DIY 6DOF Motion Simulator VR Cockpit project + pendular yoke, throttle quadrant, switch boxes and MCP/Autopilot

Yes, 600W should work for 2 x 250W motors. I’m using server PSUs only because I could get them for free from a friend. Sometimes they are cheaper than regular ones, but for 24V I’d go for an off-the-shelf PSU if I had to buy it, so no modding would be required.

There is a way to connect them to act as parallel diodes, preventing the current from going back to the PSU, instead of an actual diode bridges. Google it, there are plenty of examples. The rectifiers are convenient, because they are very cheap, contain 4 diodes that have huge thermal capacity, plus you can glue a heatsink on top.

If you mean FlyPT Mover, it’s a completely separate and free software, no Simtools is required. I think it’s much more powerful than SimTools, especially the new beta that should be ready for prime time soon. There is a learning curve, but it allows you to create and mix all kinds of functions for the movement you want. I’m mixing accelerations, positions, different DOFs into other DOFs, and have vibration transducers that react to gear changes, engine RPM etc. for other sims (for MSFS I use different software for transducers).

If you mean FlyPT Mover, yes, you can configure the whole rig, no other software is required. Just MSFS + FlyPT Mover. I suggest also using OpenXR Motion Compensation (OXRMC) and FlyPT Mover can send a “virtual” motion data to it via OVRMC module, so you get a perfect motion compensation solution without needing to use an attached physical controller and deal with vibrations etc.

Thank you very much!
Yes I meant FlyPT Mover…I dont know how I got PGMover :blush:

I will definitely have some more questions, once I start building the Rig, but for now I think everything is clear.

Happy 2025 and keep us updated on the budget-6DOF, it is really cool!

Initial testing went well, the platform is moving my weight without a problem. There is a slight “cogging” sensation that I could feel during the very slow movements. It’s a kind of “stepping” sensation coming from the motor gearboxes and making the slow movements not perfectly smooth. I never experienced it on my 2DOF rig, but I read about it being a known problem on DOFReality rigs and others. This video describes the issue on DR rig and the upgrade to fix the issue, and it sounds very similar to what I’m experiencing. The “upgrade” costs $300 per motor or $100 per motor with a new rig that already costs thousands. They acknowledge the issue by advertising the upgrade with “say goodbye to cogging” on their FB post. So I think this is what I’m feeling. It’s not very prominent on my rig, and I suspect that when I have the vibration transducers working, sending constant engine vibrations, this will be masked almost completely. I will also spend more time on tuning with SMC3 Tools. We’ll see. It’s not perceivable during moderate and fast movements at all, so it’s not an issue for combat or racing sims, but on slow banking turns it could be noticeable.

I had to cut the testing short, troubleshoot and swap one of the Arduino boards because it seemed to be defective - it randomly lost connection with the PC, even when flashing it from Arduino IDE it often flashed then timed out not getting a response from the board. After some resoldering, I tested the rig without the strut, to see how if affect cogging. It does work - and by “work” I mean there is enough power in the motors to carry my weight and move the rig around, but the cogging sensation was much worse. I could feel the stepping much more and I could even hear it very distinctly now! Yes, I could actually hear the gears in the motors going “tick-tick-tick” quickly. So I can say that a strut actually helps with cogging in a significant manner. We’ll see if cogging remains noticeable in an actual sim, once I get vibration transducers installed, with everything that’s going on on the rig. I suspect (and hope) it won’t be a problem.

  • I have constructed an attachment platform and mated my DIY pendulum yoke to it, and it will also mount a joystick and a steering wheel on demand.
  • Painted whatever needed to be painted or touched up.
  • Mounted left HOTAS button box, wired the USB hub etc.
  • Mounted keyboard
  • Mounted power amp for the vibration transducers
  • I’m working on the right console now - the Arduino Leonardo based switch box with gear lever and encoder, and Arduino Mega based MCP/GPS/Autopilot panel powered by MobiFlight software.


Now that it’s nearing completion, I did a calculation of the total cost of all parts, hardware and lumber and it’s only $771. This does not include the power supplies that I got for free, the motor arms that a friend made from my design (but could be crudely made from cheap steel corners), and the motor brackets / rod brackets I cut and drilled from steel corners I had lying around. 24V 1500W PSU is ~$100 on Amazon, and a steel angle should be around $20, so the total cost with electronics, parts, hardware and materials comes to ~$900 USD. This is mind-bogglingly cheap, which was the idea! :slight_smile: Most parts are from Ali Express, Motors from Amazon, Motor Drivers from RobotShop, and lumber is from a local Home Depot hardware store.

For comparison, the cheapest off-the-shelf 6DOF motion simulator rig costs $8700 USD (plus about $400 shipping)! And that’s without some important options, which are built into my rig. If you add gas struts, an emergency stop button (a must-have), a keyboard holder, and HOTAS mounts - that’s another $260, so the total cost of the cheapest off-the-shelf rig is ~$9360 USD before taxes. Ouch! If you go for a “racing” version (with a prominent cogging issue “built-in”) it’s ~$7660. The cost of a used car… I can’t justify it on our family budget. BTW I also saved on the seat - I rigged a $100 gaming seat instead of using a proper >$400 racing seat that you have to use on an off-the-shelf rig. That was my motivation for building the rig, but also the joy of taking on such a project. Hopefully, it all works out. At least my calculations were correct, the geometry works, the motors are powerful enough and the electronics seem to be working correctly so far. It does have some disadvantages over commercial models of course, but it has some advantages as well: I believe that a wooden frame softens the most jarring motions so it feels more natural, which alleviates a known problem of metal frames. Also, the controls are way better than the usual arrangement and are tailored exactly to my taste. Anyway, I’ll update you on the news…

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This is so totally mind-blowingly BOSS that I’m still looking for where I dropped my lower jaw!

Dream Aero, eat your heart out!

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I can’t believe it, but my motion simulator is finally complete, in a yoke/rudder pedals form. The joystick/HOTAS combo and Steering wheel/shifter/pedals combo will come a bit later.
Now, I need to configure everything to work correctly in MSFS2024, which was a bit of a nightmare on the first attempt — but not because of the rig’s fault. MSFS2024 just kept crashing the moment I activated VR. I finally solved it, and although I still need to tweak and configure a bit more, I was finally able to have a 10-minute flight without crashing (in both literal and figurative sense). It’s working!

As soon as I approach an acceptable motion profile, I will do a video.

The few minutes I could have an actual honest flight it felt great! I took off in a C152 from Toronto Island and after completing a few turns landed, then repeated the flight a couple of times. With all the constant motion that was happening in the air in a small plane such as micro-turbulence, control feedback, and engine vibrations induced through 2 vibration transducers the cogging was not noticeable at all, and I was expecting to feel it. Maybe in a calmer larger plane, but not in C152.

The motors seem to be always busy, even when the rig is motionless and not receiving any data. They are silent, but when I touch them I can feel a bit of a “buzzing” of the micro-movements. I think they heat up from that and I measured the temperature of up to 40C after maybe 30 minutes of motors powered up, including test flights. It doesn’t seem excessive, but I wonder if I can calm the motors a bit with SMC3 settings tweak.

Here are a few photos of the finished rig, complete with strobes, nav lights and a blue aura: I wanted to make sure everyone around knows it could be moving and stand back (because I’d be in a VR HMD so couldn’t keep my eyes on bystanders), so I needed some bright lights - why not do it in style?











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The motors are always busy because they’re always busy - they’re holding the stationary position firmly by slight counter-corrections to keep the motor stationary.  Especially if you’re in the chair, they have to work to keep the frame rigid when it’s not moving.

The motors are always “moving”, (i.e. “Doing work.”), so they’ll get warm.  If they get too warm, add cooling fans.

I would leave the software alone for the time being and try bypassing the motor power leads both to each other and to ground with three 0.1 μF capacitors.  If you find that it makes the motors too sluggish, try 0.01 μF instead.  (But I’d start with the 0.1 μF capacitors.

You would wire them like this:
Capacitor #1: Between the two “hot” leads controlling the motor.
Capacitors #2 and #3: Between each motor lead and the neutral return, (if it’s a 3-wire system), or between each of the two leads and a good ground point.  If the frame of the unit is grounded, (and it should be - pieces that are isolated by gearing motors, hydraulics, or other non-conductors should have ground bonding wires between them), you can bond the two capacitors to a convenient motor case screw - just make sure they’re well grounded.

If it’s a three-phase motor, (three hot wires with the motor’s coils arranged in a Delta or Wye arrangement - possibly with a central neutral), bypass each wire to its neighbor and add three extra capacitors to chassis ground.

This should be done to every motor in the system, however you may wish to try one motor first to get the capacitor values right.

P.S.
Just in case you didn’t know, I’ve been doing this kind of hardware stuff for decades. :wink:

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These are cheap and simple Yalu wheelchair motors, 2 leads in total. The motor drivers use PWM and reverse the polarity as needed. I use the capacitors on the hall sensors to clean the angle signal, but I don’t use them on the power leads. If the motors don’t overheat I will leave them alone. I measured 40C on the hottest one, but I’ll see what happens on a longer, more active session. SMC3 firmware can be tuned to act more or less aggressively. There’s plenty of speed and punch in the rig - I had to use a low-pass filter in the software to smooth the movement from being too aggressive. So it’s possible to tone down the effort if needed.

I don’t see many motion rig builders using capacitors on motor leads, I think it may be more common on the larger commercial rigs with beefier motors.

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They might be on the circuit boards themselves.  It might be a biflar wound choke coil like the ones used as a smoothing filter in switching power supplies.

That might work too.  Since I don’t know about the software, I think of the hardware fix. (:wink:)

Regardless, all I can say is “LIKE A BOSS!!

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I’ll see if the motors get really hot. Not sure what’s the normal temperature should be and what is abnormal, but I’ll figure it out. If they get too hot I will try to tame the temps with tweaking the PID parameters in SMC3Tools.

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I shot the video with the first real flight test of the rig! It’s absolutely mind-blowing level of awesome! The immersion is over the top! There are some minor issue to iron out and tweak, but I can say that it’s so worth it. I was worried about cogging, but I couldn’t even feel it during the flight because there was so much motion going on all the time. The motors heat up to ~46C max with new settings (lower PWMmax, added some derivative, slightly increased dead zone), then I adjusted the settings to yet lower PWMmax and they got even cooler. So I’m cautiously optimistic. Hopefully, they will hold on for longer flights. More testing is needed, but it really felt nice! I will adjust the FlyPT profile to near perfection and I’m set. Then I will proceed with a Joystick/HOTAS configuration and a racing configuration with a force feedback steering wheel and custom-made pedals and shifter.

The budget is a crazy sub-$1000. It’s stunningly cheap because the cheapest off-the-shelf 6DOF rig with fewer features costs ~$8000 (assembly and tuning still required) and they go up from there.

I’m considering offering full project plans online, including documentation, schematics, part lists, 3D geometry models, 3D printing models, modded firmware, Arduino code for the rig and controllers, tuned presets etc. If someone is interested in it happening - let me know! Anyone trying to build a motion simulator like this needs to become a bit of a mechanical engineer, electronic engineer, carpenter, electrician and coder. One is almost guaranteed to make expensive mistakes when ordering and matching parts and motors etc. - the principles are known but there are no ready and complete solutions. This would lead to losing a lot of time and considerable money - reordering parts from China etc. This rig works and works well (so far), and it does so on an extremely low budget that almost everyone can afford. All required is basic proficiency with power tools, simple soldering and software tinkering.

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I would definitely be interested in the plans and stuff. I found a used DOF Reality P3 for a grand a few weeks ago but the backlash and cogging make the experience less enjoyable than my non-motion rig. So I’m going to sell it and build a 6DOF rig. Yours looks very doable and fits my desired budget. Could you do some gentle flying in a helicopter to check for cogging? That’s were I hear that it’s most noticeable.

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I will definitely do that. I need to build a joystick platform first, but that’ll happen soon as it’s easy. When I was testing the rig without the sim with a pure slow-motion sine wave on a single axis (like roll), I definitely felt cogging, so I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist. And I didn’t have it in my 2DOF, so I really expected to feel that during a real flight, the question was would it be sufficiently masked to be tolerable or would it be immersion-breaking. To my surprise I could not even feel any cogging whatsoever during the video test flights, and a previous session where I was setting things up in C152. The second half of the video, because I restarted the rig (I turned it off, to change CMS parameters, so had to unplug and replug USB hub that has everything on it) the vibration transducers software stopped working (needs restart but I forgot) and even then I couldn’t feel cogging. There is constant small movement in the air, so it’s perfectly masked. With engine vibration (when transducers are working) I don’t think it’s a problem at all in GA. I’ll have to test in a 737 - probably it has much smoother motion, and in a heli. I will most likely be able to feel it then, I don’t expect a miracle.

I felt no backlash whatsoever though, like it’s not even a thing. I think the wooden frame’s natural flex helps with that. Also, I have a single 54kg-rated gas strut in the center. I tested without it (with no sim) - and cogging felt much worse. So if that’s a primary concern, you may want to place 3 weaker gas struts in the corners of the top platform. That may dampen the cogging even better. For me, the idea of a single strut was that the plywood platform is flexing, so it needs to take a lot of the weight of the pilot to make it easier on the motors and not stress the plywood too much. Plus, it was really cheap (for a pair of struts) and had large travel.

The whole rig has a EMALP(300) on it, which is quite a large smoothing low-pass filter. It would be much quicker without the LP filter or with a smaller one (like 50 or so). So there’s plenty of speed and force there.

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I realized that I need a way to monitor the temperature when tweaking and adjusting settings. I wouldn’t want the motors to overheat during a long session until all my settings are ironed out. So I added a temperature monitor gizmo with Arduino Nano I had lying around, 3 DH11 sensors, a Display and a buzzer. So I can see the 2 hottest motors + one hottest Cytron drivers’ heatsink, their max values during a session, total uptime, and if it goes above a set value it will beep, alerting me about potential overheating, with the number of beeps identical to degrees above the threshold. It’s rather neat actually, I’ll do a video on it later…


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You Da’ Bomb!

If I ever start an engineering company, you’re going to be my first hire! :wink:

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Designed, printed and cut labels for the panels and transparent stickers for the lighted buttons. I won’t see it in VR, but why not make it look good, right? Besides, it lets me memorize and refresh the layouts in my head. Also, if I really want to, I can actually bring the panels into the VR using Quest3 cameras. I also designed a logo, just because I could ! :slight_smile:




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You continue to amaze me.

[Emoji of someone totally gobsmacked]

Please do. I’m considering making a 6DOF myself, also for VR, and any info would be incredibly valuable.

By the way, have you tested it with the A2A Comanche? Considering its level of detalization, it should feel even better.

Also, what’s next? Imo, it literally begs for a FFB yoke.

I’m working on that, I got several requests already. Will let you know!

Not yet, I want to iron out all quirks and make sure it’s working well with default planes etc. Also I didn’t make the joystick platform yet, this will be done soon.

  • Joystick mount will come next, it’s an easy one. This will enable the helicopters, military jets, and Elite Dangerous space sim.
  • Force Feedback steering wheel mount is next, along with a custom-made 3D-printed racing pedals.
  • You are correct, I’ve been thinking about modifying my pendular yoke with old 3D printer stepper motors to make a sort of an FFB yoke from it. The author of FlyPT Mover has even added the variables I need into the software’s next version at my request. The most lacking feature of a non-FFB yoke is trimming the resistance out. The idea is to use the bungee cord for resistance, but move its center point according to the forces acting on the elevators. So you could actually trim until you feel no force for your configuration, like a real one. You would also feel increased resistance when maneuvering at higher speeds, increasing the more you push or pull the yoke. The motor would be run by an output of FlyPT Mover without any need for a special FFB interface. It’s an elegant and simple idea, not sure if it will work but I don’t see why not.

But first I want to enjoy what I have and tune it to perfection.
Yesterday I tweaked the FlyPT Mover enough to get a satisfyingly realistic feel, and I started a career mode, so I actually played for the first time on the new motion simulator (as opposed to tweaking and tuning). Wow, it feels great! But, it’s still heating up too much. The motors’ outer bodies eventually heated up to 62C after about 3 hours of tweaking and flying. Now, it may not be excessive but I can’t find the temperature specs for the Yalu 250W motors, so I don’t know. From the e-bike and scooter forums, I see that many similar motors’ normal operating range is up to 150F / 66C and even higher. So maybe I’m OK. I still like to get it to lower temps. I could go one hole down on CTC distance, but that would decrease movement a bit. I’ll try to lower the PWMmax a bit more. I’m now at 195 with PWMrev = 190. I’ll try 170 and see if it’s enough to move me.

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I have a full 737 cockpit like to add motion 6dof what kind of actuators would you recommend and what other software and parts would I need to run it

It very much depends on what you like to move. If you actually have a full 737 cockpit with 2 seats and 3TVs or projectors and the whole set of panels - the hardware that can move all that would be extremely expensive. Industrial-scale probably. I have no experience with this kind of actuators. The costs rise exponentially with the size and weight of the rig.
You may also consider making a seat mover - a much more limited rig that would only move your seat, maybe together with the yoke. Obviously, the range of motion would be small, so it still feels natural, but it would still add a lot of realism and fun.

BTWT I’m working full speed on a full build plan package for my motion rig, which I’m going to make available on my website soon. Everyone is welcome to message me if you want me to ping you when it’s ready. Or you can go to my website and subscribe to the mailing list there, I will send out an email when it’s online.