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.

 

[Michal Burisin]

 

[Michal Burisin]

And a little bit from back motors main attachment development:

 

[dedraro]

A sensational project! I'm really curious to know what the final cost of a masterpiece like this is, but I'm afraid it comes close to the cost of a gs-5. But on the other hand the quality is that of a commercial product, I wait to see it in action!

 

[minderacer]

Looks really good, that has to be the best G-seat I've ever seen! Strongest motors, best panel implementation!
Does the Kirkey cover go over everything?
I've come to the conclusion a man of your ingenuity needs to get himself a 8020 profile rig . I love to see what a mad scientist like yourself would cook up, with the freedom of the adaptable nature of an 8020 rig.
Also fyi, If you ever get the sfx-100 setup, you're not going to need the massive buttkickers anymore, because the big movements/thumbs etc will be handled by the actuators. But that's another subject all together.

Great progress, keep the updates coming. You've inspired me. Was going to save up for a GS5 seat, but instead I think I'm might go toward a DIY seat in the future.

 

[Michal Burisin]

A sensational project! I'm really curious to know what the final cost of a masterpiece like this is, but I'm afraid it comes close to the cost of a gs-5. But on the other hand the quality is that of a commercial product, I wait to see it in action!

Yeah, it wasn't cheap, just quick summary:

6x servos - 1460 USD (with shipping)
4x gearboxes - 310 USD (with shipping)
Kirkey seat - 482 USD
other small stuff - 400 USD
CNCed parts - 400 USD
4040 profiles - 200 USD
+ lot of my time

So it should be under 3000 USD I think, but that would be final build. I went through some dead ends though , so the prototype with development was more than that, I didn't count and I don't want to know . Hopefully I will be able to sell / reuse some stuff I didn't use in the end for G-Seat.

So it's up to everybody to decide whether to build something like this themselves or go for GS-5, the price will be quite similar, but I believe this one will be better .

 

[Michal Burisin]

Looks really good, that's has to be the best G-seat I've ever seen! Strongest motors, best panel implementation!
Does the Kirkey cover go over everything?
I've come to the conclusion man of your ingenuity needs to get himself a 8020 profile rig . I love to see what a mad scientist like yourself would cook up, with the freedom of the adaptable nature of an 8020 rig.
Also fyi, If you ever get the sfx-100 setup, you're not going to need the massive buttkickers anymore, because the big movements/thumbs etc will be handled by the actuators. But that's another subject all together.

Great progress, keep the updates coming. You've inspired me. Was going to save up for a g seat, but instead I think I'm might go toward a DIY seat in the future.

Thanks

Yeah Kirkey fabric cover will go over it. I will have to enlarge the hole for seatbelt and remove the side padding which is really thick, so I cannot run it with back cover now, but surprisingly it's quite comfortable just with bare paddles, but I'm not sure what I would say after longer session .

I hope there will be no more big inventing on 8020 rig Advantage of the solution I have now is I will take seat module + pedal module and slap it on 8020 rig frame and I'm done Shifter, handbrake etc. is attached directly to the seat, so should be pretty easy switch.

Since I already have that tactile solved, I think I'm gonna keep it. I'll see after I get SFX100, but I think good tactile has still a lot to bring to even great motion platform as SFX for better immersion.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll do first testing. If I manage to create some sensible profiles, I'll try to post a video.

Great to hear you're considering this as I said all the resources regarding parts / shopping list will be available so if you got plenty of time, I think this is good project, but let's see after some tests

Today I managed to do little bit of order in the cables

 

[Jeremy Ford]

That's is a sci-fi looking contraption right there. It has an ominous torture chamber look that it will activate and crush the user.

 

[Michal Burisin]

That's is a sci-fi looking contraption right there. It has an ominous torture chamber look that it will activate and crush the user.

It can be repurposed to be used as iron maiden

 

[Jeremy Ford]

 

[Michal Burisin]

Damn, wiring took me much longer than expected.

So first test hopefully tomorrow.

 

[Michal Burisin]

It took little while longer, I got to make order in COM ports, do e-stop etc.

I spent like 2 hours on profiles, when I was connecting it together, so the first impressions:

It's absolutely amazing, it exceeded my wildest expectations. It feels VERY natural from the beginning. Only motion I got to try was seat mover at friends rig for like half and hour and the feedback was very confusing and I wasn't sure what it was doing with me and how to react to that. In VR it started to make more sense. I'm sure seat movers are great, but I think you have to get used to them. Point is, the G-Seat is so natural, there is no need to getting used to it, it's very similar to what brain expects.

It's really strong. I think I got to a point where more force would feel too much, but then I wasn't in real race car, I'll keep pushing to see how much it can handle. The servos are cool. With the forces involved, I'm little bit worried about some printed parts, but if I break them, I can just print stronger ones I'm talking about paddle attachment to the push rods. I'm not that much worried about main shafts and its mechanism, because it's reinforced with metal CNCed parts and is generally built like tank . I got markers on shaft to see, if it is not slipping, but no movement so far and I don't expect any.

I have designed it mainly for turning G-Forces and it's absolutely perfect. The paddles are designed to squeeze you from sides, than push you to front. Same with bottom paddles, they squeeze you from sides and not lift you up. Because of this, turning (sway) feels just awesome.

It is virtually silent.

I have set up basic effects.

Bottom paddles:

Sway - on start, they lift like 2 cm from initial position, when turning, one is pushing and the other one is retracting

Back paddles:

Sway - on start, they lift like 2 cm from initial position, when turning, one is pushing and the other one is retracting

Surge - they squeeze you on acceleration

Tensioner:

Surge - on braking it rolls in hard. On acceleration it rolls in gently to help to push you into the back paddles

Sway - when turning it gives the side where the back paddle is pushing into you more slack to the seatbelt and tightens the other side. If I wouldn't do that, there would be really little travel in back paddles, because the seatbelt would stop the paddle going further, resulting in only increasing force on your back (and also on seatbelt from front). When I loosen the seatbelt gently, the force is gradually increasing, as you would expect it to, but it is progressively coming more and more from the side when the paddle is pressing into your shoulder.

This is why I opted for 2 seatbelt tensioner servos as opposed to single on, most people use and I think it was very well worth it, at least with my G-Seat design.

There are some gaps I spotted in feedback though:

1) With acceleration, the most pressure is from the sides, seatbelt pulls you in gently to exert more force on the back, but if I go over some limit, it doesn't feel good anymore. I'll try to fill this gap with tactile.

2) When having aggressive setup with too much back paddle travel / force it pushes you out of position to the side too much. This can be solved by profiles, but I think it should feel like this, but I'm missing roll right now. With added SFX, with roll added during sway, I think it will feel perfect as it will lean you on that side.

Now I'm gonna try to get tactile working again and work some more on the effects.

I'll try to do video today. Really psyched it worked out so well!

 

[Mr Latte]

Love the passion and excitement from you. Thrilled that it is working well, as that had to be one of the biggest concerns and potential areas with problems. I did fear in the beginning comfort issues or even potential physical pain with the specially shaped panels.

Creative ideas, determination and a BIG set of balls seem to of paid off.
Well done!!!

 

[Michal Burisin]

First video is up, driving after year or so, so please excuse my skill which is quite rusty

First 10 minutes softer suspension KTM X-Bow, from 10 minutes onward Corvette CR7 on Nordschleife.

Sorry for noise in audio, my camera is broken. Otherwise you can hear only RPM from tactile anyway, except for this, it's mostly silent rig .

 

[Michal Burisin]

Love the passion and excitement from you. Thrilled that it is working well, as that had to be one of the biggest concerns and potential areas with problems. I did fear in the beginning comfort issues or even potential physical pain with the specially shaped panels.

Creative ideas, determination and a BIG set of balls seem to of paid off.
Well done!!!

Regarding comfort, I'm perfectly happy with bare back on aluminium paddles, feels comfy for some reason .

 

[Michal Burisin]

So I was trying different cars and just for fun selected LMP which I don't normally drive and the feedback was brutal Even acceleration felt perfect, I realized I had to set back paddles movement much stronger than before for other cars for surge.

Now it feels awesome coming out of turn on second or third gear, when the acceleration is fast .

Also I cranked up also all the other effects and it feels even better, it turns out that driving race cars is hard work . Going through fast corners with high Gs like Eau Rouge is amazing . There is some bump on top which makes the car lose grip momentarily, so it relieves pressure for split second and once the car is over the bump and tires bite into the asphalt with even more force (as you are going uphill, there is lot of G-Force), the regained pressure feels great. I haven't realized there is such a bump. Or maybe it's not bump, but just low polygon track glitch in physics, I'm not sure, feels great anyway

Another great thing is that losing grip when sliding is very noticeable via losing the pressure on the paddle, so identifying traction loss is very easy and feels good. When you go through a turn with grip you feel it differently than sliding - which is usually quite slower.

I think I'm done with the profile, it was quite straightforward to set it up. It works out of box for every car. Extreme outliers - slow or fast cars will need just simple intensity adjustment with one slider so it's very easy to use.

Every car has its own character based on its suspension etc., so stiff cars jerk you around because they have strong grip, while road cars with soft suspension applies pressure much more gradually.

 

[minderacer]

So sounds like simfeedback is making tuning easy for the seat?
That feeling might be the car leaving the track, then landing. You've got to try a dirt rally game or one of the dirt cars in iracing, hit some jumps.
Congratulations, it must be like Christmas morning, when you get that toy you were dreaming about getting for months. Enjoy your creation, sounds amazing.
Pair it with the sfx-100 and you'll feel a ton of stuff on track you never felt before. I'm sure with some tuning it would be one of the best diy Sims ever made

 

[Philip K]

Michal,

amazing work, very well done on getting through to completion and that it works as anticipated.

In terms of the space taken up behind the seat housing the seat belt tensioner and covering about the motors, can you tell me the distance from the base of the seat back to the edge of the frame?

Just in planning stage for my own sim and should you be kind enough to share the details I would certainly consider employing a gseat!

thanks

 

[BenKay]

Would you share, ahead of the rest, your inserts into the Kirkey seat harness slots (with the belt rollers)?...if you wouldn't mind, would be a great head start for tensioner system on my GS-5...even if the files need modifying slightly.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Michal,

amazing work, very well done on getting through to completion and that it works as anticipated.

In terms of the space taken up behind the seat housing the seat belt tensioner and covering about the motors, can you tell me the distance from the base of the seat back to the edge of the frame?

Just in planning stage for my own sim and should you be kind enough to share the details I would certainly consider employing a gseat!

thanks

This is around 25 cm, hard to measure exactly with everything attached . The measurement is up to the back of the seat, not the end of the other 4040 profile.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Would you share, ahead of the rest, your inserts into the Kirkey seat harness slots (with the belt rollers)?...if you wouldn't mind, would be a great head start for tensioner system on my GS-5...even if the files need modifying slightly.

Send me your email via PM. What format would you like? I think best would be original Fusion 360 files so you can modify them easily? Or just exported STLs?