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

HoiHman · Jul 6, 2022

Congrats on the D-box gen 5 purchase.

You will love it.

I admire your effort to keep the NLMv3, but in the end you will most likely sell your NLMv3 as many who tried this combo before you have.

Before you buy an expensive fixed seat, consider the option that a new seat + the selling price of the NLMv3 and a little extra cash will get you the golden D-box + GS-5 combo.

Atak_Kat · Jul 6, 2022

Maybe an alternative is to have a really simple stand for the trackball (like a small satellite speaker stand) that just sits on the floor and is not connected to your rig? Avoiding any vibration completely and making it much more simple? You move it where you want since it’s wireless.

blekenbleu · Jul 6, 2022

RCHeliguy said:
hold my trackball in place pretty well

Industrial velcro securely holds a trackball vertically to a side of my wheel stand.

RCHeliguy · Jul 6, 2022

FYI, my trackball mouse is already velcro'd in place and not going anywhere.
I'm not worried about it leaving it's perch.

The clamp was ONLY to hold the ball in place so it doesn't move around at all.

Atak_Kat said:
Maybe an alternative is to have a really simple stand for the trackball (like a small satellite speaker stand) that just sits on the floor and is not connected to your rig? Avoiding any vibration completely and making it much more simple? You move it where you want since it’s wireless.

I did consider that, but it seems like one more thing to setup each time and I'd like to avoid that if I can and I suspect I'd very likely knock it over all the time and be pulling it off the floor.

RCHeliguy · Jul 6, 2022

HoiHman said:
Congrats on the D-box gen 5 purchase.

You will love it.

I admire your effort to keep the NLMv3, but in the end you will most likely sell your NLMv3 as many who tried this combo before you have.

Before you buy an expensive fixed seat, consider the option that a new seat + the selling price of the NLMv3 and a little extra cash will get you the golden D-box + GS-5 combo.

In terms of having an easy compact turnkey solution with easy to configure software, without any of the potential high pitch whine, EMI issues to track down and other futzing, it looks like it's hard to beat the Gen 5. I'm pretty sure I'll love it too.

I am absolutely not expecting to keep my NLRv3. It will go. Part of what I'm after is having a solidly mounted seat and not worrying about overpowering the NLRv3 with higher brake pressure.

The only reason I'm bolting the D-Box on initially with NLRv3 is so I can try to A/B them with each other. I already have a mount ready for my seat once I remove the NLRv3 and it's only 8mm lower, so there won't be any other major ergonomic changes. However I do intend to add a seat slider and there will be other trickledown over time I'm sure.

Also I'm very happy with my existing seat and plan to keep it for a while. The G-Seat is something cool and I may consider one at some point, but for now I think I'll have plenty to digest. To put this another way, the only reason I would have to replace my seat would be for a G-Seat. Otherwise I'm sticking with the very comfortable seat I have.

RCHeliguy · Jul 6, 2022

I'm usually a pretty patient guy when it comes to ordering things or even pre-ordering things that I may not see for a long time.....

Damn you @HoiHman guess where I was just looking. Now just stop doing that! Give me a few minutes to get used to the new toy that hasn't even arrived yet!

RedBull48 · Jul 13, 2022

@RCHeliguy Just wanted to say thanks for the idea on using a hand jack. Never even crossed my mind. I was planning on putting my rig on casters so I could roll it out of the corner for maintenance but was concerned the wheels may damage my flooring. Ended up putting some hard surface sliders under it and it moves like butter now. This will be such an improvement moving forward

RCHeliguy · Jul 13, 2022

Variations on a theme! Good stuff!

I've got my carpet sliders, hand jack and new Sparco track seat sliders all waiting in anticipation...

Looking forward to the email notifying me that the next batch has arrived...

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

Started to batten down the hatches and secure my SC2 power supplies and other things snuggly with either velcro or rubber grip material sandwiched so there are no rattles.

Also looked around for any stray T-nuts that were not in use and removed them.

There is a 40x80 profile crossmember under all of that which should help with rigidity on the front end. The lower power supply is supported by a SimLab Fanatec shift mount. The power strip is secured to corner braces off the 40x80.

I may decide to box the end with a vertical piece of 40x120. A simple plate bolted to the bottom of that 40x120 and the chassis would add stiffness and be a good place to secure the power supplies on each side with the outlets mounted higher on the outside.

Temporarily pulled my flight pedals and mount out. I need to remove a bit of material from the sides of the cross members. It is currently a tight fit and doesn't slide the way I originally intended.

While it's out I'll see if I can get the aluminum up to a nice shine.

The flight mount also acts as a crossmember and is secured with locknuts all around.

metalnwood · Jul 14, 2022

Generally you get to hear a bit of creaking from the 8020 when you might have a lot of pitch and roll but that is prob less of a thing with the dbox as you are probably more concentrating on heave and sway effects, maybe a bit of surge.

Never hurts to get things tidy and in place but my guess is that you had got rid of any noises generated by the tactile which will find any buzz and rattle on the rig with the lfe and TST. I dont think the motion will find any extra rattles that the tactile hasn't.

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

It may be overkill, but I think I'm going to box the front corners in with these since they are not busy doing anything else.

I did get the flight pedal mounts sanded down about 1 mm on each side and now I can slide the flight pedals forward and backwards. I recently replaced the front knobs with regular M8 bolts for clearance when I'm using the full sized pedals that allow braking. Still it's not a big deal to adjust for size.

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

Decided to try these out just for grins. I don't expect them to be much different from my current karting gloves, but I'm hoping that they won't shed white stuff everywhere. They should arrive tomorrow.

They do have some interesting looking gloves and allow for personalization with names and logos.

https://moradness.com/collections/gloves

KnIgHtCoM · Jul 14, 2022

Tactile transducers exhibit more rattling in the rig than the haptic effects from D-Box. If your rig is quiet already, you should be good. I've noticed random bolts do tend to loosen up over time from actuators tossing the rig around, so it's probably a good idea to perform regular tightening maintenance.

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

KnIgHtCoM said:
Tactile transducers exhibit more rattling in the rig than the haptic effects from D-Box. If your rig is quiet already, you should be good. I've noticed random bolts do tend to loosen up over time from actuators tossing the rig around, so it's probably a good idea to perform regular tightening maintenance.

To be fair the NLRv3 universal joint plus RB springs isolate a lot of the seat vibrations from the chassis and the springs isolate a lot from the foot plate to the rest of the rig as well. So the corollary is likely true. IOW my isolation will keep me from feeling everything the motion system does.

My power supplies were just laying in place with nothing holding them. Other things needed to be moved. There were also some plastic on plastic and metal on plastic without any buffer to prevent squeaks and rattles.

I've heard a number of people tell me that they have never been able to make it through a D-Box frequency sweep without everything feeling like it was going to come apart, so I'm not sure how that will be. So I'll have to experience that personally before I have an idea how solid everything is.

I could start using blue Loctite on the corner braces.

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

I was considering one of these tiny wireless keyboards to use in place of my full sized keyboard for most uses. Is anyone using something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WQG6A8C

mechsicko · Jul 14, 2022

RCHeliguy said:
I was considering one of these tiny wireless keyboards to use in place of my full sized keyboard for most uses. Is anyone using something like this?

View attachment 582421

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WQG6A8C

I used to use a Rii mini kb which is smaller but similar but eventually replaced it first with a Logi k400 then later a Logi k830 (backlit/built in batt/slightly smaller than 400). The tiny one worked ok but was really annoying if I had to actually type anything longer than 'lol lmao' on it. I had this one, and later a version with the trackpad splitting the kb (same as below but with trackpad in middle) but that one just sucked.

cnhoff · Jul 14, 2022

I have this wireless keyboard w/ touchpad on my rig and was using it exclusively for a while until i got very annoyed with the touchpad ergonomics. Much like you i am using a M575 along with the above keyboard now and am quite happy.

I understand the keys on my unit are closer to a real keyboard, i guess for myself, those pocket calculator style keys would be an annoyance.

RCHeliguy · Jul 14, 2022

I had another guy ask me whether I actually missed typing on a blackberry. LOL!

KnIgHtCoM · Jul 15, 2022

I didn't think about seat and pedal deck isolation dampening the D-Box haptic effects from coming though, but RB tactile does it better. I have most of the D-box haptic effects dialed down to a minimum.

I don't dare to run through the motion test (frequency sweep). It gets really loud and feels like your rig is going to get shaken apart.

RCHeliguy · Jul 15, 2022

Just removed the 3D printed fairings that covered up the aluminum caster mounts. I really like this retractable caster solution which is the 2nd iteration on what I first put in place over 3 years ago. I also still think the 3D printed fairings for them were pretty slick. Showing a little nostalgia this morning and it hurts a little to remove something that has been the perfect solution for so long. It's simply incompatible with what is coming.

I will be passing a pretty major milestone soon....

Once I remove the NLRv3 from my rig, I will have replaced EVERY LAST Sim Racing PART and CONTROL except for the underlying SimLab P1 platform which has been the rock I've built everything on.

I did trade my original horizontal wheelbase mount for SimLab's vertical wheelbase mount and my pedal deck has been through a somewhat ridiculous number of custom iterations, but the base remains!