/Mill-Drill/G0463 (the 'super' version not worth the extra money) or for lathes the popular 10x22 lathe (good) http://www.grizzly.com/products/10-x-22-Benchtop-Metal-Lathe-with-DRO/G0602Z or even better the 11x26 http://www.grizzly.com/products/11-x-26-Bench-Lathe-w-Gearbox/G9972Z Keep in mind that having the tool is only a part of the cost, and by the time you get all your tool holders/cutters/vices/clamp sets/and a million other related bits of tooling costs are adding up and again without actual training these are very complicated tools to run. They also need to be set up right, where they are level and secure and the area can handle the oil/grease/swarf/etc, maching is VERY messy.

Yep, so with axial the compression is parallel to the shaft, but radially puts it perpendicular to it. VKB machined a hub that has a hinged clamp that puts pressure around the circumference of the circle, an arrangement very similar to a 'band brake'.

There's a simpler way to achieve this, but if you don't get the right grease it will never work right. A simple friction joint with a plastic rub in it combined with Nyogel767a provides damping nearly as good as real hydraulic damping, but for a fraction of the hassle because it's a super simple mechanism that is super compact. I shouted from the rooftops about this stuff and linked my friction joints I made with them and it caught VKB's attention. This was the basis of their new 'dry clutches', which also rely on that damping grease. My joints are loaded axially, they load them radially which is more compact and easier to adjust the tension on. Here's an example of a 2 axis gimbals using very simple parts that would can be applied towards any type of mechanism that needs similar damping: https://imgur.com/a/jTw6H

Can't speak about the bronze ones that are no longer available, but I'll be getting the printer I need soon to be able to r&d exactly how much oversized I need to model them to account for the shrinkage of the pewter I'll be casting them in to end up the proper final dimensions. No eta yet, but it is something that will be happening in the near(ish) future.