Brian Clancy
Premium
I am very proud to announce today the start of a brand new series on motion sim hardware at Racedepartment bought to you by myself and Berney Villers of SimXperience. We aim to bring you lots of ideas, some inspiration and the technical knowledge to 'de-mystify' what many consider the 'black art' of motion sim technology. We would like this series to be as interactive as possible, so to this end, I have made a questions/comments thread HERE in the SRHF forum and a Sticky thread HERE that will contain all the series articles. If you have EVER wondered about motion simming, NOW is your chance to get your questions answered and get the low down from a real expert in this field!
Here is an introduction from Berney.......... Enjoy
For those of you who don't know me, I am Berney Villers of SimXperience also known as (bvillersjr) in many forums. First, let me say thank you for the invitation to present the concept of DIY Sim Racing here at Race Department.
The goal of this article is to familiarize you with motion simulation and some of the options that are available to you for assembling your own motion simulator.
Rather than bore you with a technical explanation of motion simulators and motion simulation theory, I’ve prepared a few videos of my simulators configured for different purposes here: http://www.simxperience.com/Videos/tabid/301/language/en-US/Default.aspx .
Traditionally, motion simulation has been a luxury reserved only for the elite few with deep pockets and ranged in price from $15,000 USD to $50,000 USD. Several recent developments have changed this and are making motion simulation cost effectively available to all. These developments are mainly, the X-Sim motion simulator software and the DIY Motion Starter Kits offered by SimXperience.
So, just how much does it cost to build a motion simulator and what do you need to know? The answer to these questions depends largely on your skillset, available time, desired functionality and what components you already own. Typical DIY motion simulators range in cost from $1300 USD to $6000 USD and are typically purchased modularly. Which modules you need will depend entirely on your skillset. To illustrate this point, we can consider the SimXperience Motion Starter Kit and Seat Base products pictured below.
If you have metal working skills and some mechanical engineering capability, you can build the seat base yourself and save some money on your simulator. If you have some electronics and wiring capabilities, you can build your own motion starter kit and purchase actuators individually. In short, every component that you need to assemble your own customized, world-class motion simulator can either be bought or built and the information for how to do so is readily available.
In some upcoming articles we’ll discover just how easy it is and digger deeper into the components that make up a simulator:
-Software for extracting physics data from games and sending it to actuators or motors
-Actuators / motors and motor controllers to make your seat move
- The cockpits themselves
This is a great opportunity to learn more about motion sim technology and I would like to thank Berney for taking the time to write this series. Remeber, we want this to be as interactive as possible for everyone, so if your a complete novice to motion sim rigs or already an owner looking for more info on upgrades etc, get involved!
Its YOUR Sim Hardware forum........ be part of it
Here is an introduction from Berney.......... Enjoy
For those of you who don't know me, I am Berney Villers of SimXperience also known as (bvillersjr) in many forums. First, let me say thank you for the invitation to present the concept of DIY Sim Racing here at Race Department.
The goal of this article is to familiarize you with motion simulation and some of the options that are available to you for assembling your own motion simulator.
Rather than bore you with a technical explanation of motion simulators and motion simulation theory, I’ve prepared a few videos of my simulators configured for different purposes here: http://www.simxperience.com/Videos/tabid/301/language/en-US/Default.aspx .
Traditionally, motion simulation has been a luxury reserved only for the elite few with deep pockets and ranged in price from $15,000 USD to $50,000 USD. Several recent developments have changed this and are making motion simulation cost effectively available to all. These developments are mainly, the X-Sim motion simulator software and the DIY Motion Starter Kits offered by SimXperience.
So, just how much does it cost to build a motion simulator and what do you need to know? The answer to these questions depends largely on your skillset, available time, desired functionality and what components you already own. Typical DIY motion simulators range in cost from $1300 USD to $6000 USD and are typically purchased modularly. Which modules you need will depend entirely on your skillset. To illustrate this point, we can consider the SimXperience Motion Starter Kit and Seat Base products pictured below.
If you have metal working skills and some mechanical engineering capability, you can build the seat base yourself and save some money on your simulator. If you have some electronics and wiring capabilities, you can build your own motion starter kit and purchase actuators individually. In short, every component that you need to assemble your own customized, world-class motion simulator can either be bought or built and the information for how to do so is readily available.
In some upcoming articles we’ll discover just how easy it is and digger deeper into the components that make up a simulator:
-Software for extracting physics data from games and sending it to actuators or motors
-Actuators / motors and motor controllers to make your seat move
- The cockpits themselves
This is a great opportunity to learn more about motion sim technology and I would like to thank Berney for taking the time to write this series. Remeber, we want this to be as interactive as possible for everyone, so if your a complete novice to motion sim rigs or already an owner looking for more info on upgrades etc, get involved!
Its YOUR Sim Hardware forum........ be part of it
