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

Furnace Inferno · Feb 18, 2020

NGR_Conroy said:
Hi guys, anyone use NTL-Bearing for the hollow shafts, ballscrews/nuts, fixed/linear bearings & shaft couplings? About to order and wanted to check if anyone had any issues with them. Cheers

Just make sure to check them all as they do sometimes sell some dodgy ones. I had to get one replacement as the screw holes were in the wrong place and not symmetrical and then the replacement one was too long so I had to change the slider to be deeper but aside from that they work perfectly no issues in nearly a year of use.

NGR_Conroy · Feb 18, 2020

Thanks for the replies guys. Contacted Amy to go ahead with order but there's a bit of a delay at the moment, no definite ship date due to the corona virus effecting everything over there so will have to see what happens in next while.

Freeon · Feb 18, 2020

What's the difrence between these 2 motors. Opensfx shopping list points to the first one. The second one is $66 cheaper x4 =$266 CAD savings. Only difference I can see is the first is 2.4 nm and the second is 2.39 nm. Is there something else I'm not seeing or is .01 nm that big of a deal.

Motor1

Motor2

thenic123 · Feb 18, 2020

Will this cable work for daisy chaining the motor controllers? if the plug doesn't fit the mains wall socket, I'll cut it off and attach another plug.

Moxley6969 · Feb 19, 2020

Freeon said:
What's the difrence between these 2 motors. Opensfx shopping list points to the first one. The second one is $66 cheaper x4 =$266 CAD savings. Only difference I can see is the first is 2.4 nm and the second is 2.39 nm. Is there something else I'm not seeing or is .01 nm that big of a deal.

Motor1

Motor2

Ali Sellers WILL GET what they want, be it in the Item Price with "FREE" shipping, or a Lower Item price with a Specific shipping fee to make up that Number they are after.

So to answer your question, Nothing is different.

Moxley6969 · Feb 19, 2020

thenic123 said:
Will this cable work for daisy chaining the motor controllers? if the plug doesn't fit the mains wall socket, I'll cut it off and attach another plug.

View attachment 350669

I dont see any issues. After all your not using anywhere near the max after many have shows watt meters on their Rigs.

RowanH · Feb 19, 2020

Freeon said:
What's the difrence between these 2 motors. Opensfx shopping list points to the first one. The second one is $66 cheaper x4 =$266 CAD savings. Only difference I can see is the first is 2.4 nm and the second is 2.39 nm. Is there something else I'm not seeing or is .01 nm that big of a deal.

Motor1

Motor2

You've highlighted the 90ST and the 80ST motor. The SFX-100 official STL files and design are for the 90ST motor. The 90ST is physically larger than the 80ST ... thus the 80ST will not work for the BOM as described on the official site.

There's at least one member of the community playing around with designing parts to make the 80ST work which necessitates some design changes.

Basically, stick with the 90ST.

All maybe a bit of a moot point however at the moment... you'd be pretty lucky to get it shipped out of China. I've been waiting on some parts for my g-seat project, but between Ali's standard shipping partner(s) and not enough planes in and out of China from New Zealand. NZPost ain't moving parcels (or huge delays!). Set expectations accordingly

Freeon · Feb 19, 2020

RowanH said:
You've highlighted the 90ST and the 80ST motor. The SFX-100 official STL files and design are for the 90ST motor. The 90ST is physically larger than the 80ST ... thus the 80ST will not work for the BOM as described on the official site.

There's at least one member of the community playing around with designing parts to make the 80ST work which necessitates some design changes.

Basically, stick with the 90ST.

All maybe a bit of a moot point however at the moment... you'd be pretty lucky to get it shipped out of China. I've been waiting on some parts for my g-seat project, but between Ali's standard shipping partner(s) and not enough planes in and out of China from New Zealand. NZPost ain't moving parcels (or huge delays!). Set expectations accordingly

OK thanks for the info. I kind of figured about the shipping. I'm only a few days into the SFX 100 search so still trying to figure out everything. One more question on the motors. What's the diffrence between type "A" and type "B" and which one is the best.

Freeon · Feb 19, 2020

NGR_Conroy said:
Thanks for the replies guys. Contacted Amy to go ahead with order but there's a bit of a delay at the moment, no definite ship date due to the corona virus effecting everything over there so will have to see what happens in next while.

Who is Amy and what does she sell? Don't want to go true 345 pages to figure it out. But if she can help sourcing parts I would love to have her contact information.

meizer · Feb 19, 2020

Freeon said:
Who is Amy and what does she sell? Don't want to go true 345 pages to figure it out. But if she can help sourcing parts I would love to have her contact information.

Amy is the old contact at NTL Bearing, a company a lot of people use for 5 key SFX100 parts.
The new contact is skye@ntl-bearing.com.

The parts you want to order are:

- 1605 Ball Screw and Nut - Length 250mm machined - 4 pieces
- FK12 Ball screw support - 4 pieces
- Precision Hollow Shaft 30-20-270 30mm Diameter 20mm bore - 270mm length bevel on both ends - 4 pieces
- Coupling 30-40-10*16 diameter 30mm, Length 40mm - 4 pieces
- LMEK30UU (30*47*68) linear bearing - 4 pieces

All of these parts can also be found on Aliexpress separately if you want to go that way and possibly save some money.

EsxPaul · Feb 19, 2020

Freeon said:
Who is Amy and what does she sell? Don't want to go true 345 pages to figure it out. But if she can help sourcing parts I would love to have her contact information.

Amy Chen is one of the contacts at NTL-Bearing. They are the company most have used to order what's referred to in the shopping list as the "Simon Special", consisting of:

Hollow shafts x4

Ball screws and nut x4

Fixed bearings x4

Linear bearings x4

Shaft couplings x4

I don't have a direct contact for her but you can make initial contact with NTL from this page: Changsa Terry Machinery

Edit: Already answered by @meizer

Herbie Rooprai · Feb 19, 2020

Has anyone bought the Version B motor? If so would be interested to know the process/ease of replacing/rewiring with shielded cables. Also, looks like the connector protrudes out from the motor... has this been an issue or is it just aesthetic. Thanks.

Freeon · Feb 19, 2020

meizer said:
Amy is the old contact at NTL Bearing, a company a lot of people use for 5 key SFX100 parts.
The new contact is skye@ntl-bearing.com.

The parts you want to order are:

- 1605 Ball Screw and Nut - Length 250mm machined - 4 pieces
- FK12 Ball screw support - 4 pieces
- Precision Hollow Shaft 30-20-270 30mm Diameter 20mm bore - 270mm length bevel on both ends - 4 pieces
- Coupling 30-40-10*16 diameter 30mm, Length 40mm - 4 pieces
- LMEK30UU (30*47*68) linear bearing - 4 pieces

All of these parts can also be found on Aliexpress separately if you want to go that way and possibly save some money.

What prices are you guys paying true NTL. Did a quick search on Alexpress and came up with $510 CAD. the shaft and coupler I couldn't find and had to get on another website. Might be some savings there. Also combing everything on Aliexpress might have shipping savings. Would just like an idea of what NTL cost is.

EsxPaul · Feb 19, 2020

Herbie Rooprai said:
Has anyone bought the Version B motor? If so would be interested to know the process/ease of replacing/rewiring with shielded cables. Also, looks like the connector protrudes out from the motor... has this been an issue or is it just aesthetic. Thanks.

There is a video tutorial out there that will give you an idea of what's involved in swapping out the power cables. I would put a link here but I'm not sure if it would be allowed, so search YouTube for the 'Thanos 6DOF motion SIM electronics' channel. There you will find a video titled 'Tutorial: replacing Servo Power cable and testing'

The connector protruding at an angle to servo is purely cosmetic and you could choose to rotate the servo as you please so that the connector doesn't cause an obstruction to anything.

Herbie Rooprai · Feb 20, 2020

EsxPaul said:
There is a video tutorial out there that will give you an idea of what's involved in swapping out the power cables. I would put a link here but I'm not sure if it would be allowed, so search YouTube for the 'Thanos 6DOF motion SIM electronics' channel. There you will find a video titled 'Tutorial: replacing Servo Power cable and testing'

The connector protruding at an angle to servo is purely cosmetic and you could choose to rotate the servo as you please so that the connector doesn't cause an obstruction to anything.

Thank you for that Paul. Found the video you mentioned.

meizer · Feb 20, 2020

Freeon said:
What prices are you guys paying true NTL. Did a quick search on Alexpress and came up with $510 CAD. the shaft and coupler I couldn't find and had to get on another website. Might be some savings there. Also combing everything on Aliexpress might have shipping savings. Would just like an idea of what NTL cost is.

My quote was in USD and it was $252 USD including shipping and PayPal fee. I ended up just ordering parts individually on Aliexpress and saved about $30 but I had to order from several vendors which increases the chance that something won't arrive or will be wrong. So that's a bit of a gamble to save some money but I decided to risk it.

I'll try to include the prices I was quoted below. Remember this is in US dollars with US shipping prices.

PART NO	QTY/PCS	U.PRICE/USD EXW	AMOUNT/USD
1605 Ball Screw and Nut - Length 250mm Machined as per spec	4.00	$13.53	$54.12
FK12 ball screw support	4.00	$9.25	$37.00
precision hollow shaft 30-20-270 30mm Diameter - 20mm Bore - 270mm Length Bevel on both ends	4.00	$4.95	$19.80
coupling-30-40-10*16 Diameter 30mm - Length 40mm	4.00	$4.92	$19.68
LMEK30UU(304768) linear bearing	4.00	$3.19	$12.76
TOTAL GROSS EIGHT:10KGS SHIPPING FEE	$98.00
		PAYPAL FEE	$10.86
TOTAL PRICE	$252.22

meizer · Feb 21, 2020

I was wondering if someone could help me with an Arduino issue. I am trying to flash the firmware to my genuine Arduino Leonardo. It's a simple process and everything looks like it's working and then at the end of the upload process it gives me an unhanded exception error that says Access Denied: COM5.

Edit: I kept trying things and eventually got it to work by unplugging everything from my computer and using a USB 2.0 port instead of 3.0 and it finished uploading the firmware successfully.

Freeon · Feb 21, 2020

meizer said:
My quote was in USD and it was $252 USD including shipping and PayPal fee. I ended up just ordering parts individually on Aliexpress and saved about $30 but I had to order from several vendors which increases the chance that something won't arrive or will be wrong. So that's a bit of a gamble to save some money but I decided to risk it.

I'll try to include the prices I was quoted below. Remember this is in US dollars with US shipping prices.

PART NO QTY/PCS U.PRICE/USD EXW AMOUNT/USD
1605 Ball Screw and Nut - Length 250mm Machined as per spec 4.00 $13.53 $54.12
FK12 ball screw support 4.00 $9.25 $37.00
precision hollow shaft 30-20-270
30mm Diameter - 20mm Bore - 270mm Length Bevel on both ends 4.00 $4.95 $19.80
coupling-30-40-10*16
Diameter 30mm - Length 40mm 4.00 $4.92 $19.68
LMEK30UU(30*47*68) linear bearing 4.00 $3.19 $12.76
TOTAL GROSS EIGHT:10KGS SHIPPING FEE $98.00
PAYPAL FEE $10.86
TOTAL PRICE $252.22

Just to clarify this list is for the NTL product correct? So with the exchange this would come out to $334 CAD and the cheapest I found on Aliexpress totaled $510 Canadian so for me it looks like NTL would be the way to go if above is the NTL prices. And can I just send the part names listed above and they will know exactly what I need or do you have specific part numbers?

meizer · Feb 21, 2020

Freeon said:
Just to clarify this list is for the NTL product correct? So with the exchange this would come out to $334 CAD and the cheapest I found on Aliexpress totaled $510 Canadian so for me it looks like NTL would be the way to go if above is the NTL prices. And can I just send the part names listed above and they will know exactly what I need or do you have specific part numbers?

I just sent the list as I posted it and they knew exactly what I wanted. I'd just email them and tell them where you live and see what the quote is. $510 Canadian sounds too high for all those parts so NTL may be the best way to go for you.

eSEA One · Feb 22, 2020

Anyone have info on the duty on buying the "90ST-M02430" from AliExpress into Europe? I live in France but would assume that the EU countries would be similar.