I havenβt designed any yet, just starting with the existing 70t in the FFB base files floating around here/discord. I did make some changes in fusion 360 to the hub to fit my use but still leaving it at 70t diameter.
Yep and if you do multiple wraps of the cable around the motor pulley (enough to unwind its travel) and the cable is secured to it, it will be a lot less
The shaft winding technique req a cross-hole in the drive shaft, and 3-4 full wrapps of cable either side of the hole before going to the final pully. The advantage of this type of system is it allows extremely small drive 'gear', allowing high ratios in compact form factor. Also eliminates the need for matching belts/pulleys. You just need to figure out a way to tension the cable in situ, which there are several ways to accomplish.
Kevlar rope is ideal for this because it has almost zero stretch where steel cable is rellatively springy. Kevlar stretch like 1-2% @ 50% break strength, steel is like 20% iirc.
Here's an example of shaft winding, using steel cable in this case.
on my pedals i probably used a thicker steel cable than necessary (1.5mm bike brake cable) but it works well. at rest there is no motor shaft side load, even in a belt replacement setup there is no load at rest. the only tensioning needed would be just enough to keep the wire in the pulley grove, any more is unnecessary. these cables have ~150kg break strength so stretch isnt an issue. even the 1.2mm stuff is good to 110kg
Thanks all for the insight into cable driven systems. Thatβs super helpful! I too donβt quite understand why the side load forces would be greater. With non-stretch cable the load is low at least in perception (when I tension the wires for zero backlash). My stupid order for belts isnβt supposed to arrive until June so I will be able to go through quite a few iterations to see if I can make something work well before then. If this works, I think itβs lack of specific components (belts, gears, pulleys) would make it a flexible option for FFB systems.
it's 800 Euro's for the fully built unit (option 9). Otherwise you can build it out of a kit (other options), however the kit is incomplete, it only has motors/electronics/software, the actual enclosure/gimbal/etc you need to design/implement yourself.
Being in the middle of building one from the DIY kit. The Rhino is an exceptional deal. If you can wait, and donβt need custom enclosures, itβs just huge value / monetary unit.
Hey @amadeus, So the last Shipped RHINO is #0090 on 2023-05-04 Average waiting time from preorder to shipped is 161 days, median is 196 days, max is 219 days 89 Rhinos are shipped in total
I'm currently trying out a design that is closest to this. It still uses a pulley but the pulley has a cross drilled hole and the cable wraps around both sides of the hole. I could have gone with a much smaller pulley but this design gives me around 13:1 gear ratio which seems overkill as is. Who knows if it will work though I couldn't model the cable in CAD, but it is anchored and tensioned around the back side of one of the edge pulleys (you cant see it but there is a hole where the tensioning bolt will be right behind the top edge pulley. The other side of the cable is wrapped around another edge pulley and fixed in place. This gives 50 degrees of rotation so I'm still limited by the gimbal arms.
I've come to realize with the Rhino that yeah FFB effects are cool & great for immersion, but the real strength of FFB (anything) is the ability to customize the feeling of the device, like the Rhino, per config/aircraft we can change the length of throw of the stick, the feel of weight etc. all sorts of nuances of the aircraft stick feel, as with ffb racing sim, pedals & even gear shifters can be ffb, you can have basically whatever type of shifter you like all in one unit. FFB throttle would be awesome for so many reasons, yeah AP, ATC etc. obviously but also things like detents for idle, AB etc. I truly believe all the major simulator peripheral companies out there need to get back to FFB.
isnt the mythical TECS supposed to have electronically defined detents? the way it read to my very big lack of understanding it sounded like u set a detent in software, and the physical throttle detents are adjusted to reflect what was set
what would be really cool is for a throttle to, because of ffb, be able to emulate being rail as well as the one we primarily see (I forget the technical term)
We don't have too many rail throttles these days, main one that comes to mind is the T.16000m throttle. I know TECS was supposed to come in two variants one rail and one what we're used to seeing.
If the effect of both could be emulated with FFB and you just choose which you want via software + change its feel that would be a very nice feature
if after so many years it isnt magically the best throttle ever that is immaculate and with all the features one would ever want people will be upset. vkb cant just show us something, give us bullet points of features, and underdeliver after 7+ years
I'd love to see Virpil put their newer joystick base tech into a new throttle though.