@steely’s G-seat: Alpha file release

By June 22, 2020 June 29th, 2020 G-Seat, Sim Rig

Any of the works related to “@steely’s G-Seat” is Copyright 2020, Rowan Hick released under the Creative commons license Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) . Read here for more details of what you can and can’t do, along with my intent.

The following files are the alpha release. There’s issues. You’ll have to drill holes. It might not be right for you – you’re going to be a brave pioneer. But I can tell you this, you will spend a whole lot less time, money and frustration than I have to get to this point.

Design/Test Parameters

  • Height 182cm/6ft.
  • Weight 75kg, okay maybe 77kg with the covid weight gain
  • Haven’t broken it yet and I’ve really tried.

What the heck is this about?

I presume you haven’t gotten here by accident, but if you’re wondering….

You’ve been warned

  • Risk of mutilation. Those servos are fast, high torque, and your fingers won’t stand a chance in the belts
  • Risk of crush. Well maybe not crush but high risk of if the servos are going to fast you could get bruised and/or broken.
  • Make sure you look at the issues log here before jumping in
  • Watch this video to give an idea of the level of fabrication skills required.
  • You will need the gseat firmware in the simfeedback discord to get this functioning right. I’m sure you could probably pull it off with other software.
  • You will be printing in ABS. For those in NZ I can knock out the pushrod arms for a small fee.

Mains wiring, word of caution

  • What is legal in one country may not be in another. Do your research folks and get a qualified electrician involved. Just because a YouTube video says you can connect at an AASD directly to your mains, doesn’t mean you should.
  • Some houses don’t have RCD devices [it depends on country, year, location in house, compliance to standards etc]
  • If anything goes wrong and you become one with the flow of electrons, and you don’t have an RCD (even if you do it still might not save you…) there is *nothing* to stop the flow of electronics till either you magically get out of the rig and get the power off/unplugged (OR) an electrical component fails.
  • Having 4 panels that are metal, that are connected to servos that are supplied with high voltages and capable of drawing a lot of amps – well more than is required to kill you, is a recipe for paying close attention to this.
  • If it starts tingling don’t think you’ll get out of the rig – there is almost no way you’d get out of the rig in time.

Now that I’ve legit scared the shit out of you, lets move on.

Build guide, where is it?

As this is an Alpha release, this means it’s for the intrepid bleeding edge sim racer who has a wealth of fabrication skills behind them. It’s not intended for your SFX-100 builder who’s gotten their first set of tools. This truly is a much greater undertaking, both in $’s, risk, tools required and chances for it not to work at all. As such I’m not writing up a detailed build guide yet. It really needs another couple of people of different sizes/shapes to get a few built and see what works/what doesn’t. However as you’ll see from the estimated price – I think this is going to be quite a ways off.

I’ve intentionally set the barrier to entry high while it’s in “Alpha”.

Anyone who has the skills will take one look at the images, the files, watch my drive system build video, look at the BOM and will be more than happy to go away and build one with everything I’ve provided here.

So without further adieu :

The files!

All of the files required to print parts, and manufacture the brackets and flaps are located in my github. There are a couple of problems with the files as-is. I’ve worked around them, but they really need to be fixed when I get time.

The Bill of Materials

It’s really open-source?

Yes ! I’ve provided all the DXF’s and STL’s. But, you must follow the license terms. If you don’t I will have no issues in naming and publicly shaming 😉 I think I’ve been incredibly generous in the license terms and giving this all way with the stupendous amount of work to go into it. So I’m not asking for much…

1. Copyright / License

2020 Rowan Hick (@SteelyEyedMissleman, or @Steely for short) Please read my intention/statement here https://www.rowanhick.com/2020/03/05/steelys-g-seat-copyright-open-source-license

And refer to the full version of license wording here https://github.com/RowanH/g-seat/blob/alpha/LICENSE.md

The license is extremely permissive, it’s main requirements are that (a) you’ve got to include the same license in any derivative design (b) that you also have to share your derivative design(s) and (c) you’ve got to attribute (Credit) my original design regardless of where you use it. Simple.

2. Attribution

You must say “@Steely’s G-Seat” and include a link to https://www.rowanhick.com/motion-simulator that’s an express requirement of the license.

So for instance if you were to sell this commercially (brave, brave person) on your product page you must say

…. your product copy …. “uses @Steely’s G-Seat design https://www.rowanhick.com/motion-simulator

You can’t pass this off as your own design without credit. You also must include the license verbatim.

3. Derivative works

If you modify the design in any form you must include this same license and you must provide open source files.

So you can’t take the design, tweak something, call it your own and not provide files.

So what does that mean ?

  • “I can take the files and build my own”
    • Yes of course
  • “I can take the files and build one for someone else”
    • Yes but you must say somewhere prominently it’s @steely’s g-seat design.
  • “I can take the files and supply kits”
    • Yes but you must say somewhere reasonably prominently the components are for @steely’s g-seat design.
  • “I can take the files, modify the design and sell it”
    • Yes but you must both (a) attribute my design “Original design @steely’s g-seat” and (b) include the same open source license terms and provide source files to anyone on request.
  • “Do I have to give you any money for any of the above”
    • No. But if you violated the license terms. built a company. sold shitloads that might end up being a different story in the long run.

Mate I wanna buy you a beer (or a tool)

Go nuts. Paypal donate to [email protected]

Or if it’s a bit more than some beers and looking like enough for some cool tools, I’ll send you a picture of what I get. There’s a list as long as my arm of things I want for the shed that I can’t quite justify – ranging from a drill vice to some snazzy Mitutoyo Digital Calipers.

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