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

[RCHeliguy]

Wow! Once again Prusa hits a home run. $200 to get on the preorder list. Starts at $1999.99 with a single head $2500 two heads, $3500 5 heads.

Small independent heating areas so it only heats the section of the bed it needs to for the print and the board doesn't warp as heat is added. The baffling is likely to keep the bottom a more uniform temperature and maybe to make sure nothing slips under it to impede it from dropping the bed as it goes.

Up to 5 different individually calibrating print heads for different colors without a pile of waste and water soluble supports

That is pretty exciting. It will likely be the most reliable large format printer out there without getting into 5 figures and looking at what they are releasing it's obvious why it took them this long to get something this size.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Woo Hoo!!!!

Amazon just sent me an email telling me that my D15 Cooler mount will be here tomorrow!!!!

So maybe I can set my new i9-12900 system up this weekend. Depending on some things.

Update: My Fractal Torrent case is supposed to arrive this Saturday. Happy news!

 

[Atak_Kat]

On the 3d print front, I recently found a really good price on a Mars 2 Pro resin printer. Decided to go for it.
I know the issues of resin vs. filament, but man the first few test prints are just unbelievable. I don't think I'll make as many boxes/cases like you that might require the strength/durability of filament. But I'm really looking forward to making some new knobs and decorative pieces for my button box, etc. (example, I printed a Ferrari cavalinno badge (the chrome prancing horse) and did it up in a near chrome finish. Definitely room for improvement so I consider it a test. But it's far better than I ever suspected, and I know I'll improve with practice. Looks great temporarily attached to the upright of the rig, until I can try v2)

 

[RCHeliguy]

On the 3d print front, I recently found a really good price on a Mars 2 Pro resin printer. Decided to go for it.
I know the issues of resin vs. filament, but man the first few test prints are just unbelievable. I don't think I'll make as many boxes/cases like you that might require the strength/durability of filament. But I'm really looking forward to making some new knobs and decorative pieces for my button box, etc. (example, I printed a Ferrari cavalinno badge (the chrome prancing horse) and did it up in a near chrome finish. Definitely room for improvement so I consider it a test. But it's far better than I ever suspected, and I know I'll improve with practice. Looks great temporarily attached to the upright of the rig, until I can try v2)

I haven't been very limited by the volume of my Prusa i3 Mk3S, so I'm likely not a good candidate for an XL. It's overkill for my needs and very industrial looking, built with extreme ease of maintenance and fewer failure points. They are also claiming it will be very fast. It screams industrial use to me.

I would be more likely to get a high resolution resin printer if I got another printer right now. However I've yet to have a need for one.

HOWEVER! If you noticed they are using this new modular format going forward with their entire printer line so the next Prusa i4 ?? will have a 3x3 grid of heaters and likely an upgraded head etc.. etc.. Basically a completely new design. So this good stuff.

 

[HoiHman]

I haven't been very limited by the volume of my Prusa i3 Mk3S, so I'm likely not a good candidate for an XL. It's overkill for my needs and very industrial looking, built with extreme ease of maintenance and fewer failure points. They are also claiming it will be very fast. It screams industrial use to me.

I would be more likely to get a high resolution resin printer if I got another printer right now. However I've yet to have a need for one.

Same here.

I bought a brand new Prusa MK3S + only a couple of months ago. In all these years i really can't recall having the need to print larger objects than possible with the Prusa.

The old Prusa MK3 was still doing great, but had more then 2 years of continuous 3D printing time on it, so like with a used car with a lot of miles, it was time to trade it in.

For hobby 3d printing, starting from 2 grand, the prusa XL is too expensive for me. I also would like to get a high resolution resin printer to one day.

About you having the need for a good resin 3d printer, you might start building steeringwheels like me or Peter.

I think it's a hobby that will suit you very well. Now you have reached the point that you are almost "done" with your rig, you might find making your own steering wheel collection is great fun and adds a lot of immersion when using them.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I think it's a hobby that will suit you very well. Now you have reached the point that you are almost "done" with your rig, you might find making your own steering wheel collection is great fun and adds a lot of immersion when using them.

It's possible. I just have not gotten that bug. For now I prefer to have a wheel that I know and love than a bunch with their own individual quirks. That would definitely be a passion project, but first I need some passion in that direction.

It's sort of like a full chassis mover. I've completely lost interest in doing one. I'm not interested in a G-Seat right now either.

I still have more tactile to play with in SimHub. Then I still need to do a deep dive on tactile for DCS which is completely different software that I need to get setup and then I may need to manipulate sound files in Sound Forge to make that work well.

On top of that I now have welding and metal working machinery at my disposal, so I may have some other ideas. In fact I already have some pretty wild stuff percolating. I'll see what settles out of that. I'm sure something interesting

 

[RCHeliguy]

Ready to dip my toes in the water with my first welding class.
Mig Welding in the morning

Looking at some nice auto darkening Lincoln welding masks. Will definitely get the "cheater" magnifying lenses!
The Lincoln masks are very comfortable if not a bit pricey. I've had a combination of comments from people I know who are telling me that aluminum welding is extremely hard and they gave up on it or that they're sure I'll become a master at it just because I like challenges. Fingers crossed!

 

[metalnwood]

You sure you are welding, looks a bit like breaking bad to me

 

[RCHeliguy]

You sure you are welding, looks a bit like breaking bad to me

 

[mechsicko]

Ready to dip my toes in the water with my first welding class.
Mig Welding in the morning

Looking at some nice auto darkening Lincoln welding masks. Will definitely get the "cheater" magnifying lenses!
The Lincoln masks are very comfortable if not a bit pricey. I've had a combination of comments from people I know who are telling me that aluminum welding is extremely hard and they gave up on it or that they're sure I'll become a master at it just because I like challenges. Fingers crossed!

View attachment 518784

Good call on a proper auto-darkening helmet... nice ones are worth the extra scratch. I like to flash check mine too before committing my eyes to the brightness of a weld... the flint spark of a cigarette lighter should be bright enough to flash it.

As for aluminum welding, most people struggle with it because they don't appreciate how fast an invisible layer of corundum (aluminum oxide, aka ruby!) forms on the surface, which basically acts as a 4000F deg heat shield so you go from nothing nothing nothing to puddle real quick since al underneath it melts at like 1300. The trick is to vigorously wirebrush and degrease each weld zone immediately prior to welding. Not the week before, day before or even hour. After that normal settings and techniques will bring it home.

Circling back to Prusa's new machine, I'm pretty chuffed about it and didn't know it was a thing till seeing it here. I've been working at a professional 3d print shop these days (mostly Stratasys machines) and the significance of a multi hotend machine along with the quality of life features tickles something inside my brain.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Fractal Torrent is just a bit larger than my Fractal Define R6, but it does look like it has great ventilation to keep my new i9-12900K cool and future GPU's. Getting close... Just waiting for a new D15S coming tomorrow.

Also had a fun MIG welding class. Not too bad! It's mostly learning consistent motion and keeping the new metal in the molten puddle. I could still use some practice, but I'm very comfortable that I'll master this pretty quickly. Bring on TIG!
I'm also looking into MIG welding aluminum, just to see how that works.

Today I had someone refer to my rig as a car with a digital road.

 

[RCHeliguy]

All the bits are here now, but I'm exercising caution and waiting until after my guests leave to do the upgrade.
So until next Sunday, I can stare at it.... LOL!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have the new Fractal Torrent case, Gigabyte Z690 Gaming 4 MB, i9-12900KF CPU, D15S CPU cooler setup and running.
Along with a SoundBaster X4.

1. The SoundBlaster X4 was very simple. I set it up as a 7.1 device and it has no crosstalk and all 8 channels work great. It defaulted to direct mode. It did seem to come up louder and I had to turn down my intensities.
2. My concerns about having to reinstall things have been unfounded so far everything has just run.
3. This case moves a LOT of air!!!!
4. I'm currently just using the 4,000 MHz definition that came with the memory. I haven't played with any Gear 1/2 settings and I haven't set the Windows cache settings yet.

I'm running Dirt Rally 2.0 in Ultra mode at 90 fps no reprojection and the GPU running graph was staying in the green.
I have two CPU cores running at about 90%, a third at about 70% and a little bit in the others.

The weird thing was that the GPU % was showing low in Dirt Rally which seemed odd to me. Typically Dirt Rally 2.0 would pretty well peg the GPU.

The subjecting thing was that my timing felt better. I was very easily controlling slides around hairpin turns. I'm not sure why. It did feel smoother.

I think it may be running a bit faster. I was able to run 120 fps and barely stay in the green for iRacing on some of the more detailed tracks where I was normally at 90 fps before, but I think this is a borderline condition.

In iRacing it was showing two cores as nearly 100% pegged the whole time which is new.

 

[RCHeliguy]

So far this has been a straightforward update, but there were a couple tiny kinks.

I had to google how to get the MB to allow me to boot from a non-M.2 SSD drive. It was just a few bios selections but while it recognized all 3 of my SATA 3 drives immediately, the MB wouldn't let me just select one to boot from. Hmmm...

The other kink was that In Death wouldn't come up until I applied a system environment variable that was a fix for the 11th gen Intel CPU's.

The I'm still running with the ecores enabled.
I did download the Gigabyte fix utility that disables the ecores with a Park/Unpark option.
The cores still show up in the Performance monitor, but they don't register a blip.
I'll test that more later.

I'm still running with the DDR4 in 4000Mhz default timings mode.
I accidentally ordered 2 x 8Gb cards instead of 2 x16Gb. So I ordered another 2x 8Gb cards. The testing I read suggested that 4x 8Gb would be slightly faster than 2 x 16Gb. The only reason I want 32Gb is for DCS. No other game really cares at this point. I've not tried Gear 1 x 3600MHz vs. likely Gear 2 4000MHz yet.
I'll test that later.

I haven't tweaked the Windows 10 CPU cache settings.
I'll test that later.

I'm about to start testing tactile effects again.

Relaxing after the Turkey day festivities and have an early Christmas present, a new welding helmet

I did notice a new SteamVR feature where you can set the frequency and it will adjust the resolution to meet the frequency.

 

[Atak_Kat]

1. The SoundBlaster X4 was very simple. I set it up as a 7.1 device and it has no crosstalk and all 8 channels work great. It defaulted to direct mode. It did seem to come up louder and I had to turn down my intensities.

Curious if you know anything on the SoundBlaster AE-7? This is on sale at my local on-line retailer for a price almost the same as the X4 (which I also was looking at). I ask just in case you were also looking into that as an option, and had any advice??

I'm researching it now (also for tactile output) but perhaps you already evaluated?

Thanks.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I had issues with my
SoundBlaster FX 5.1 analog only card. 4 channels only.
SoundBlaster RX/7 7.1 card and only got 3 channels usable.

I wouldn't trust any of their internal cards at this point. I will only use external cards going forward.
I am running optical out to my receiver from the MB's built in sound card when I want to hear sound outside my VR headset. The 7.1 card has an optical out that seems to work properly.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I just realized as I was talking about the X4 today, that the Test link in SimHub felt much stronger with the X4 than it did with the internal cards.

However I was looking at the DSP levels when I was clicking the test and they were still reaching the same level in the yellow area of the graph.

If the level looks about the same and I had to drop my overall levels in SimHub a bunch that makes me think that the bass response of the signal might be better. A lot of audio equipment is only rated down to 20Hz and doesn't go much lower. With many of the effects I'm using reaching into the single digit Hz range, it's very possible that the X4 has better low end response.

I don't have comparative frequency graphs to verify this, but it's the best explanation that I have at the moment.

 

[Mr Latte]

I just realized as I was talking about the X4 today, that the Test link in SimHub felt much stronger with the X4 than it did with the internal cards.

However I was looking at the DSP levels when I was clicking the test and they were still reaching the same level in the yellow area of the graph.

If the level looks about the same and I had to drop my overall levels in SimHub a bunch that makes me think that the bass response of the signal might be better. A lot of audio equipment is only rated down to 20Hz and doesn't go much lower. With many of the effects I'm using reaching into the single digit Hz range, it's very possible that the X4 has better low end response.

I don't have comparative frequency graphs to verify this, but it's the best explanation that I have at the moment.

I've also noticed this with different cards, but one cheapo basic 7.1 USB card I bought (for testing) was noticeably lower in output level as well. As was, certain onboard audio compared to the X3 cards.

Some soundcards may output 80dB some will be over 120dB and it makes sense to partner up the more capable tactile hardware with a more accomplished soundcard.

Often manufacturer specs are highlighting their product in best-case scenarios. To some extent, misleading or let's say, not an ideal reflection of the real/world usage, especially in how we are using the soundcards with Simhub.

I think I have 5 or 6 different USB soundcards laying around that I tried over the last 2 years and yes the X3 and new X4 are certainly good performers when it comes to what we want from these. It became my favorite but I went for a high-end internal "Audiophile" card for game audio, (EVGA NU Audio Pro 7.1) which will go in a new build next year.

I also noticed the PDU I use removed some electrical/interference that was showing on my (Behringer X32 Rack) RTA feature. This may partly be down to buying decent cables too?

 

[RCHeliguy]

It is funny how we rationalize things especially when it comes to a sim rig.

When I thought about audio, my gut told me that this was all low frequency stuff and distortion shouldn't matter going to a transducer, so cheap should be fine, but then I ran into serious cross talk issues and non-functional audio channels and now it appears I'm getting a better signal that punches lower. So yes, it actually matters.

When I got my first two harnesses, I thought it's just a sim rig, it shouldn't matter, but they didn't loosen and tighten easily and didn't hold fast. Now that I have a real quality 6 point harness getting into my harness is much easier which does actually improve the experience and I get better feeling from my G-Belt because it is easy to set a solid tension that stays.

In the end it seems that saying is true, "Buy cheaply 3 times or quality once."

I now have two audio cards that I may never use and I gave away my unused harnesses.

 

[anton_Chez]

The problem is, you didn't know, as I didn't know, that the harness you initially bought was not going to do the job. Had it at least functioned half decent, it would have been fine. The one I am using now is a knock off. It doesn't loosen perfectly like a real one should, but I've found a very easy work around for it and most importantly, it tightens without issue and stays exactly where I've tightened it until I release the cam. So, it's not like we decided to buy 3 times, but rather we were ignorant to the fact that a harness could be so poor.

It's the same when I was younger and had consoles. I never knew that there were SO MANY knock off Xbox 360 / PS3 controllers. I bought one and it INSTANTLY felt awful. I realised when I went back and had a look, that there were indeed controllers listed as GENUINE. To this day, I've never been stung again as I know exactly what to look for when buying a pad from eBay, where you tend to save a few dollars compared to buying from a brick and mortar store.