Motorized Joyrider

[Web]

I know it isn't pretty, but perhaps you'll enjoy this:

Joyrider Demo

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[Trevor Hale]

Great stuff Web,

After looking at the video, I can see you have put a lot of effort into that. I used the first generation of basic stamp in my Grade 9 electronics class, 16 years ago. Wow. I wouldn't have thought they still had them around.

It appears that after your in a bank and returning to level flight, the joyrider has a bit of a delay returning to center, are you going to be able to modify this, or is this a limitation of the way the stamp is interfaced to the software?

Thanks for showing us.

Trev

[Web]

Thanks, Trev. This might be annoying to people but I'll say again that this project was my attempt to reproduce what several others had already invented and displayed on the web. Having said that, Ian Hopper's software that gets the motion data from the sim (Falcon AF in this case) was tuned to lengthen the washout time in the modification that I use. I think this reduces the speed with which the rig recovers from positional changes. I have since started to change that parameter back to its default to hasten the recovery. However, there is no question (having flown it and having seen the video) that the apparent lag between joystick/onscreen movement and the physical movement of the rig is not particularly offputting when in the cockpit. It seems that (for instance) if I am climbing and physically pitched back, then if I push the stick forward, the rig starts pitching forward only when the flight path marker is actually pointing down. It feels right.

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[BlackWidow]

Thats really cool. It must be a blast to fly it and really feel the sensation of movement. Good Job.

Do you have any plans in the future to refine the look of your Joyrider?

[Web]

BlackWidow,
The motion is cool, and I have enhanced that by adding an Aura Interactor. It's a vest but I don't wear it. I have it strapped to the outside back of the seat and I have interposed a "sheet" of about 8 wired together 1" PVC pipes each about 1' long. The pipes act as resonators. I have 1/2 of the sound card output going to the Aura (The other half goes to the speakers in the normal manner.) which turns that output into vibration and shakes the whole joyrider like a bass shaker. I use a second sound card attached to my headphones for voice comms. The vibration makes a big difference and improves the whole effect.

As far as improving the look, things are already pretty cramped in the cockpit and clearly there is only so much weight that the motors will handle. I don't know how much more I can add.

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[TronicGr]

Hi Web,

Any news from the new modified firmware that I have send you? I really like to know if the extra buttons "Step in" and "Neutral position" worked for you, and if there was difference in motion response (lag) with the "faster" firmware...

Great Job! Have nice flights!


Regards, Thanos

[AndyT]

Very nice job! How about some pix of the motors and controllers.

[warvet]

Well after discussing the concept quite abit with my wife Martha, we have decided to build 2 of these and attach projectors to them. 1 for her and 1 for me. This way we can fly together or against each other on the net or a Lan connect, when we have nothing else to do or just want to spend time together, shes super excited about it already well probably be running Lomac Modern Air Combat as well as FS9 FSX and a series of other software. This should be a fantastic project and I'll let ya know how it pans out.

Regards
Tim

[AndyT]

I knew you could'nt stay away for long...

So. Are you going to build 2 single seaters or a pair of 2 seaters?

[Web]

Thanos- I hooked things up yesterday afternoon and found that as soon as I engaged the battery power (with both switches set to "off" and the angle set to 20) the rig banked to the right and stayed there. Flipping the switches did not seem to change anything. Perhaps the connections are incorrect, I'll check them today. I did change the angle to 200 since it actually needs to bank to the left for me to be able to get into it. I restarted it and, though it still was not responsive to the switches and banked when power was engaged, the 200 setting had it bank to the proper side.
I was, therefore unable to test that bit of software during flight. However, I did take the version that I had been using and which I had sent to you and took out all of the debuging lines with asterisks and tried that briefly. I don't think I saw too much of a difference in speed.

AndyT-I will put up pics of the motors.

warvet-Wow! His 'n Hers rigs. You're going to have a problem finding pink PVC pipe, though.

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