The SimFeedback-AC DIY Motion Simulator thread

sjb266 · Sep 17, 2018

Hey guys. Thought I’d create a thread for those taking the plunge into this brilliant DIY project..
I will be starting mine soon and I know there are others thinking about it.. so feel free to share your knowledge and experiences so we can all enjoy this platform to its full potential. A huge thanks to the developers who have really knocked this one out of the park!

Website: https://opensfx.com/2019/02/20/welcome-to-our-new-site/

Github: https://github.com/SimFeedback/SimFeedback-AC-Servo/wiki

For all the internals for the actuator contact Amy - skye@ntl-bearing.com
She can supply everything you need. Just remind her you want the ends of the shafts chamfered and make sure she sends the right sized ball screw - we have had a couple of issues reported. She is very helpful though and the cost is pretty good.

Huge thanks to @RowanH for writing a comprehensive user guide which can be accessed here - https://www.rowanhick.com/sfx-100-build-and-running-guide

In addition, @anton_Chez has contributed a list of post numbers for some of the important settings etc..
Post #320 SFX-100 thread
Post #327 SFX-100 thread for Discord correlation
Post #339 SFX-100 thread
Post #418 SFX-100 thread
Post #424 SFX-100 thread
Post #439 SFX-100 thread
Post #449 SFX-100 thread
Post #517 SFX-100 thread
Post #554 SFX-100 thread
Post #580 SFX-100 thread
Post #826 SFX-100 thread
Post #837 SFX-100 thread
Post #864,866,867,868,870,887,889,897 SFX-100 thread
Post #911,914 SFX-100 thread
Post #988,992,998 SFX-100 thread
Post #1147 SFX-100 thread
Post #1492 SFX-100 thread
Post #1511,1517 SFX-100 thread

I will try to keep this page updated with links to source the parts in other parts of the world. Just post whatever links you have and i'll add them here.

Please note: Not all the parts listed below are essential for the project. For the essential parts refer to the original shopping list.

Australia:

Thanks to @AussieSim for the following links:

10A power lead(s) * 4
https://www.jaycar.com.au/2m-black-mains-extension-lead/p/PS4152

Top quality wire stripper
https://sydneytools.com.au/product/boxo-cutws205-multifunction-wire-stripper

RCD/safety switch power block
https://www.bunnings.com.au/arlec-4-outlet-heavy-duty-portable-safety-switch_p4420028

WD-40 lithium grease for the ball screws
https://www.bunnings.com.au/wd-40-specialist-300g-high-performance-white-lithium-grease_p6100408

Vibration pads
https://www.bunnings.com.au/whites-on-site-100-x-12-5mm-rubber-anti-vibration-mat-4-pack_p3961547

WD-40 Dry PTFE spray for the slider (free shipping)
https://au.rs-online.com/mobile/p/lubricants/7577134/

Arduino Leonardo (free shipping + frequent 10-15% off discount)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/a000057/arduino-corporation

DB25 cables * 4 (free shipping)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/ak401-2/assmann-wsw-components-inc

PETG * 3 (free shipping)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/petg17bk1/mg-chemicals

WAGO-like connectors to avoid a breadboard (perhaps use genuine ones if you are doing 240V AC)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32906719488.html

D-Sub breakout boards * 4
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32297675967.html

3D printer Creality Ender-3 Pro
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32918302452.html

Wires from Arduino to D-Sub breakout (remove black plastic from the WAGO end)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32887680826.html

Crimp connectors for AC wire leads
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32813550981.html

sn4il · Mar 22, 2019

I meant hand drill press. No force needed. Just go 5 mm back and forth. Also, double check your slider at all 4 available positions. It might have a different fit due to both, aluminum profile tolerances and your 3d printer calibration.

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

I would re-print it until the fit is very close (able to shove it in by hand). Then some up / down repetition in the alum profile will file it for you for a comfortable fit. If it's too far out I would reprint.
I also noticed that the alum profile is not perfectly symmetric internally. I could rotate the slider 1/4 turn and re-insert and it would fit a tiny bit differently.

ScottSonder · Mar 22, 2019

I might be the most amateur builder here. Everyone has a drill press but me?

Well I've got the impact gun now.. slowly building up.

ScottSonder · Mar 22, 2019

HugoB said:
I also had the problem that my sliders were way too big. This meant unfortunately that all my other parts were too big al well, so screws went in REALLY hard, the fixed and linear bearings would also not fit in the 3d printed parts, so overall everything was too big. Thankfully I noticed this before I had printed all four actuators, so I decided to reprint the ones I already had and continue with the correct sizes. This was a lot less physical effort but of course I wasted around 200 grams of filament..

I calibrated my printer beforehand, so I thought I was good. So do you mean once you found your fine-tuned filament diameter, you continued to use that value for the rest of your prints?

These sliders I'm testing were some of my first prints though, meaning a bit warped out on the bottom end which is going to screw the whole thing up. They might actually work without the warping, so hoping I can still squeak by to be able to join the SFX completed builders list sooner, but if not, so be it, this project has given me a lot of patience

Edit: Good call on the orientation @sn4il and @Flag Ghost, turned it twice, and it seemed to like that fit perfectly. With no warping, it's actually a great fit that I can push up and down with my hand.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

ScottSonder said:
I calibrated my printer beforehand, so I thought I was good. So do you mean once you found your fine-tuned filament diameter, you continued to use that value for the rest of your prints?

These sliders I'm testing were some of my first prints though, meaning a bit warped out on the bottom end which is going to screw the whole thing up. They might actually work without the warping, so hoping I can still squeak by to be able to join the SFX completed builders list sooner, but if not, so be it, this project has given me a lot of patience

Edit: Good call on the orientation @Flag Ghost, turned it twice, and it seemed to like that fit perfectly. With no warping, it's actually a great fit that I can push up and down with my hand.

Yes, I did the extruder calibration first because it’s very important that the printer is using the correct amount of steps per millimeter.

But I still had to fine tune my filament diameter afterwards because with 1.71 mm the parts came out too big. At filament diameter 1.74 they came out perfect. At 1.75mm they were slighty too loose fit. My caliper was maybe not so accurate, I measured my filament to be 1.71, or maybe I just squeezed it

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

You really shouldn't adjust the filament diameter in the slicer in order to resize a print. The filament diameter should be used to adjust extrusion to achieve an appropriate amount of overlap between adjoining horizontal lines. If the setting is too high you will get under extrusion which will leave gaps between lines across your print. If it's too low you will have over extrusion which can leave blobs and build up on your print head. After calibration you should use very small model scale adjustments in your slicer to achieve an appropriate fit while maintaining an appropriate filament size based on physical filament measurements. You should check this measurement every so often as it can shift even with the same roll.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Flag Ghost said:
You really shouldn't adjust the filament diameter in the slicer in order to resize a print. The filament diameter should be used to adjust extrusion to achieve an appropriate amount of overlap between adjoining horizontal lines. If the setting is too high you will get under extrusion which will leave gaps between lines across your print. If it's too low you will have over extrusion which can leave blobs and build up on your print head. After calibration you should use very small model scale adjustments in your slicer to achieve an appropriate fit while maintaining an appropriate filament size based on physical filament measurements. You should check this measurement every so often as it can shift even with the same roll.

Maybe you misunderstood what I was trying to get across, I said it's important to calibrate the extruder correctly, meaning steps per millimeter, extrusion multiplier and filament diameter.

I never meant that you should just choose a random filament diameter to get bigger or smaller parts, but I meant that you need very accurate calipers to measure your filament in the first place and mostly it is set wrong in the slicer, or your new roll has a different diameter.

I don't agree with resizing the parts in the slicer if they are already dimensionally correct... Because if you measure the inside of your profile and it's the same as your stl model dimensions, but they don't fit after printing, your extruder calibration is off, not your parts.

Setting the correct filament diameter is very important yet most people completely ignore or forget this, so the parts come out too big or too small. I agree that you can also see if you are over or under extruding, because you will see either blobs or gaps between the lines. But sometimes it's hard to spot that if you have no experience and you don't know how it should look like.

So my point is: I strongly recommend to do the extruder calibration before you start printing, then measure your filament diameter and use this value in the slicer, see if your parts come out correctly, if not you measured wrong and you should decrease or increase this value. The problem is also that some low quality spools have wildly varying diameter throughout the spool, so it's a bit of a hit or miss, but the average should make your parts fit correctly on average.

Of course if you know what to look for, you can identify over or under extrusion.

It's just that I don't agree with resizing the stl models (if they measure correctly compared to your profile/bearings etc. in the slicer software), because you are introducing a whole lot of other problems then.

ScottSonder · Mar 22, 2019

Yeah, I was worried about resizing the model. I did calibrate my printer, but let me also bust out my digital caliper. Haven't used it on this new filament I've been using. Thanks for the insight guys, really appreciate it.

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

Resizing the model (scale adjustment in the slicer) is very often the absolute quickest way to the end product. Calibrations can and will move on you and it is MUCH quicker to gently tweak the model size (I'm talking hundredths of an inch) and get a final product than to go through a complete re-calibration. Plus calibration won't help you much if the part your trying to mate the print with isn't necessarily perfectly consistent either (alum extrusion). I understand your correct IN THEORY but IN PRACTICE sometimes there is good reason to GENTLY resize.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Flag Ghost said:
Resizing the model is very often the absolute quickest way to the end product. Calibrations can and will move on you and it is MUCH quicker to gently tweak the model size (I'm talking hundredths of an inch) and get a final product than to go through a complete re-calibration. I understand your correct IN THEORY but IN PRACTICE there is good reason to GENTLY resize.

Ok, I get your point

There's nothing wrong with getting what you want that way.

I just want to stress that some people who begin with 3D printing may have wildly uncalibrated extruders and then if they immediately start to resize the model, they are just suppressing the symptoms, not curing the cause.. Also printing quality is severely impacted by an uncalibrated extruder. Structural rigidity could be impaired. But I don't have to explain that to you, you seem to know your stuff

Once your extruder is calibrated correctly, your steps will remain largely correct, so I don't see how updating your filament diameter to your new spool's size is any harder than resizing the model though...?

Maybe it's just different styles

BTW I've just printed two complete sets of actuators back to back with my Prusa i3 MK3 (roughly 400 hours), after calibrating everything correctly, the parts were just pumping out 24/7 with not a single failure and everything fits perfectly. I did use high quality filament (Extrudr PETG, 2.5Kg spools), so I didn't even need to change the diameter when switching spools. I am very impressed by the Prusa, it is an absolute workhorse.

Furnace Inferno · Mar 22, 2019

I just filed them myself I think the internals are slightly different as everything else lines up perfectly. Probably did more than I needed to though as I didn’t want the motors working harder against the friction of the slider so they slide in/out nicely.

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

HugoB said:
Once your extruder is calibrated correctly, your steps will remain largely correct, so I don't see how updating your filament diameter to your new spool's size is any harder than resizing the model though...?

Maybe it's just different styles
.

I never advocated for not changing your filament diameter to reflect the measurement on the spool. In fact, if you read my posts, I stated the opposite. I was just against changing the filament diameter for the sole purpose of adjusting the size of your print. It's simply the wrong knob to turn.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Flag Ghost said:
I never advocated for not changing your filament diameter to reflect the measurement on the spool. In fact, if you read my posts, I stated the opposite. I was just against changing the filament diameter for the sole purpose of adjusting the size of your print. It's simply the wrong knob to turn.

We seem to be advocating the same thing. I also never meant for anyone to change the filament diameter in the slicer for the sole purpose of adjusting the size of their print. I just meant that the diameter setting could be off and this has an effect on the size of your fit. So I've been telling people to calibrate their extruder and then set the correct diameter. Parts should come out dimensionally correct.

Maybe you thought that I was just saying that people should adjust the filament diameter to get smaller or bigger parts? I always said to calibrate extruder first. I'm sorry if this has not come across clearly.

And yes, you can always make the model smaller of bigger, if your aluminum profile is maybe not cut correctly, or your bearings are slightly bigger or smaller (different supplier?). I'm just assuming that Kinetik is cutting correctly and everyone is getting the same parts. But I did measure mine (and all the bearings) and checked those measurements in the slicer to see if they matched up, before printing.

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

Haha.. maybe it wasn't you Hugo.. someone was much earlier in the thread somewhere. Just wanted to set the record straight. We are on the same page.

ScottSonder · Mar 22, 2019

Now I'm a bit confused. Good discussion to read for the noobs though.

Here's where I'm at. I calibrated my extruder, going to measure the filament diameter again before I go onto the sliders, going to set that value for the slider print and prototype it. If I have issues from there, that's mean the filament is screwing me right? That's when I go up/down depending on the context.

OR

Resizing the model just a very tiny bit to not affect tolerances elsewhere but get that perfect print.

Not trying to start a war or anything, just want to make sure my head isn't in the clouds. Thanks to both for diving deep into this.

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

ScottSonder said:
Now I'm a bit confused. Good discussion to read for the noobs though.

Here's where I'm at. I calibrated my extruder, going to measure the filament diameter again before I go onto the sliders, going to set that value for the slider print and prototype it. If I have issues from there, that's mean the filament is screwing me right? That's when I go up/down depending on the context.

OR

Resizing the model just a very tiny bit to not affect tolerances elsewhere but get that perfect print.

Not trying to start a war or anything, just want to make sure my head isn't in the clouds. Thanks to both for diving deep into this.

In my opinion and experience...
If you've done a proper calibration and have measured your filament diameter and keyed it into your slicer and the part is just slightly out (and I mean slightly) then using your slicer to scale your model size is an appropriate thing to do. There are too many variables that are not under your control (variable filament size, humidity, aluminum extrusion tolerances, etc..) to expect an absolute precision fit every single time. The term precision fit is also highly subjective soo... if your slicer has a way to scale the x,y,z axis size of your model independently (Simplify3D) it's very often the final tweak you need to get your print fitting like you want.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Yes, I did say that filament diameter has an effect on the fit of your sliders (which is what we are trying to achieve), but not that this should be used solely, without correct calibration.

Maybe when people read quickly over my posts, this could be understood the wrong way, in that case, I am sorry if anyone got the wrong idea because of that. It's a complicated matter, this 3D printing, I wouldn't want to make it any more complicated.. It's hard to give advice without being too lengthy, but also not too abridged that it could lead to misunderstandings.

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Flag Ghost said:
In my opinion and experience...
If you've done a proper calibration and have measured your filament diameter and keyed it into your slicer and the part is just slightly out (and I mean slightly) then using your slicer to scale your model size is an appropriate thing to do. There are too many variables that are not under your control (variable filament size, humidity, aluminum extrusion tolerances, etc..) to expect an absolute precision fit every single time. The term precision fit is also highly subjective soo... if your slicer has a way to scale the x,y,z axis size of your model independently (Simplify3D) it's very often the final tweak you need to get your print fitting like you want.

Very nicely said, there are a lot of variables in 3D printing that could influence your results. The worst thing is tolerances. Printers may have slack in their construction that leads to the external perimeters to be slightly offset and then the parts won't fit. In this case, even if your calibration is correct, your parts won't fit. Then you can resize the model so that it does fit! I agree wholeheartedly with you that in this case that is a very good solution, because you don't want to force your extrusion to compensate for the slack in your axis. Maybe I'm just very spoilt with my Prusa, it prints so accurately that anything that goes wrong is completely my fault and down to calibration. There is a jungle of cheap printers out there that have all kinds of exotic tolerances.

Just to show what the Prusa can do, so you understand why I trust my printer so much, I printed this with a custom airbrush nozzle:

Flag Ghost · Mar 22, 2019

Wow! That is an amazing print. What is the nozzle size? Which Prusa do you have? Upgrades?

HugoB · Mar 22, 2019

Flag Ghost said:
Wow! That is an amazing print. What is the nozzle size? Which Prusa do you have? Upgrades?

It's a Prusa i3 MK3, bought it as a kit and took great care to assemble it very accurately, since I heard lot's of people are having trouble with the pre-assembled printers. I used a 0.2mm airbrush nozzle and 0.07mm layer height. It's this model: https://pinshape.com/items/9548 printed at 60% scale, anything smaller and some pillars started to disappear.

I only changed the heat break to one from Micro-Swiss that has less friction:
https://store.micro-swiss.com/colle...sistant-thermal-tube-for-e3d-v6-hotend-1-75mm this helps with slow prints (low layer height) because the heat could creep up the hotend and make the filament get stuck.
And I installed a silicone sock over the heater block so it doesn't melt the small parts when it sits over the print: https://e3d-online.com/v6-socks-pro-pack-of-3 The airbrush nozzle has the same purpose, to raise the heater block higher above the print to prevent PLA curl: https://youprintin3d.de/sonderangeb...r-mit-3-duesen-fuer-e3d-v6-hotend-1.75mm.html

But I must say this print took me quite a lot of work to get right and was very dependent on the filament quality. I finally got it working with Extrudr PLA NX2: https://www.extrudr.com/en/products/catalogue/?material=128

I guess 'Prusament' should also be good stuff, haven't tried it yet.

My biggest accomplishment was this one though:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:912478 That thing is a PITA to print. To get those railings to show up you need a seriously small nozzle. Those overhangs are a horror. And this is a stringing monster test too. Wouldn't recommend

I learnt that FDM printers really aren't made for this kind of stuff.. Better for nice big blocks like the SFX100 parts

And I'll leave the pretty little things to SLA printers.