DIY PRO 2DOF + ZTLS Car Simulator (A Zappadoc Concept)

DIY “PRO grade” car racing simulator project

The motion simulator machine is powered by MotionMax Manager. The simulator manager is in development since 2015, a motion simulator software for 2DOF and 6DOF motion simulator platform.
A simulator machine for driving racing car or aircraft at home. The machine are already in production by FREX Japan.

The FREX 6DOF is the most realistic car racing simulator available today at this price range suitable for PRO training and track learning and recommended for those who can afford it.This great 6DOF machine is also available in kit.

My concept is more about making a perfect combination with MotionMax 2DOF and the simulator, a DIY “PRO grade” car racing simulator project with an optimized FREX Style 2DOF + a ZTLS (Zappadoc Traction Loss System) using affordable SCN6 actuators.

2DOF Invented by Shige Tanaka  in 2005

The 2DOF simulator concept with 2 electric linear actuators+pivot is not new and has been invented in 2005 (15 years ago as of this writing) by Shige Tanaka for which I have a lot of respect for the man and for his contribution to the sim racing community.

2005 2020

He’s the boss of FREX Japan. His 2DOF concept is still the REFERENCE today. I’m always fascinating by people who are capable to spend a lot of money for a simple 2DOF to a manufacturer who literally stole the invention of Shige!

The DIY 2DOF+TL Project Not for Sale

I’m happy to share with you my concept and design and give you all the needed info to help you to build a very good car racing motion simulator but I’m not going to create and sell a ready-to-use hardware simulator kits.

Buy it from FREX Japan if you want a complete solution and If a manufacturer is interested he can contact me, but for now this project is for PERSONAL USE ONLY under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and forbidden for any commercial use. Read the license HERE.

However, this DIY simulator project is easy to build (although some skill with aluminum frames are needed), inexpensive compared to PRO solution (which are overpriced IMHO), suitable for casual user for entertainment to real PRO driver for training and track learning. Optimized for MotionMax software 2DOF (MMX2+TL) which is powerful and very easy to use with more than 50 games/simulations supported.

The ZTLS (Zappadoc Traction Loss System)

I created the ZTLS (Zappadoc Traction Loss System) to get a compact TL system and ultra responsive.

The ZTLS is under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license and requires my written consent to be marketed or used in any business/commercial context.

In short, it’s for *PERSONAL USE ONLY* and forbidden for any business/commercial. Read the license HERE.

The 2DOF is good for car racing simulation, the braking/acceleration, bumps and track relief are restored superbly but this doesn’t give you all the force involved. The lack of heave DOF  is acceptable on racing car but the lateral motion on oversteer / understeer are missing and the simulator fails to restore natural driving feeling to the driver… A real car simulator needs  an efficient traction loss (TL) system.

The main issue of almost all traction loss system available today in racing simulator are:
– the software which are unrealistic and overreacting, spectacular okay! but not realistic, you’re a racer driving a car not in a pinball machine… I wonder if developers of these “pinball” software really drove a race car in their life?
– also, A BIG PROBLEM is the use of a “articulation/ball joint” between the structure of the simulator and the dedicated TL actuator to compensate for the angle change when actuator is moving forward and backward.

This ball joint (usually a rod end) takes some time to deploy, this “moment” of deployment of the joint before the simulator actually moves introduces latency, the longer the rod with knee of the ball joint, the more the latency increases, this is a big problem.

ZTLS is directly in contact with the simulator

The TL system must be ultra responsive, this is why the ZTLS is directly in contact with the simulator (no ball joint).

Efficient and with a very fast response combined with MotionMax Manager, the ZTLS allows the actuator to rotate on itself using a swivel plate and during the rotation the actuator is continuously in contact with the simulator structure and keep pushing or pulling with zero latency.


Getting Started To Build Your Own Simulator

MotionMax Manager 2DOF+ZTLS license (MMX2) is available from EKSIMRacing HERE or FREX Japan, HERE,


The DIY 2DOF+ZTLS project is based on 2DOF+TL Motion FREX KIT available from FREX, HERE

Mounting Your 2DOF+ZTLS Simulator

Disclaimer

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Mounting the Simulator

Mounting your simulator is easy, get some tools, order motion software and 2DOF+TL kit, get the frames using the provided parts list and build it!

 

Interested To Build My Own 2DOF+ZTLS?

Hardware/software requirements, parts list and getting started Info to build your 2DOF simulator are available to general public, a dedicated section has been created to get all the info in one place, see HERE.

Contact us if you have any question.

Cheers,
z