NLR/Motion Systems Mid-Range Motion System Experience

[gmkump]

So I have now put 106+ hours (as reported by Platform Manager software) on this setup and I feel like I can give an opinion on its performance and it's impact to my sim race driving.

The lateral movement of the Traction Plus Platform has helped my consistent safe driving in an extreme way. Recovery of poor cornering has never been so easy. There is no way I can live without it now. You almost forget it is there, because in the VR racing, it is such a natural feeling and pretty close to what you would expect. However, if it was turned off, it would be extremely noticeable and highly missed. Can't say enough about how pleased I am with it.

The Motion V3 seat mover is essential in that it really helps immersion. I'm not going to say it helps with driving, but it really increases the immersion, so I can't do without that either. It is fun, enough said.

My biggest concern was the head motion tracking in VR. The cockpit pitches left and right and moves a lot, sliding has never been as much fun in a sim. But VR head movement must remain anchored that only driver head movement is noticeable. Well, I'm extremely happy with the Motions System head tracking results. It is pretty awesome. I never noticed cockpit movement in the sim, only my slight head movements are observed, as I would expect. I would swear from VR view my cockpit is not moving at all, but I can feel that it is, so immersion is perfect, I'm in a car feeling the motion, but not observing it except from a drivers view point. Kudos to the VR head motion development team, they got it right.

I've been thinking about buying three monitors to have access to other non-VR racing games, but motion and VR mate perfectly. Hopefully most race sims in the future will embrace VR. Sure, the resolution is not as good, but really can't compare the "you are really there" experience.

As for this racing platform, 106+ hours and still working it's butt off. I really put it through it's paces, and I'm not having any problems at all. I don't know how many hours I have on this thing before it gives up the ghost, but I won't sim race without it or something similar again.

 

[ScreaminBejesus]

The only thing I have noticed is that the traction platform does not easily bolt up to an 8020 rig.

I went through a couple of solutions proposed on the long MPv3 thread here before finally settling on the brackets from Sim-Lab. These let me get the seat back down to a reasonable height.

https://flic.kr/p/2iMSZdW

 

[RCHeliguy]

I used 1/4" thick 2"x4" aluminum angle and it allowed me to drop mine a bit deeper, but still with good ventilation.

On the whole seat debacle, I've found it depends a lot on your brake pedal and your body. I was very happy with a fully manual cloth seat I got out of a wrecked VW Passat until I got my HE pedals and was pushing harder. I had also been spending most of my time in dirt rally initially. With more track use and a heavier brake pedal, I started to feel back pain. So I got the Prisma and my back pain went away and the leg and back support are great. However now only guests who are my size or narrower can try it out, so a number of my larger friends can't sit in my rig anymore.

 

[Bonobhoy]

Stupid question here: But can a seat slider be added to any seat thats then mounted to a V3 motion platform? Ive narrowed my rig down to the following

Sim Labs GT1 Evo
Trak Racer Seat
V3 Motion platform.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Stupid question here: But can a seat slider be added to any seat thats then mounted to a V3 motion platform? Ive narrowed my rig down to the following

Sim Labs GT1 Evo
Trak Racer Seat
V3 Motion platform.

Can you use seat sliders? Yes. However, ideally you need to center you mass over the NLRv3 pivot point. If you are off center it will put more load on the NLRv3, slow down it's reaction time and make the effects fore/back disproportionate.

If you are using them just to make it easier to get into your rig, but then end up in the right centered position, great.

 

[NeoGrotesk]

What's the best way to make sure you've got your mass centred over it properly? Or is it just guesswork?

 

[ScreaminBejesus]

What's the best way to make sure you've got your mass centred over it properly? Or is it just guesswork?

With a fixed racing seat, I lined up the position where my butt contacts the seat and the pivot point of the MPv3. This is considerably behind the geometric center of the seat, where I see a lot of people mounting theirs.

 

[NeoGrotesk]

With a fixed racing seat, I lined up the position where my butt contacts the seat and the pivot point of the MPv3. This is considerably behind the geometric center of the seat, where I see a lot of people mounting theirs.

Thanks! I think mine's probably too far back by an inch or two... may have to get the drill out!

 

[Bonobhoy]

I have had my dozen races and will admit, seat belts help the immersion. I stand corrected. Though I have started several races and after some bouncing and swerving, realized I forgot to fasten the seat belts, pause, put them on, tighten, and on goes the race. That isn't good for immersion, but at least a pause is available!

I went ahead and included a shot with seat belts.

Remember and cross over your seatbelts

 

[gmkump]

mounted my NRG Prisma seat to my NLRv3 using these Sparco seat mounts.
They bolt directly to the top of the NLRv3 and fit a number of seats.

I could not resist, so I ordered the NRG Prisma seat and the Sparco seat mounts. I also ordered a 6 point seat belt. I just finished spending 3+ hours installing series 10 inclusions to this cockpit to raise the foot pedals 6 inches higher to compensate the v3 motion platform raising the seat 6 inches. After that was completed, it feels a whole lot better and easily beating my old track times. I'll post pics to all once I get the NRG Prisma seat installed.

 

[gmkump]

Remember and cross over your seatbelts

Oh yea, sound advice, so I ordered a 6 point seat belt setup so immersion is furthered heightened. I would not believe seat restraints would help, but it does. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Chrhun]

How do you guys attach the harness? I would be very interested to get a few pics?

 

[gmkump]

How do you guys attach the harness? I would be very interested to get a few pics?

I hope I don't have too much a problem. I'll attach pics when all done. I ordered the PRISMA seat and hardware to attach to the v3 motion and 6 point harness, all available via Amazon. Pretty interested how the harness will fit. The seat has the proper holes for 6 point belts, the NLR cockpit may not have the proper attachment points available. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Pics to follow.

Thanks ScreaminBejesus, I wanted a more comfortable seat and your suggestion seemed right on. I'll let you know how your observations worked out for me.

 

[EsxPaul]

How do you guys attach the harness? I would be very interested to get a few pics?

This post from @RCHeliguy will help you get started with some ideas:

https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...-motion-and-tactile-build.165289/post-2969569

 

[RCHeliguy]

The link above shows my initial configuration with a seat from a wrecked VW Passat on top of 40x80 profile bolted to aluminum angle side mounted to the top of the NLRv3. The seat was fairly high and upright in that configuration. High and upright created good geometry with my pedal deck at a lower height. Once I mounted a fiberglass shell seat and rotated it back, my geometry was very different and the pedal deck had to be raised.

What I ended up with was what is showing below. I went with a 4 belt solution since I'm not worried about submarining in a crash on my rig. The 4 belts holds me and my shoulders in place well. The Sparco seat mounts have many attachment points. I used 8mm stand offs on the sides for the lap belt. There are 8020 corner braces bolted to the bottom back of the seat mount and a piece of 40x40 bolted to that. From there mounting the shoulder bolts was easy. I didn't cross the shoulder belts because I didn't want them cutting in on my neck. YMMV for that. I did wrap them at the bottom because the buckles were right at the seat back openings and would catch.

Hope that helps.
BTW notice how deep I was able to mount the NLRv3 using 2"x4' aluminum angle. It helps with the seat height. However I still ended up raising my foot plate about 5" from the stock P1 configuration.

 

[gmkump]

The link above shows my initial configuration with a seat from a wrecked VW Passat on top of 40x80 profile bolted to aluminum angle side mounted to the top of the NLRv3. The seat was fairly high and upright in that configuration. High and upright created good geometry with my pedal deck at a lower height. Once I mounted a fiberglass shell seat and rotated it back, my geometry was very different and the pedal deck had to be raised.

What I ended up with was what is showing below. I went with a 4 belt solution since I'm not worried about submarining in a crash on my rig. The 4 belts holds me and my shoulders in place well. The Sparco seat mounts have many attachment points. I used 8mm stand offs on the sides for the lap belt. There are 8020 corner braces bolted to the bottom back of the seat mount and a piece of 40x40 bolted to that. From there mounting the shoulder bolts was easy. I didn't cross the shoulder belts because I didn't want them cutting in on my neck. YMMV for that. I did wrap them at the bottom because the buckles were right at the seat back openings and would catch.

Hope that helps.
BTW notice how deep I was able to mount the NLRv3 using 2"x4' aluminum angle. It helps with the seat height. However I still ended up raising my foot plate about 5" from the stock P1 configuration.

Okay, so I am much more interested in your tactile transducer and it's mounting. It looks excellent.

I went with ButtKicker Gamer2 and in 25 hours of use, the amplifier gave out (not under load, a tiny snap after I turned on and before turning volume up, it is dead), so I went with Earthquake and though the amp is better, it still tends to overheat and turn off if I race for more than an hour. Placing amp on plastic washers helped in cooling bottom plate (it expects to be rack mounted), but still I'm not all that happy with it.

I'm looking for a tactile transducer and amplifier that won't overheat and cutoff when I do a racing marathon. I don't need it at extreme volume, I just need it noticeable. Your setup looks pretty darn good, but you have some extra hardware for mounting that I don't have for the v3 motion platform. I was impressed with it and the transducer is obviously are larger one (I'm envious) and I don't know what your amplifier is that you are using, but I need something more than what I have (though I still want low pass and crossover control). Any recommendations would be appreciated, though my main concern is mounting of the transducer. The v3 motion platform came with an attachment to allow ButtKicker mount (fakes an office chair center post) that also works with Earthquake, but I'm not really happy with it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm using a Behringer NX4-6000 4 channel amp now. It's overkill, but I found it for a pretty good price.
The fan's are noisy though and I have a couple much quieter Noctua fans coming this Friday.

I'm using these Aura transducers.

"Aurasound AST-2B-4 Pro Bass Shaker Tactile Transducer" from www.parts-express.com!

Aurasound AST-2B-4 Pro Bass Shaker Tactile Transducer

www.parts-express.com

I've got 4 of these transducers mounted and I'm very happy with them.
All the 1/4" aluminum is stuff I cut/drilled/finished in my shop.

Here are a couple more close up pictures of the seat transducer mount.

 

[gmkump]

RCHeliguy

Thanks, wish I was as awesome as you are at the hardware though. Thanks for the link to the transducer. I'll have to figure out something for mounting firmly to chassis. The PRISMA chair should be delivered day after tomorrow with the sparco hardware to mount, pretty excited to get that setup. Thanks for all the pics and pointers.

 

[dave kirk]

Quick question guys, sorry for the poor picture quality, is this amount of movement normal for the NLR v3 when static?

 

[gmkump]

Okay, it took awhile, but I finally got my new Prisma seat mounted on the NLR v3 motion and GTtrack cockpit. It was more trouble than I thought.

I received the seat and proceeded to mount it and ran into an "uh oh" issue. The GTtrack original seat had a small table adapter attached to it for the shifter mount. It would not attach to the new seat or the sparco seat attachment hardware. Brick wall. The GTtrack shifter mount needed 1.5 inches, so my series 10 and 20 series extrusions would not work. But 15 series are available, so I had to stop and order a two foot length 15 series (1.5 inch width) extrusion and that finally arrived today, so back to seat assembly.

A lot of grief, but this seat is worth it. I had to angle it a bit more, the default is too straight up on the back for me. There are no adjustments like my GTtrack seat (bar to move seat back and forth, lever to adjust back seat angle), but though my friends might be upset, I installed to best fit myself. Due to having to have access below the seat to attach seat to v3 motion platform, I had the seat a bit high, but GTtrack cockpit allowed me to adjust the steering wheel higher and I used 10 and 20 series extrusions to raise my foot pedals.

My new 6 point 2 inch restraining belts work really well with the Prisma seat, since it had the slot in the middle of the seat to allow 6 point belt restraint install. I still had an issue finding spots to attach the belts, but it all worked out. The GTtrack cockpit original seat is setup for 4 point seat restraint only. The new 6 point restraint is so much better and as I was educated earlier in this thread, much more immersive.

Here are the shots I promised when seat was done

1st shot: new seat installed to cockpit.
2nd shot: The 6 point restraining belts installed with new seat.
3rd shot: The Sparco brackets that allowed the Prisma seat attachment to the v3 motion platform.
4th shot: The raised Fanatec foot pedals using 10 and 20 series extrusions. These were needed regardless of Prisma seat, because v3 motion platform raised the seat a good six inches, pedals had to be raised to compensate.
5th shot: The 15 series extrusion attached to the Sparco seat bracket to allow mounting of NLR shifter table. The shifter is at a bit of an angle due to the Sparco bracket not being perfectly vertical, but this is due to the seat and sparco bracket angled a bit. Close enough, allowed attachment to v3 motion platform regardless, and I really don't notice it when driving, that is what counts.

I haven't raced in over two weeks now because I wanted this new seat project completed before my next race. After receiving the seat and finding out I needed a shifter mount solution, I was really bummed and needing another beer. I had to order and wait again for 15 series extrusion which left me with no racing outlet. But I have other hobbies, WW2 gaming and reading the over 2,000 books on hand. Thank goodness I'm retired.

OH!!! Yea, the seat feels awesome, much more comfortable. I'm satisfied with the result. Thanks for the suggestion.

PS: The VR headset no longer fit on the back of the seat as I had with NLR seat. So I had to attach to side of seat, which worked.

 

[gmkump]

I mounted my NRG Prisma seat to my NLRv3 using these Sparco seat mounts.
They bolt directly to the top of the NLRv3 and fit a number of seats.

There are slots on the bottom so that you could fit a narrower seat than the Prisma. However the Prisma is about as wide as it goes. FWIW, I've been very happy with my Prisma for comfort and both back and leg support and have had it for over 6 months now.

Forgot to quote you on the seat update to my GTtrack cockpit. Thanks for the input and recommendation. My back and bottom thanks you. Works great and an immense improvement.