Mobile Driving/Flying Cockpit with Motion and Tactile ( Build )

[RCHeliguy]

The additional quick releases arrived and now the Clutch & Brake plate is held in place with 6 quick releases. They extend out the front and back of the pedal deck profile and are easy to reach from the top. I like this solution a lot better with an inverted configuration where my feet are no where near the quick releases, but it could have been done this way before.

 

[Alvaro de la Orden]

looks great!

 

[NeoGrotesk]

Yep, this is definitely one of my favourite threads. You have so many great ideas.

 

[RCHeliguy]

When I inverted the pedals I still felt like I wanted to lower the throttle and I had lost some of the pedal angle compared to my original prototype with just an inverted throttle. So I set up a jig that allowed me to move the throttle pedal relative to the other two pedals and adjust it's angle more. This is yet another experiment and not a final version.

Once again I'm pretty happy with how the throttle feels. I like the brake here. I think I would like to rotate the clutch forward just a bit and have it hinged lower as well.

My 40x120 uprights should arrive on Tuesday so it will probably be Wednesday before I can get the uprights in place. I'll need to trim a few pieces of profile at that time.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I decided I'm going to stick with this throttle arrangement for a little while so I made a new aluminum mount plate for the throttle to clean it up a bit. I'm almost out of aluminum stock, so it's about time to reorder.

I also saw it flexing just a bit to one side, so I added a bracket on both sides of the rear profile that secures the back.

 

[RCHeliguy]

My 40x120 uprights, brackets, etc. arrive today so I got started.

1. Cut the 40x120 pedal deck down by 80mm to fit between the uprights.
2. Remounted my pedals.
3. Put UHMW tape on both ends so they won't tear up the uprights while I rotate the deck and set the height.

There is a set screw in the middle slot so that I can easily slide the pedals over to the same spot every time. When I slide them In the other direction the aluminum plate will be flush with the vertical upright.

4. Put solid core, non-lightweight 40x40 horizontal runs on both sides. I'll cut to size later.
5. Ran 4 bolts and T-nuts per side to the P1 pedal deck sides.
6. Preloaded 4 T-nuts per side for the bottom of the brackets that will hold the uprights. I'm going to see if the brackets are solid enough. If not, I'll add additional bracing.

I've also ordered a replacement for my USB hub. My current hub works well, but the new USB hub doesn't require an extra step pressing an On button every time I plugin my outlet strip. It also has 10 ports instead of 8, so I can leave my sequential shifter plugged in. It was highly recommended by a guy who has two of them daisy chained with 15 devices total plugged in. I'm not getting rid of my other USB hub since it has been perfectly reliable and I can throw it in my laptop bag.

Amazon.com: Anker [Upgraded Version] USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub Including a BC 1.2 Charging Port with 60W (12V / 5A) Power Adapter [VIA VL812-B2 Chipset and Updated Firmware 9081] AH231: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Anker [Upgraded Version] USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub Including a BC 1.2 Charging Port with 60W (12V / 5A) Power Adapter [VIA VL812-B2 Chipset and Updated Firmware 9081] AH231: Computers & Accessories

www.amazon.com

 

[Mr Latte]

Nice updates...

I would recommend this for your foot platform for improved stereo separation.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Nice updates...

I would recommend this for your foot platform for improved stereo separation.

Thanks! Interesting and it makes sense. I'll keep that in mind going forward.
What I have now has no stereo separation that I'm able to detect.

I was considering redoing my pedal deck at some point to move the transducers a bit further out.

 

[Mr Latte]

Thanks! Interesting and it makes sense. I'll keep that in mind going forward.
What I have now has no stereo separation that I'm able to detect.

I was considering redoing my pedal deck at some point to move the transducers a bit further out.

Would be fairly easy to implement with just a 5mm gap between each plate. To ensure you do not get much stereo crosstalk we can start by increasing the path traveled that the vibrations have to take. I can offer you a further option to consider if you want to improve it.

Think of each plate as being on a "U" shaped support. That the energy from one side has to travel down, then across and then up again before it can be felt on the opposite side.

Along this path we also apply antivibration materials as well as the isolators. So the vibes each side have to go through these layers twice (down/up)

Still with me?
So if you had 6 isolators below each plate to better support and isolate each side. Then the horizontal support beneath this can have antivibration materials and sound deadening applied to it.

However, you could increase the "travel path" by also cutting this current horizontal support into two and using it as isolation layer support for each side under the isolators. Then having secondary support as the horizontal bridge and it too using antivibration materials.

What it means is the tactile energy can only travel either into your feet or go down into the isolators, into the antivibration support and then into the secondary support before we have left/right vibrations being mixed. This greatly increases the distance and isolation the vibes from each opposite side have to take (go through) to be felt on the opposite side (if at all).

So with something like this, you should get to enjoy several effects that can work well in stereo.

• Wheelslip
• Suspension Bumps
• Speed Curving
• Lateral G​

 

[Mr Latte]

What is some of the best or most reliable USB hubs people recommend?.

I want one to place on a small 19" rack (on wheels) I will use for some audio hardware. Kinda thinking it would be better to have a USB hub on a rack shelf and it enable multiple USB soundcards as well as my audio interface and iPad etc to just have one cable run back (with the hub) to the PC.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The upright brackets are VERY solid. No need for any additional bracing.

Oh NOOOOOO! There is room to hang lots of wheels....

So far so good. I'll probably need to dial things in a bit more, but it's solid and definitely usable right now.

Here is how the whole rig looks now. I still need to trim off the ends of the 40x40 profile sticking out the back.

 

[DrRob]

Wow, quite the improvement on your setup! Nicely done, Sir!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I changed a pile of settings last night for a couple hours straight and my wrists were sore from all the Allen key adjustments. My left leg got sore as well as I tried many combinations that did not work. I tried all 3 clutch positions, different brake cushions, different pedal angles. Rotated the pedal faces. Moved the pedals as a group forward and backwards, up and down, rotated them as a group etc...

I tried a LOT of very wrong geometries!

By the end of the evening I thought I had things dialed in but was getting so sore that I couldn't tell anymore.

Fortunately this morning when I tried it all out, I was pretty happy. I added a bit more pressure to the clutch and finalized everything and finally trimmed the profile that was sticking out.

So far the big winner is how the throttle feels, but I got that in my first experiment when I just inverted the throttle and that was the one area that bothered me and I felt needed fixing. My heel stays planted and throttle action feels very smooth. Once again I already had that.

The brake is now feeling better, but it took a LOT of experimentation to get that. At times it felt horrible. Now the pedals are set up so that my ankle rotates more in the power pressure area before I need to push harder with my leg. For trail braking I think this will work better.

The clutch gave me a hell of a time. For much of last evening I felt like it was very unnatural, but I finally got it situated as well.

In this one you can see the offsets between the pedals better.

Other than the new USB hub arriving today, I feel like I'm at another stopping point and now I just want to use it again.

I will say this again for emphasis. Pedal setup is a very personal thing. We will adapt to many configurations and if you have something that feels very comfortable to you, I do not recommend changing it. There are a lot of things that you can do that to ruin your experience even when the pedal "look" like they should be placed reasonably.

To be fair, I'm not sure inverting all of my pedals was worth it. I'm going to run them this way for a while and probably get used to them. The throttle feels great, the brake and clutch may be at parity or a little better mostly because of my experimenting with lots of settings. I might have gotten similar response with out inverting them.

 

[leeroy605]

What is some of the best or most reliable USB hubs people recommend?.

I want one to place on a small 19" rack (on wheels) I will use for some audio hardware. Kinda thinking it would be better to have a USB hub on a rack shelf and it enable multiple USB soundcards as well as my audio interface and iPad etc to just have one cable run back (with the hub) to the PC.

I recently bought one of these and it's been serving me very well so far:

I-tec U3CHARGEHUB16UK i-Tec USB 3.0 Charging HUB 16 port + Power Adapter 90 W Shop UK : Ballicom.co.uk : Buy

I-tec U3CHARGEHUB16UK for £40.07(exc) i-Tec USB 3.0 Charging HUB 16 port + Power Adapter 90 W CLICK LINK to view on Ballicom.co.uk!

www.ballicom.co.uk

Bit dearer than other options, but plenty of ports and plenty of power supplied (90W).

Each port has a on/off switch, and it comes on automatically when provided with power provided the switches are in the "on" position of course. Got about ten devices plugged into it so far, one of which is a Creative Omni USB sound card and haven't had any dropouts.

I used it to replace an Aukey 7 port hub (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NAS2639/ref=pe_3187911_189395841_TE_dp_1) which was also fine and ran without any dropouts, but I ran out of ports and you had to press the little on switch each time you fired up the rig which was one more step to get racing that I wanted to do without.

 

[RCHeliguy]

My ankles got really sore that day I was messing around with my pedal settings and it appears I wasn't quite 100% yesterday. This morning I realized that I could easily and comfortably brake to 100% with bare feet, but I am able to modulate the brakes very easily with all this additional travel without my heel moving on the foot plate! It is a lot softer than I'm used to, but I'm going to stick with it for a little while before messing around with it anymore. The motion feels very linear and I could easily give it 25, 50, 75, 100% throttle by position. This feels more like mushy potentiometer based braking by position than load cell braking by pressure, so I don't expect to leave it here, but I do think that I like having a bit more motion now that my braking heel is staying planted.

It's obvious that it takes time to know which settings really work for you. However driving around Suzuka Circuit this morning felt good. There are lots of 50-25% braking curves and these are feeling smooth.

Amazon.com: Anker [Upgraded Version] USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub Including a BC 1.2 Charging Port with 60W (12V / 5A) Power Adapter [VIA VL812-B2 Chipset and Updated Firmware 9081] AH231: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Anker [Upgraded Version] USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub Including a BC 1.2 Charging Port with 60W (12V / 5A) Power Adapter [VIA VL812-B2 Chipset and Updated Firmware 9081] AH231: Computers & Accessories

www.amazon.com

I'm using a new 10 port 60W USB hub and it's working well driving my rig, but I can't say whether this would do well running USB audio etc. I no longer have to press a button to turn the hub on when I plug in my rig's power strip. My sequential shifter is now plugged in all the time and it still has two more open plugs.

The reason for the gap is that I plugged them in by cable length so the USB cables flowed better.

The USB cables are labeled so that when I connect my flight controls I can make sure that I still have my NLRv3 and button box connected.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Now that I'm getting more acclimated to the new setup I'm absolutely sure that this was a very important change to getting my driving ergonomics right. Driving is much more comfortable, smoother and easier. Easier is the biggie for me. I feel like I can much more easily control the exact amount of braking and throttle I'm giving.

Just to give a little context to how my pedals are setup now.

The ball of my foot is centered on the brake pedal. The brake pedal moves about 15 degrees. I have the brake cushions set fairly soft and I'm currently using about 47 Nm out of the 65 Nm available. I am finding that I am modulating the brakes much smoother now that my heel is staying planted.

Another result of having both my heels staying in place on the foot plate is that I'm feeling the transducers much better and for the first time I am feeling some stereo separation. Historically my braking foot would lift off the foot plate as I pushed harder.

Suzuka Circuit has been a perfect track to test the new pedal configuration out. There is a lot of brake and throttle modulation on this track with all the S's and high speed turns.

I think I have my normally have right foot rotated a bit more to the right than in this picture below, but the key is that the throttle pedal is now rolling under my foot as I press down and my heel is staying put. The ball of my foot is centered on the pedal at full throttle.

My throttle is currently set for the minimum travel and moderate pressure. It feels like plenty of travel to smoothly modulate the throttle and with no sticking or sliding on the plate or pedal it feels very comfortable.

 

[RCHeliguy]

My dead pedal has returned!

When I first added a sliding clutch and brake pedal to my rig, I had to lose the dead pedal. Now that my pedals are inverted, the dead pedal just has enough room to tuck behind the clutch when I slide the pedals over.

Originally it hinged from the foot plate. Now that it is suspended the dead pedal should probably be shortened by a couple inches. I may shave off the top off soon, but it's perfectly usable right now.

So I got to have my cake and eat it

Pedals slide to the side, with the clutch over the dead pedal which I never use unless I am using a clutch.

Behind the scenes.

 

[DrRob]

Quite the setup your pedal box has evolved into! I like the pedal sliding option.

From the pictures it looks like your left Aura transducer is in the way of using the dead pedal. Does your heel rest to the right of the Aura? Does your foot touch the Aura then?

Cheers.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I am rotating my foot to the left without moving my heel. It works enough that I can use it, but you are right that there is not much clearance. When making changes to the pedals there almost always seems to be some trickle down with cascading changes needed.

I would like to move the transducers a further out to each side. However that actually works counter to Mr Latte's suggestions to isolate the left and right sides better because of support placement to the profile below the plate. Increased transducer overhang past the last support will reduce effectiveness. I think a key part of his suggestion is having two supports dead center of the foot plate as center point anchors and also having supports as far out as possible to capture the transducers power rather than having the transducers wobbling off the ends of the foot plate and wasting power I don't feel.

Still if I move the foot plate supports as far out to the ends as they can go, that should still be an improvement over what I have now where the transducers are completely hanging off the sides with no support directly under them.

Another option would be a complete redesign with the transducers mounted underneath the plate.... Hmmmm...

Unrelated I've also firmed up the brake cushions a bit. I think it was useful to work with having so much deflection, but it needed to be firmed up a bit for my taste.

 

[RCHeliguy]

New foot plate design.

Currently there are 5 x corner supports each with rubber isolators bolted to the outside of a 40x80 profile centered under the foot plate.

@Mr Latte let me know what you think of this.

The new foot plate design would be to invert that configuration with a piece of 40x40 profile on the front and back of the plate with the corner supports and rubber isolators inside of the profile supporting the foot plate which would now be open underneath allowing for the transducers to be mounted to the bottom of the foot plate directly under my feet.

This would allow me to shorten the foot plate and capture all of the transducer power under my feet using 6 total supports. I'd consider splitting the plate but with my sliding pedals, I don't want my heel over the split between each half. The 6" aluminum plate combined with a bit more opening allowed because of the slots in the corner braces would give the transducers adequate clearance.

This will require I get a bit more 40x40 profile and some more 1/4" x 6" aluminum plate.