DYI G-Seat

[Michal Burisin]

So I finally got to the point, where I can start working on the G-Seat.

Here is my latest progress with the rig in general.

What's important for G-Seat part of the project is tactile installation on the seat, which consists of 3 BK Concert + 1 TST 239, so it's pretty powerful tactile, so I must make sure nothing rattles, this will be challenge as there will be many moving parts.

I'm using Kirkey Aluminium Seat, link is here.

I have 17'' version and it fits me like a glove I'm 168 cm, around 66 kg, quite thin with broader shoulders and it's so so, especially with the G-Seat paddles. I'm striving to take around 2,5 cm of space from the internal volume with paddles.

Here is the parts overview:

A) Bottom paddles - with big space between them - I don't want to simulate heave, maybe just a little, but it's intended mainly as pressure from the sides.

B) Main back paddles - narrower gap between to allow for some pressure during acceleration.

C) Additional back paddles for sides - just for thin guys, I made them removable to allow someone with bigger butt to fit in there

I spent day and half measuring etc., here are some images of progress:

Now when I printed it on A3:

And with additional paddle from the side:

I'm really happy it worked so well! I just have to correct 2 lines where the plate would be bent and that's it! I don't need to tweak the shape any more, it fits perfectly!

I will be probably using 4x ASME-04A servos for 4 paddles and 2 for seat belt tensioner.

The servos for bottom paddles will be located on red profiles like pictured below, on these profiles will be also servos for seatbelt fastener.

Servos for back paddles will be mounted to the seat.

The servos axles are goint to be extended by this connection - 8 mm to 12 mm, for 12 mm shafts I use aluminium hollow shaft with 2 mm thick wall.

The shaft will be like 0,5 m long, so at the end, it will be fixed in ball bearing with housing connected to the seat to prevent shaft bending.

Along the way there are going to be 2 points on each shaft with fixed clamp.

 

[SIMRACER1 Bermuda]

Keep up the great work through to completion. This is great work.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Keep up the great work through to completion. This is great work.

Thanks! This weekend I have done seatbelt tensioner, so all the main difficulties are solved, now it will be mostly waiting for the rest of the necessary parts and then putting it all together

 

[Hees]

watching closely as i want to start.

 

[Michal Burisin]

I should be done in like 2 weeks if everything goes smoothly. It will be done almost one full year after I started

Once I will have it finished and tested, I'll start working on some information - shopping lists, parts to print etc.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Slowly getting there

 

[dedraro]

I follow this project from the beginning, having already an sfx-100 I am really interested in this too, congratulations for the work and the results obtained, I continue to follow with pleasure!

 

[Michal Burisin]

@dedraro It involves lot of work, but with plans it will be easier. Also I overengineered it a little bit, so many things could probably be simplified

Final assembly in progress, bottom basically done:

There will also be TST239 on the bottom, but I'll mount it later.

Seatbelt tensioner:

 

[HoiHman]

Awesome

 

[Mr Latte]

Quite a journey and accomplishment, it certainly has wow factor.
Look forward to your views with it running different sims.

Also interested to see in the future with multiple the BKs what your thoughts are if you try to combine each technology. Using the pressure based motion with tactile based vibrational sensations in lateral/longitudinal effects. Curious to have someone look more deeply into this and report on if, or how well they feel both can possibly complement each other.

 

[saxxon66]

finally it's coming together i'm very excited to see the thing in action.
Great job looking awesome

 

[Leynad777]

Awesome project and since i'm not the tinker-guy, i went the easy way. One tip: Buttkicker(s) and my GS-5 feels a lot better and more natural here with Brooks-springs suspension (5 bucks each). Also no more trouble with nagging neighbors, because the rig getting all effects and not the floor anymore. And those Buttkickers can hieve quite a bit as well. Not like a D-Box, but far quicker.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Quite a journey and accomplishment, it certainly has wow factor.
Look forward to your views with it running different sims.

Also interested to see in the future with multiple the BKs what your thoughts are if you try to combine each technology. Using the pressure based motion with tactile based vibrational sensations in lateral/longitudinal effects. Curious to have someone look more deeply into this and report on if, or how well they feel both can possibly complement each other.

I will definitely do tactile + g-seat testing and will report on it.

I also plan to build SFX100, but my worst fear is that for motion to be effective, I will have to get rid of all isolators or use very stiff ones - but this will probably kill LOT of tactile feeling. Once I was doing some test on very rigid structure, and even big BK Concert was barely felt.

I will have to do some serious isolation below SFX100, so hopefully tactile will also benefit from this. But it might not be as bad as I'm imagining it. Also the G-Seat paddles have hinges, so they might be good at transferring tactile.

I'll also consider exciters you wrote so much about, they could probably be attached directly to the paddles, so it might be good tactile boost, but I will do this sometime in the future.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Awesome project and since i'm not the tinker-guy, i went the easy way. One tip: Buttkicker(s) and my GS-5 feels a lot better and more natural here with Brooks-springs suspension (5 bucks each). Also no more trouble with nagging neighbors, because the rig getting all effects and not the floor anymore. And those Buttkickers can hieve quite a bit as well. Not like a D-Box, but far quicker.

I bet you had it done much quicker than me

Yeah, big BKs with proper isolation / springs can move the rig quite a bit, also helps with neighbours I'm running 6 big BK units and it's really quiet. Also I have the rig on the moving platform with wheels - this also helps against vibrations going to the floor.

 

[Mr Latte]

You should look forward to enjoy the rig, have some fun after all your efforts Michal before considering other big changes.

 

[Michal Burisin]

You should look forward to enjoy the rig, have some fun after all your efforts Michal before considering other big changes.

Yeah, I'll have to start driving again, it was very long time

But SFX100 is already decided, I have servos here waiting and I'm waiting for order from Kinetik

Also project for H-Shifter with active Synchro mechanism is still popping in my head, so I'm not sure what to do first

 

[minderacer]

LOL, get that sfx-100 setup. Then go from there, that seat with a sfx combo would be perfect IMO.
Great design skills looks great.

 

[Michal Burisin]

LOL, get that sfx-100 setup. Then go from there, that seat with a sfx combo would be perfect IMO.
Great design skills looks great.

Yeah, I will be building SFX100 first but I will probably have to switch to 8020 rig, so it's going to be long term project I guess.

Back motor module:

 

[minderacer]

So I finally had some time to read through the thread. What was the reasoning for moving away from the nema stepper motors? Was it lack of strength? Or was it lack of code available to drive them? Just curious for the reasoning behind moving away from the Nema motors, because they've been used in the GS5 seat successfully. Seemingly as proven method, for this application.
I think the back lash/progressive speed/torque is solved by using to the cam mechanism. Steppers seem like a cheaper option overall.
Now the AASD motors will allow for a simple integration into simfeedback as they use the same drivers etc as the sfx-100 actuators. So I understand that reasoning, just want to know if there's any other reasoning behind moving on from the stepper motors?
Thank you for taking the leap on this project, it's something I definitely don't have the time to do or knowledge to take on myself. I love the implementation of the panels etc. looks fantastic. The 3d printed seat belt guides are amazing looking. You should share that design for anyone with a gs5 seat looking to do a seatbelt tension system.

 

[Michal Burisin]

So I finally had some time to read through the thread. What was the reasoning for moving away from the nema stepper motors? Was it lack of strength? Or was it lack of code available to drive them? Just curious for the reasoning behind moving away from the Nema motors, because they've been used in the GS5 seat successfully. Seemingly as proven method, for this application.
I think the back lash/progressive speed/torque is solved by using to the cam mechanism. Steppers seem like a cheaper option overall.
Now the AASD motors will allow for a simple integration into simfeedback as they use the same drivers etc as the sfx-100 actuators. So I understand that reasoning, just want to know if there's any other reasoning behind moving on from the stepper motors?
Thank you for taking the leap on this project, it's something I definitely don't have the time to do or knowledge to take on myself. I love the implementation of the panels etc. looks fantastic. The 3d printed seat belt guides are amazing looking. You should share that design for anyone with a gs5 seat looking to do a seatbelt tension system.

Exactly as you say, the main reason for moving away from steppers was coding. I was doing some coding myself but it would probably take me another year to do proper firmware The steppers were not that strong without proper code, in order not to lose torque, you have to accelerate / deccelerate them properly which was too much for my coding skills at that moment.

Another reason was noise, lot of people with GS-5 are complaining about it. This system with servos is virtually silent, except for high pitched noise of the controllers of course

Steppers would be definitely cheaper, but the servos got so many advantages, so I just took a leap and went for AC servos, also mainly thanks to SimFeedback supporting the AASD servos - thanks @saxxon66!

Regarding my implementation is quite complicated and took me many days to figure out, this is my box of horror of failed prototypes

It's probably around 5 kg of filament right here

I tried at the beginning to make it as simple as possible, but ran into many obstacles so I had to do a lot of custom work. For example levers:

The clamps themselves couldn't hold the load and slipped, so I had to make holes / threads on top of them manually for little screw to dig into the shaft. Also I made some bad decisions at the beginning, which influenced rest of the build and made it more complicated.

Now when I look at it, when I have everything figured out, it's pretty simple but still lot of work. Also I'm too detail oriented, so everything could be much more simple, but it was challenge and also fun for me, I learned so much along the way from many different areas.

This design could be adapted to any seat. Once I'm finished, I'll share all the models, which might probably need some design changes if someone wants to use different seat, but I think it will speed up the build a lot.

Also maybe someone will figure out how to make it simpler / more universal for other seats. But as I said, basic idea is pretty simple - 4 main shafts with levers. It's just necessary to find a way how to attach it all to the seat. 4040 profiles make it easier. On some 'flat' design seats it could be much more easy than on this Kirkey, which has so many angles, it made my head hurt when I was measuring everything so it would fit - mainly back shaft attachment points.

If I would have put the shaft alongside long 4040 profile and attached that to the back of the seat, it would be much simpler, but more bulky, so I took the harder way

I can share the guides for seatbelt later, but I'm not sure the GS-5 seat has exactly same holes as the seat I have. I also enlarged the hole, so it is wider, seatbelt was digging into my neck. Also longer testing is need, I'm not sure if it won't break in couple of sessions .

It looks like this:

And has counterpiece with beveled edges, so the sharp edges of the seat don't cut into seatbelt.

Here's some more progress

Another back motor module mounted, and right main shaft with levers:

 

[Michal Burisin]

So mechanical part is done! Still haven't driven it must do power wiring now I'll let the photos do the talking