Next Level's new Traction Plus

[Hiro Abe]

Sooooo.... whose going to get one of these and report back?

 

[RCHeliguy]

@RCHeliguy, Agree, this looks simply awesome but probably way above what I can afford.
Thanks for confirming which part it was. Could you just tell me why were you thinking on removing this rear profile from the P1? I will give your technic a try so I want to make sure I have everything right, and this is the last point remaining.

Thanks

In my case I was trying to reduce weight since when I weighed my rig it was over the weight limit when you add my weight to it.

That's one thing that bothers me about the Traction plus. It doesn't have any weight safety margin when using a P1 chassis.

 

[gmkump]

Did you see the Barry's setup? It looked like he jacked his pedals up from the stock pedal deck and that was without a properly reclined racing seat which would require more lift.

Well, this thread is going other places, but on the NLR stuff and replacement items, let me get you back on the Prisma Seat and foot pedal heights.

I got the 20 series extrusions and it raised the foot pedals 2 inches (8 inches total, 6 inches as Barry had for v3 motion + 2 inch for seat). After some races I realized it was too much, so I removed a 10 series and dropped an inch, so now 7 inches. Guess what, still too much. My legs tingled due to decreased blood flow.

Perturbed, I finally measured old NLR stock seat and Prisma. The stock sits 5.5 inches above v3 rail (measured to bottom of butt) while the Prisma was 3.5 inches!!! I thought the Prisma bucket seat sat higher. This is because of the tilt.

Okay, I took my new 20 series off, and now it is raised 5 inches total, actually lower by one inch from raising it 6 inches for v3 motion (as Barry had done). The thing I needed to do for the Prisma tilt was to move the pedals a little closer to create more bend in my legs, bringing my knees up and stop the pressure points on the upper back legs on Prisma seat. The lowering of the pedals was also necessary because I was getting my knees too close to the steering wheel (which is currently adjusted perfectly with relation to seat and I did not want to move it).

In the end, I lowered, not raised, and now at 5 inches total, it feels fine and no issues.

When at higher adjustment, I almost wanted to go back to my NLR stock seat because of pain in hip, tingling in legs, and not used to bucket seat angles. Glad I didn't.

Prisma Bucket Pros and Cons

PROS:
1. Great back and shoulder support. About perfect.
2. Suede Cloth is more comfortable.
3. Solid mold design, no flex.
4. Quiet on motion platforms. With NLR stock adjustable seat, lots of mechanical knocks, scrapes, bangs, flexing with motion setup. Bucket with one piece design makes no noise, solid, really reduced the noise level of cockpit due to motion.
5. Allows up to 6 point seat restraint belts, original NLR seat only allowed 4 point.
6. With Sparco brackets, fits on NLR v3 motion.
7. Look at all those pretty colored sparkles! Okay, means nothing to me, but visitors always mention it.

CONS:
1. If one is not used to angle of leg to lower body, can cause discomfort until muscles train to it.
2. No adjustments of any kind.
3. Look at all those pretty colored sparkles!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I don't think I've ever heard of people having circulation issues because of the foot deck height being too high. Consider the position of an F1 driver.

You have to find what works for you, but there are multiple points that need to be adjusted together.

It is also important to get your leg bend correct. The front of the seat is supposed to support your legs "some" but if there is too much pressure than you need to move the pedals closer to get more knee bend. If there is too much knee bend your legs get no support. With a seat mover you will probably want a bit less pressure so it doesn't throw your braking off while the seat moves. If you had your pedals too far away your legs will be too straight and the front cushion could push too much restricting circulation.

Another issue is that the pedal angle needs to adjust with your ankles at rest which changes every time you change your seat angle, foot deck height and knee bend.

There are lots of variables and changes that need to be made together. It took me a while to get my pedal angles and height dialed in.

1. Recline seat
2. Adjust foot deck height
3. Adjust knee bend
4 Adjust pedal height and angle relative to resting ankle angle.

If you experiment with foot deck height make sure to readjust the pedal deck distance to get your knee angle correct for comfortable leg support on the front seat cushion and then readjust your pedal angle and height relative to your foot deck.

It took me a while to find the right foot deck height for my seat position and then adjust my pedal angles and height accordingly. If you don't move your pedals after making other adjustments they can feel very wrong very easily.

 

[gmkump]

If you experiment with foot deck height make sure to readjust the pedal deck distance to get your knee angle correct for comfortable leg support on the front seat cushion and then readjust your pedal angle and height relative to your foot deck.

This was exactly what I was running into. I was adjusting pedal angle, but not distance.

My real issue was pedal adjustments restricted in relation to my steering wheel, which is currently perfect to the seat right now. But even after adjusting pedal height down, the bottom of my feet that rests on the pedals is 2 inches below the level of my rear end when seated. So when pedals were higher, it raised to same level, which was a bit too high. If I want my pedals that high, I would need even more tilt in the seat. Getting something that is comfortable and does not create any issues over long race time takes a lot of experimenting. As you pointed out, critical is knee bend and weight distribution while sitting.

I don't know when I'll stop mucking with it. The current bucket seat setup is much more comfortable now and I had no issues after three races last night. I feel I would have to adjust the seat again to raise the pedals.

 

[RCHeliguy]

If you are happy with it, that's all that matters.

PS: You may never stop mucking with it. People seem to fall into two camps. Those that like to tinker and see if they can improve things and those who get to a point were things are good enough and love racing a lot more than tinkering. I love tinkering at least as much as racing so I'm doomed.

 

[gmkump]

If you are happy with it, that's all that matters.

What amazes me is once I was done and happy, I noticed this pic elsewhere on this forum and everything in it matches to my current setup to a tee. I was pretty amazed, nothing was out of suggested angle, etc. The steering wheel height and angle is exactly where I have it and you can see here that raising the pedals bring the knees higher and issue of raising leg to apply break can impact the wheel if too close. Even the seat angle and shift was spot on. Go figure....

 

[RCHeliguy]

What amazes me is once I was done and happy, I noticed this pic elsewhere on this forum and everything in it matches to my current setup to a tee. I was pretty amazed, nothing was out of suggested angle, etc. The steering wheel height and angle is exactly where I have it and you can see here that raising the pedals bring the knees higher and issue of raising leg to apply break can impact the wheel if too close. Even the seat angle and shift was spot on. Go figure....

View attachment 375134

I put that drawing in Photoshop and measured the angles.

​

24.6 degree back angle.​

13 degree base angle.​

34 degree lower leg angle ( knee hinge to ankle hinge )​

12.6 degree steering wheel angle.​

My seat measurements. ( used my table saw digital angle tool )

24 degree back angle​

13 degree base angle​

36 degree "shin" angle which is likely a degree or two higher than the knee to ankle hinge angle.​

16 degree steering wheel angle. (My wrists land the same way)​

According to the picture it might be better for me to tilt my steering wheel down just a bit and move it away from me enough to keep my wrists in the same place.

The butt to knee joint angle is hard to measure and will depend on your anatomy. If you have a large butt and small legs it will be very different than if you have a flat butt and muscular legs.

It looks like my heels are positioned properly according to that picture.

Notice what is missing? Pedal height, angles and pedal deflection.

I have my pedal heights set so the center of each pedal matches the ball of my foot. That looks like what is shown in the picture.
That is also going to completely depend on the size of your feet and depth of the heel on your shoe.
The amount of pedal deflection you like is also impacted by how large your foot is because you will probably want about the same amount of travel from an ankle angle perspective rather than total distance traveled.

I spent a heck of a lot of time getting my pedal angles right so that the travel, resistance and angles worked well.

My clutch required that I build up the center of the clutch pedal so I could get the full deflection and my foot could roll forward instead of bend backwards.

 

[5teveC457]

For fun I checked out Motionsystems website and found that they now have pricing announced on the QS-25 that RCHeliGuy highlighted earlier. It is priced at €19,000, which all things considered doesn't seem as crazy as I was anticipating.

 

[RCHeliguy]

For fun I checked out Motionsystems website and found that they now have pricing announced on the QS-25 that RCHeliGuy highlighted earlier. It is priced at €19,000, which all things considered doesn't seem as crazy as I was anticipating.

I was impressed with that price and while it needs a 30A 240V circuit to run, I'm more space limited than anything else. My wife has already told me we need a bigger home for my toys, but has pretty much told me fine. If we get a bigger house go for it.

Considering a 4 actuator D-Box system like Barry had been using was about $16K, and considering the QS-25 is MUCH more substantial equipment that also has great software that is easy to configure supporting it. It's in a price range where many people have purchased systems for a number of years. I think these will end up in homes.

For something that large, I would be tempted to make a trip to try one out before bringing it home. It's not like this is something that would be easy to sell after you got it. It has serious space requirements and is very expensive to ship. I've purchased everything I have to date based on the reviews of others and assumptions. This is a much larger commitment.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Barry has done 2 other reviews since he got his PT Actuator system together 2 weeks ago. I'm guessing he's run into issues and is trying to get things resolved before he posts anything.

Edit: I skimmed the most recent Fanatec F1 review and it looks like he was on the PT Actuator rig, but it didn't look like the traction loss movement was working. So I'm going to guess there is an issue there and we won't see anything more until he has that resolved.

 

[RCHeliguy]

BTW since this has sort of gone all over the place, I've had some more thoughts.

I had someone ask me about this motion system.

I think this all ties in well together.

I look at this pivoting system and see all kinds of red flags.

1. There is a single actuator responsible for moving the entire chassis on a per axis basis.
2. There is a center pivot and long overhang, which tells me those single actuator per axis need to be very strong and the overhang can not be well dampened and will bounce or ring.

A 4 post chassis mover has 4 transducers moving together to lift the rig. This is also "pretty" well dampened, but there can be issues lifting legs off the ground and slamming them back down.

With a 5 or 6 DOF system your 5th and 6th actuators are each moving the rig by themselves. The TL has a hinge, but little overhang, but still not as immersive than if both the front and the back moved independently like the TL Plus and still just a single actuator moving a lot of mass. The surge is moving the entire rig with a single transducer on a linear bearing type of arrangement, so even more mass being moved by one transducer.

Now compare that with the Hexapod setup.

There are 6 actuators all working in concert to move the chassis. It has excellent dampening and excellent acceleration in all axis, because all the actuators are working together and the chassis is completely bound to the actuators and the base frame. There is nothing that can overshoot or ring. All the energy goes into the chassis.

So if you wanted to compare the resolution of detail possible how quickly the chassis can be accelerated in any direction, the Hex system wins every time!

I still think that the QS-25 has the intrinsically best design by a large margin. It wins at everything.

The gimbaled system could be made to work better if there were 2 x actuators on each axis with one on each side of the pivot working in opposite directions as a team. As long as they were accurately working against each other and didn't tear the rig apart, that could work well. But the overall system would be extremely complex.

 

[5teveC457]

I agree the QS-25 looks amazing for the price, but space concerns would definitely be a problem. You pretty much need a dedicated room for that thing, but I would love to try it out to see what the experience is like. I wonder if NLR will be doing a branded version?

 

[pihops]

so i guess that nobody has tried to put a profile chassis like the p1x on top of the NLR traction plus ? I am surprised but I guess everybody is going for pt-actuator or similar traction loss.

I like the NLR system for its compact form factor. I hate the tons of cables and controller boxes required when using pt-actuator or sfx100.

I have a dbox / p1x, and I am looking for traction loss system that looks clean

 

[Furnace Inferno]

so i guess that nobody has tried to put a profile chassis like the p1x on top of the NLR traction plus ? I am surprised but I guess everybody is going for pt-actuator or similar traction loss.

I like the NLR system for its compact form factor. I hate the tons of cables and controller boxes required when using pt-actuator or sfx100.

I have a dbox / p1x, and I am looking for traction loss system that looks clean

I think the issue with the NLR is the weight limit is far too low for the P1X or similar heavy rigs and then there is the cost.

 

[pihops]

yeah at $6k it is not very interesting compared to other traction loss system I guess.

I have no clue how heavy my p1x loaded weight.. I'll am curious but I don't want to break my home scale also I have no clue how to wieght something so large.. one foot at a time I guess. anybody know the process to weight a large item using a home scale ?

 

[RCHeliguy]

yeah at $6k it is not very interesting compared to other traction loss system I guess.

I have no clue how heavy my p1x loaded weight.. I'll am curious but I don't want to break my home scale also I have no clue how to wieght something so large.. one foot at a time I guess. anybody know the process to weight a large item using a home scale ?

I weighed my rig a while back to see if I could get it on an NLR Traction Plus and with me on board it was over the limit.

I purchased an industrial scale and weighed the front and then the back to get a reading. It wasn't easy and technically there was a slight disparity because of a shallow angle. Technically you should have each side propped up to make it level while measuring one side and then the other.

I've since given up on the traction plus. I was having to take too much off my rig to get it under the weight limit.