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

[RCHeliguy]

The molded epoxy is still slightly flexible, but it fits the pedal well without bending. The difference between the inner and outer arc of the pedal was negligible. Now I just need to wait for it to harden for another day to shape this block into shape.

While it is still soft, I also drilled an access hole to remove the pedal face bolt leaving a relief in the underside for the bolt head. There are now 3 holes in the underside and the screws have been driven in and removed so that the holes will cure with threads matching wood screw threads in place.

I'm not 100% positive that these screws will not strip out and I'm wondering if I should have molded in some metal threaded inserts. If the holes in the epoxy strip, I can do one of two things.

1. Pour a little wet epoxy in the screw holes and put the screws back in. I'd give that a half decent chance.
2. Drill holes in the bottom of this piece to fit the centers of machine inserts and then use this shaped piece of epoxy as a blank to make new mold. Once the mold was cured, the machine inserts could be filled with a bit of soft wax and located with the silicone pegs from the mold and a new clutch face could be molded.

Fingers crossed this will just work, or just adding a bit of epoxy to the holes will work. I'm hitting that point again where I feel like I want to be using my rig and not working on it any more.

I decided that it was hard enough for me to start shaping it, but I need to wait for it to fully harden before I can complete sanding it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm probably rushing this, but I have it mounted and it both feels solid and it feels good under foot.
I have a very thin layer of non-drying window caulk on the back of the block. I AM SO READY for my NX4-6000 to arrive tomorrow!!!! I'm ready to use my rig again!

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is how sharing what I do sometimes comes back to help me.
I just had someone show me this a picture of a 3D printed wedge for the clutch a set of HE Pros.
Definitely something to consider trying once I've got my printer built.
It may be a better solution.

Found These too.
@Andrew_WOT These look a lot like something you were looking at a while back.

Heusinkveld Sprint Tilton Style Pedal Plates by hukdizzle

I love my Heusinkveld Sprint pedals but the large and rather flat pedal plates that come with them were not to my liking. I am a big fan of the curved Tilton style pedal pads and set out to design some for my pedals. I feel like these pedals give me much better indexing of the ball of my foot...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[RCHeliguy]

Woo Hoo! My Amp is home again!
The BK Concert is channel 4. It gave it a test signal at 75% power. I wasn't sitting in the seat, but it sounded like it wanted to shake the seat off the NLRv3! This will work! These Aura's seem to be very conservatively rated and I know I can give them more power than they are spec'd for. Plus I have a spare if I ever burn one up.

Ordered a Raceseng Contour for my ProSim H pattern shifter with the Gate 1 pattern engraved as shown below. A friend of mine who has this shift knob on his ProSim told me that the weight softens up the feel of the linkage feel just a bit and makes it feel even more realistic I think I larger knob will feel a bit better too. I'm not complaining about how it feels now, but I'm curious.

Added a little polish to the pedal face.

Thinned out the fan frame and blacked it out for now.

Full rig with clutch pedal pad, fan and new transducer.

That'll do pig

So I'm done modifying it until the new shift knob arrives next week and I have NOTHING planned after that for a while. I intend to spend more time in the seat than my shop for a while.

 

[HoiHman]

Great work and progress

I intend to spend more time in the seat than my shop for a while.

I always have the same intentions, but.... like me, i think your new building plans will start soon again

 

[Ruttman98]

RC HG --

Curious about what influenced your choice of the NRG Prisma seat. It should be a pretty accurate conclusion from your various toys, that you have the means to buy pretty much any seat available.

Did Barry's SRG review influence you? (It gave me a very favorable impression.)

Was your choice of the Sparco side brackets due to your choice of a seat mover? If I understand correctly, the Prisma and Ultra seats ship from NRG with side mount brackets, but I think there are some vendors which do not specify or somehow obscure this info.

Thank you for all of the great rig updates and details about them!
Chris

 

[RCHeliguy]

Great work and progress

I always have the same intentions, but.... like me, i think your new building plans will start soon again

Thanks!
There is no telling, when the mood grabs me, I'll build again.

Right now I'm having to build separate channel outputs for almost every effect because the Aura's are happier at higher frequencies than the Concert, but the concert definitely has more Authority! Just a bit more work.

That said I drove around a Miata with stick and then BMW GTE in iRacing and the clutch pedal feels good and the tactile feels good. I think there is still a lot more room left to dial things in but it is definitely working well. I'm going to play a bit in Dirt Rally 2.0 next.

 

[RCHeliguy]

RC HG --

Curious about what influenced your choice of the NRG Prisma seat. It should be a pretty accurate conclusion from your various toys, that you have the means to buy pretty much any seat available.

Did Barry's SRG review influence you? (It gave me a very favorable impression.)

Was your choice of the Sparco side brackets due to your choice of a seat mover? If I understand correctly, the Prisma and Ultra seats ship from NRG with side mount brackets, but I think there are some vendors which do not specify or somehow obscure this info.

Thank you for all of the great rig updates and details about them!
Chris

I emailed Barry directly about the Prisma and he said that all his friends who were larger than him loved the seat. In the last year it hasn't shown any signs of wear and the cushions are very comfortable and not breaking down. It feels great,

Yes, the seat did come with brackets, but they are pretty "meh". The Sparco brackets have LOTS more places for me to bolt things to it and I'm using lots of attachment points on it. Currently I have my flight throttle and stick attachment points removed, but I will be putting them back.

As far as toys go, I'm mostly just restricted by space, otherwise I would have a full chassis mover already.

 

[Ruttman98]

I emailed Barry directly about the Prisma and he said that all his friends who were larger than him loved the seat. In the last year it hasn't shown any signs of wear and the cushions are very comfortable and not breaking down. It feels great,

Yes, the seat did come with brackets, but they are pretty "meh". The Sparco brackets have LOTS more places for me to bolt things to it and I'm using lots of attachment points on it. Currently I have my flight throttle and stick attachment points removed, but I will be putting them back.

As far as toys go, I'm mostly just restricted by space, otherwise I would have a full chassis mover already.

Thanks as always for your thoughts.

Great report on the NRG RE: durability and your summation of the brackets. At 6'2" and 230 lbs. I am leaning towards the Corbeau FX-1 or possibly the Kirkey adjustable angle road racing seat to open a path to tactile exciter applications. A slider is a must because my 5'2" wife wants to play as well.

I am bginning to follow your lead with the dual role race/flight sim rig as I reimagine my 80/20 chassis. The new MS Flight Simulator and the possibility of AIR RACING in I-7 Sturmovik (sp?) has me eyeing different HOTAS options. The new Thrustmaster rudder pedals look amazing but carry a commensurate price tag.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Seats are very personal things, and just because I fit the Prisma well doesn't mean you would. I'm not in any way religious about equipment. I just like to use what works for me. I know people with the Kirkey seat or even the cheap knock off of it. Corbeau makes good seats too.

When I first got my Prisma, I had never been in a racing bucket seat and it felt unnatural. I felt captive and my knee jerk reaction was a bit negative. However in a day or so I think the seat broke in just a bit and I got used to being in it. The surprising take away from this is that I may have picked something more roomy if I had visited a showroom and tried a bunch of seats out and I'm not sure that would have been a better long term fit for me.

I googled the new Thrustmaster TPR pedals and saw a video review of them. They do look impressive. The pedals are about an inch too wide to fit inside a P1 chassis. If you can drop the base a bit and keep the pedals just above the main frame you should be OK. That assumes the pedals in that position feel good ergonomically. I have my flight pedals mounted much lower than my driving pedals to get a good feel, so you may want to take that into consideration.

For flight I've always liked being more upright and the front leg bolster will get in the way of rudder pedal motion. I put in a flat cushion on my seat in place of the front leg bolster and bottom seat pad when in flight mode and that helps a lot.

I have hundreds of hours on my Crosswinds and I'm very happy with them. The Slaw pedals have a strong following as well, but I'm not trying to sway you from the TPR's if you can make them fit.

I would suggest looking at Virpil for throttle and sticks. I'm still using my Thrustmaster A-10 grip, but the Thrustmaster base was very lightly sprung and the stick would just lop over once I added an extension tube. I broke the Thrustmaster base while removing an extension tube. It's internals are plastic. The Virpil is night and day stouter and has a proper metal gimbal inside.

I like the idea of having a seat on sliders, but since my seat is mounted to an NLRv3, I want to keep the center of mass over the pivot point. So far I've been able to slide the pedals forward when shorter people are in my rig. That said I suppose if I did have the sliders setup where it was perfectly centered for me, it could be useful to adjust for other drivers. Also if my wife had an interest ( she doesn't ) I would definitely make more allowances for her to enjoy it.

As it is these days I haven't had anyone over to try out my rig in 6 months

 

[RCHeliguy]

A few things about getting my cool new Raceseng Contour to fit on my Pro Sim Shifter.

There is no adapter that you can order out of the box that fits the Pro Sim.

The OD threads are for Raceseng knobs only.

The countersunk M6x1.0 6mm bolt that comes with the adapter is too short to reach the threads of the ProSim stick.

I ordered some SS M6x1.0 x 18mm bolts that should get 11-12 mm of meat into the stick.

I ordered mine with the 12mm ID threads, but fortunately a friend with a lathe will be boring an adapter out to a smooth 14mm for me so it will fit the ProSim shaft.

I think it looks good, but I can't try it out until the bored out adapter arrives.

It has some heft to it compared to the stock knob and feels wonderful in my hand. I definitely like the feel of this better and can't wait to actually use it.

 

[KnIgHtCoM]

Time to finish building your 3D printer so you can print thread a adapter.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Interesting thought. I do expect to look at solutions differently once I have it built.

For this application I would be concerned about the 3D printed threads and overall strength given how thin the adapter will be.

I also plan to use loctite on the bolt. Please google loktite and ABS to see why they don't pair well.

In the end milled metal is a better match.

I hope to finish building my 3D printer weekend after next.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I update from my friend showing the adapter in his lathe getting bored out to 14mm.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I got Hybrid shifter knob for Fanatec SQ from this place.
The great thing about them that you can specify what thread you want so no adapter is needed.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I got Hybrid shifter knob for Fanatec SQ from this place.
The great thing about them that you can specify what thread you want so no adapter is needed.

That's great for HE and Fanatec shift knobs.

It would be nice if that were the case for the ProSim, but an adapter will always be required for this shifter unless you want a hole in the top of your knob. Remember it has NO THREADS on the outside of the stick.

What I could have done is have my 14mm smooth stick lathed down to 12mm and had 1.25mm threads put on it so it would take a standard fitting.

 

[KnIgHtCoM]

For this application I would be concerned about the 3D printed threads and overall strength given how thin the adapter will be.

Milled metal is always the better option, but a PETG would have held you over until the proper adapter arrived.

I got Hybrid shifter knob for Fanatec SQ from this place.
The great thing about them that you can specify what thread you want so no adapter is needed.

What shift knob did you go with? I've been looking for a new shift knob for my Fanetec and the M12x1.5 threading is rare. Most of the shift knobs I find on Amazon have max thread size of M12x1.25, so I can't even 3D print an adapter.

 

[RCHeliguy]

12x1.5 is a standard size.
Here are a pile of raceseng knobs with 12x1.5 adapters.

Not worried about holding me over since I just got the knob and the adapter shown in the picture on the lathe is already in the mail to me. It's great having enthusiastic friends. This guy also has a ProSim stick and made this same modification for his.

raceseng shift knob (Gate 1 Engraving) 12x1.5mm adapter for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for raceseng shift knob (Gate 1 Engraving) 12x1.5mm adapter at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

 

[Deleted member 197115]

What shift knob did you go with? I've been looking for a new shift knob for my Fanetec and the M12x1.5 threading is rare. Most of the shift knobs I find on Amazon have max thread size of M12x1.25, so I can't even 3D print an adapter.

This one in silver brushed aluminum with slots, works for H or S shift mode.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The bored out adapter is below the original adapter.
The longer screw I ordered is under the short stock screw.

Since the top of the adapter is threaded the screw and the adapter stop together when they rotate. This gave me two options to get the H pattern engraving lined up.
1. Drill out the top threads so I could rotate the adapter where ever I wanted.
2. Use very thin washers to get the knob to stop in the right place and then torque the hell out of it when it gets close. Guess what I did?

You can almost see how good this feels just looking at it next to the stock knob.

Here it is in place and it's not going anywhere. I got a very grippy rubber pad to go around it and torque the hell out of it. I wasn't sure if I'd regret this or not, but I emphatically love how it feels. It fits my hand much better and just like he told me it takes just a bit of the edge off the linkage feel making it a bit smoother and more realistic feeling.