My DIY 2DOF Motion Platform for MSFS - adding a whole new immersion level to VR, on a budget - VIDEO

I do have 2 DYI “butt kickers” connected for a “stereo” feedback. I can feel the left and right gear touchdown with my left and right butt cheeks respectively :slight_smile: The vibration they give is a great help for immersion, so they work better together with the motion rig, which doesn’t replace the transducers but adds to them.

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Thanks - I’ll take a look at that. Hadn’t heard of FlyPT before your post.

Now all you need are some force feedback flight controls and you are basically “there”.


Looks so cool that’s why I ordered the yaw2

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I looked into building a force feedback yoke, but the only way apparently is to use an old force feedback joystick from ebay and build around it, and the cost is around $1000 still. Due to patent trolls nobody makes FF joysticks or yokes anymore for mass market. Wheels were not patented, the trolls forgot single-axis FF, so you can get steering wheel but not yoke or a joystick. If there was a good solution to build one, I would have attempted that.

I emailed them as some point and they couldn’t confirm their software works with MSFS with motion compensation. AFAIK there is no solution for WMR OpenXR now, so if you have Reverb G2 - it’s a problem. I guess you could limit it to small movements and no 360 degrees yaw (no yaw at all, or small movements that “wash out” back to zero, if their software allows it, ot FlyPT mover can drive it. YAW2 seemed too expensive for me, by he time you count shipping and import duties to Canada. And considering they couldn’t guarantee it would work, it wasn’t an option for me. But if you don’t have G2 and it’s within your budget - you’re gonna have a lot of fun with it! Best of luck! And if you do have G2 and manage to get it work with motion compensation - please share your experience.

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I thought patents were only a thing on a national level.

The Chinese don’t seem to care much about protecting any sort of rights, really. Wonder why there are no Chinese companies producing these kind of products.

I guess not much of a market. And without US patent they won’t be able to export to US and sell there, I guess. Technically it should not be an issue to build it. $100 worth of parts (stepping motors, drivers, gears and belts etc.) and I could build it, but the trick is the drivers and support by the sim. I don’t think anyone wrote a universal driver that uses, say, Arduino Leonardo (that can pose as HID device, i.e. joystick, I’m building one now with hall sensors) and supports force feedback. I’d love to build one, especially now that Boeing yoke is announced (no FF of course) and it a pivot type yoke - this would be much simpler to build than a linear drive. But I’m not aware of the software that would make it work, or of any finished project that doesn’t costs $1000+.

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I just did some more research, and it turns out MSFS doesn’t support Force Feedback at all. Some software called XPForce fakes force feedback but it’s far from perfect, including trim (which is the most important part of force feedback), and only works with a handful of old joysticks. I do have Logitech Wingman Force 3D lying around, but even if I hack it to with witn Win10, it’s not looking good for MSFS.

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Here`s my rig.
Motherboard: Asus Rog Hero x11 wifi Z490
55" curved oled Tv.
CPU: Intel i9-10900K @5.3ghz per core.
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 turbo
CPU-Cooler: Liquid cooled 240mm
PSU: Kolink 1200watt Platinum
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4/3600mhz
M.2 NVME SSD: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus
M.2 NVME SSD: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus
SSD: NVME Samsung 970 EVO 500GB
5.1 logitech sound system Soundblaster Z.
Next level V3 Motion platform on GT Ultimate rig.
2 Buttkickers on race rig with 300watt earthquake amp.
Sim Racing studio wind and tactile generators.
Saitek Quadrant.
Saitek Multi panel.
Honeycomb Alpha Yoke.
Honeycomb Bravo Throttle controller.
Saitek fuel controller and deicer levers.
Thrustmaster TPR Rudder.
VR. HTC Vive Pro 2
400mbit Virgin fibreoptic net.

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Just saw the video, this is great. Imagine this with the Reno Races :heart_eyes: :face_vomiting:
The Yaw2 definitely looks cool but the price is wow… I would have known about this kickstarter, I might have get a super early bird set but it’s now too late and way too expensive for what it delivers. (And it doesn’t lean forward but only backward, that’s a weird design choice because you can see in the demo videos that something’s off)

Dude :heart_eyes:

image

OK I’m definitely into this. I’ve been looking at the DOFReality website; the M2 seat mover could be a reasonably priced starting point for someone of my weight, as I could easily be modded to carry my rudder pedals, plus a HOTAS and throttle quadrant. The H2 is just a bit pricey when you add in freight though.

So I may well go the DIY route and also add a bit of breeze, given how much I like open cockpits, especially biplanes.

Same here, I looked at the DOFReality H2 and the M2 and for the H2 it was $400 just for the shipping expense from Ukraine to the US so location does matter on the price you end up paying. They said it was due to the weight and insurance needed on the packages.

I was looking at the next level racing v3 motion platform…to add to my current GTrack sim rig from next level racing. It is pricey but looks very easy to install and the software looks easy as well. Did you notice a nice improvement in immersion and with just 10 degrees of pitch/roll does it feel noticeable in VR? I would imagine yes as the 10 degrees is at the base and your head/VR headset is higher so the perceived degree or pitch/roll will be more than 10 degrees. I also read that the v3 platform has very smooth and quite mechanics, unlike some of the full motion rigs from DOFReality with more moving parts. I might try to build my own someday using the post above but not sure I am skilled enough to do it.

What my rig proved to me is that you don’t need a large range of movement for VR, if you can feed accelerations into the rig instead of just position, plus some position mixed in. I haven’t measured, but I don’t think my pitch is more than 15 degrees, I think it’s somewhere between 10 and 15. Roll is wider, but I had to limit it to about the same, or it felt too much like I’d have to grab on the yoke to keep from falling out. As my head is much higher than the fulcrum, it feels like a lot of movement.

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Hi @tempestornado23,

I can add my two cents worth here, but also interested in what @Cargopilot48 thinks. I’ve been using the V3 motion platform for a couple of months or so, together with a GTTrack cockpit. The NLR gear is solid and adaptable, and both putting it together and the software from MotionSystems are really easy to do.

The amount of movement is plenty in VR and feels a lot more than it actually is … since this is only a seat mover rather than a full platform, you do have to be able to reach the controls after all :wink:

My main reservation with the the V3 is with the driver, which I think is fairly primitive (see my comments above). Cruising in larger aircraft, there is practically no motion at all most of the time (I’d like to have some mild random turbulence for example … all of which can be done if you’re prepared to get into the driver nuts and bolts). Best experience so far with it is actually with the Stearman … just seems to work about right. I did try the Pitts - and frightened myself. In these aircraft the motion is smooth and quiet.

This is what I use to ‘fly’ these days:

Exactly. Surprisingly so. BTW do you have a video of your rig in motion? I still think that seat mover is better for cars. For MSFS it’s better if controls move with you. Also allows a bit larger range of motion. I had plans to expand my rig to a 3rd yaw motor that would be a seat mover, so the seat would pivot left and right with an axis of rotation right before the yoke, so the seat’s back would swing out a bit. Not sure I want to do it now, because yaw mixed in to roll feels quite OK. There’s quite enough of movement going on and it feels fairly natural, without feeling like a roll. Not sure 3rd DOF would add a lot to that.

I tested mine with A320 and 747 and while of course there is much less movement, it’s very much there. On top of that, I programmed a random “road bumps” movement via random noise function, with amplitude and frequency of the noise modulated by the aircraft speed. So as soon as you start taxiing you feel the ground roll, and the faster you go - the faster it feels. The function only works on the “ground” movement, so it quickly fades out on take-off, where the “air” phase is in effect. Also, my pitch and roll are slightly exaggerated for the ground part. You should look into FlyPT Mover and if it can drive your rig. It may be able to. Then you can program it in any way you like. Similar to my “road noise” routine, you could do a random turbulence or something like that.

Completely agree with this. In retrospect, if I was starting over, That’s how I’d do it. With some moderate engineering, it might be possible to modify the NLR v3 to do this, provided that the balance is kept and the overall weight is not too much. I’m quite a way off it’s capacity!

That’s certainly adding some complexity. If you put the pivot in front like that, your 3rd DoF is actually combining Rz and Y motion (yaw and sway); and of course, even with a slight centerline offset, your roll motion also adds an element of heave… I’m sure all of this can be accounted for, but it will make the driver functions significantly more convoluted.

Excellent. That’s exactly what I wanted to do for both ground and mild air turbulence. The NLR default driver does include a ‘ground noise’ function, but it was so far from random that it felt like my front wheel was square and in the end I turned it off.

Yes - had a quick look at the website. As I said - completely unaware of it’s existence until this discussion. My brief research hasn’t found anyone driving the NLR platform with it so far.

Really impressed with what you’ve done. Wood is a very underrated engineering material. I can feel a DIY motion platform project coming on… of course now that I’m semi-retired, I have no spare time at all!

Most people use metal, but I don’t have the metalworking equipment and welding skills. Wood adds some wobbliness and reduces precision. However I did come up on a DOFReality review of their metal platform that mentioned that adding the 3rd “traction loss” motor with frame and rollers has the side effect of adding some flex to the rig, and it’s an improvement because without it it was “too rigid” and teeth-clunking, and the plastic rollers were making it a bit more flexible and less jarring. I find my platform to be quite firm when needed, without being too clunky. So some flex may be an unforeseen advantage. It creaks a bit sometimes though, not very noticeable in VR. The seat has some wobbliness to it - there is a bit of movement when you push it without moving the motors - not too bad, but a metal rig would be firmer. It’s mostly the DIY u-joint and motor arms. Though the motor gears have a tiny slack that accounts for much of the wobbliness I think. That is not fixable. Anyway, I tightened everything up as much as I can, and once I sit on it, it doesn’t feel wobbly - I can only feel some slack if I lean my body to the right or to the left considerably. If I’m sitting normally - it feels fine. Did some flying yesterday on Cessna 152 and it was perfect. There wasn’t really anything I would want to change, and I was paying attention to what the rig is doing. I don’t have personal experience with other rigs, so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing, but again, I felt that it was perfect :slight_smile:

Using FlyPT the best solution I’ve found is mix sway and surge into roll using gravity, and on the normal roll axis use roll/pitch speed (rather than simply using roll/pitch angle).

The speed (rate) part gives that instant response to roll/pitch inputs and let’s you feel the turbulence nicely, and gravity behaves much the same as roll/pitch angle while it doesn’t suffer from the same “over the top” issue of using raw roll/pitch position.

Basically if we use the example of a roll - as you go up past 45 degrees it actually starts to reduce smoothly until when upside down the rig is back to level. As you go over the top it increases again. This is as opposed to roll angle which suddenly lurches over and needs spike filtering.

It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s the best solution I’ve found thus far for giving a natural and very enjoyable flight experience even with aerobatics.