Motion Base Controls
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• “I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill” Fifteen percent of all Americans spend an average of ten minutes - Thomas Edison each day searching for their television remote controls. - Eli the Mule, CEM ilderAppNote Application Hints from Gilderfluke & Co. GilderHeadquarters • 205 South Flower Street • Burbank, California 91502-2102 • 818/840-9484 • 800/776-5972 • FAX: 818/840-9485 Motion Base Controls using GilderGear Safety Motion Bases normally need a mix of analog • Heave Left & Right (entire vehicle moves At a minimum, a Motion outputs (for controlling the hydraulic, pneu- left and right) Base will need several E- matic or electric actuators that move the Mo- • Heave Forwards & Backwards (entire vehi- Stop switches inside and tion Base), digital (on/off) outputs (typically for cle moves forward and backwards) around the Motion Base. controlling solenoid valves and relays), and These are wired in series so DMX-512 (for controlling lights and ‘4-D’ ef- that hitting any of them fects). Heave will trigger an E-Stop. Although there are variants to this, most An E-Stop needs to im- Motion Bases use either three or six actuators Up/Down mediately turn on the for moving the Motion Base platform. This cabin lights, lower the gives the base either three or six ‘Directions of Heave Motion Base to the load/ Freedom’ (DOF). This is why most Motion Forward/ unload position (in a con- Bases are commonly referred to as a 3-DOF or Roll trolled fashion), and open 6-DOF. Backward the doors to allow the passengers to evacuate, all A typical 3-DOF Motion Base can move in: Yaw with or without power. • Pitch (nose up and down) A power failure or signal • Roll (left and right side of the vehicle up from the fire alarm must and down) also trigger an E-Stop. • Heave (entire vehicle up and down) Hydraulic Motion Bases typically have a ‘blocking Heave Heave Pitch valve’ that allows the base Up/Down Left/Right to move only when it is energized. When it is not energized, hydraulic oil from the accumulators is routed through small fixed orifices to bring the base back to the ‘home’ position Of course there are variants on these basic 3- at a controlled rate. Roll DOF and 6-DOF themes. Some ‘moving seat’ Motion Bases only use one or two axis of con- In a simple E-Stop loop, trol. We have controlled 3-DOF and 6-DOF the blocking valve and an Motion Bases mounted on moving vehicles, on input to the DMX-512 turntables, or both. There are some 3-DOF ‘master’ are wired into the Pitch Motion Bases that have been built so that the loop. Hitting an E-Stop geometry imparts a little bit of yaw or other button drops power to the movement into them as they move. A 'Motion blocking valve to park the Base' being used to film Fast and Furious 7 base and the master turns suspends an automobile full of actors by on the lights and starts the Gilder-Controlled cables so that it can drop ‘run for your lives’ an- from a great height, while gimbaling the car in nouncement video. free-fall. Imagine Disney’s Tower of Terror at- Gilderfluke & Co. makes traction where instead of falling straight down an Electronic ‘Blocking the elevator shaft, the elevator twists, turns Valve’ (BLK-VALVE) for Mo- 3-DOF Motion Bases use three actuators. and gimbals on the way down! tion Bases that don’t have Typically one is at the front center, and the The Gilderfluke & Co. USB-MbJoystick allows an actual blocking valve. remaining two at the two back corners. This movement in all six directions of freedom for For electric Motion puts more load bearing capacity at the rear of programming 6-DOF Motion Bases. When it is the Motion Base (where the riders are typically Bases, the ‘homing’ func- configured for three directions of freedom Mo- tions are normally pro- situated), than at the front (where there is typi- tion Bases, rods restrict is movements to those cally less weight to move). grammed into the VFDs of a typical 3-DOF Motion Base. If neither of that control the actuators. A typical 6-DOF Motion Base adds three these scenarios fit your Motion Base's geome- Electric bases should have more axis of movement that allow the vehicle try, you can use the USB-AtoD to build your enough energy storage to to move in all possible directions: own joystick or 'Waldo', with the exact geome- return to the ‘home’ posi- try of your Motion Base. tion, even in a complete • Yaw (nose left and right) Gilderfluke & Co. has controllers that feature power failure. a mix of outputs (Br-MiniBrick8, Sd-50/8, Sd-50/ If more than a simple E- GilderAppNote • Monday, April 11, 2011 1 Safety (continued) Stop loop is needed for a 40, etc.), and other Motion Base, you can use controllers that have only one a KP-300-DMX and Br- type of outputs (PB-DMX/xx, SER- DMX, t h e Brain4 to add an operator Br-MiniBrick4, Z-Brick, etc). A typical Motion diagram, as it will panel and additional safety Base control system is made up of one of more be what the programming inputs to the control sys- of these different controllers, networked to- system will be attaching to, and will tem. gether using DMX-512 (see sidebar for an ex- be sending its commands to the rest of the planation of DMX-512 networking). system. The KP-300-DMX adds fifteen safety inputs, E-Stop All of our controllers will allow you to pro- The typical controller used for a Motion Base loop, controls for a Hy- gram and download up to 255 different platform is the Br-ANA or DAC-QUAD. These draulic Power Unit (HPU), 'shows'. These can be set to be played when are used in a Motion Base control system to blocking valve and show triggered by a switch, a serial command (from provide 0-10 volt signals that typically control: cycle counters. The eight a touch screen, PLC or iPad/iPhone), whenever ‘show start’ buttons can be the controller is powered up, or using the 365 a) Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) to con- used to access specific day scheduler and clock available of on several trol the speed and direction of electric shows, or each button can of our controllers (Sd-50/8, Sd-50/40, Br- motors (for electrically driven Motion access a list of shows. Brain4). Bases), or b) Electronic FeedBack (EFB) cards (EFB- Any of the safety inputs The length of the QUAD or PID-QUAD) that measure the can be configured to either Programming Tools shows that a con- current position of the actuators, com- ‘pause’ the show (for lower troller will hold is pares this with the command signals, and priority errors like a rider MACs- only limited by the License opens and closes the hydraulic or pneu- opening a seatbelt), or E- Dongle Stop the show (for higher C-USB- RS232 (AutoDownloading 3-DOF Motion Base Control System (no KP-300 or Safety Systems) priority errors like a capsule and Configuration door opening when it Only) Your Pb-DMX/ for DMX-512 DMX-512 DAC-Quad v-Hd-to-DMX Digital 4-D LED Light Fans, shouldn’t). Windows PC (one per video (DMX-512 'Master') or Laptop output channel) Effects Fixture(s) Strobes, etc. The input that triggers (optional) (optional) (optional) USB-DMX an error are indicated on (Programming Only) the KP-300-DMX. Momen- V-HD120 USB- EFB-Quad S/PDIF or DMX-512 tary errors like a differential (Not needed for 1080p Video HDMI to Isolator/ MbJoystick (v-Xd1030 (3-DOF most electric motion for MVC 3-D 7.1 Decoder Splitter configuration) bases) pressure sensor that indi- video playback) (optional) (optional) cates a hydraulic filter is dirty (the error signal goes away when the HPU is Motion Base Video Amp-50s size of the flash memory avail- Actuators Projector(s) or other to additional stopped) or if the rider Speakers DMX-512 able on the controller. In most (Electric Motors or or Audio who quickly refastens his Cylinders, Valves and Devices seatbelt when the ride of our controllers, this is a Position Feedback) Monitor(s) Amplifiers stops will leave flashing red standard Sd/SdHC flash card, LED on the KP-300-DMX as which gives the controller a vir- matic valves that move the actuators as a telltale sign. tually unlimited show length capacity. needed to extend or retract the actuators to until the Motion Base where it should If additional inputs are The Pc•Macs software and the ‘program- be. required for an installation, ming tools’ shown in the following block dia- then a Kp-300-EXP Expan- grams are used only during the initial pro- The Br-ANA has sixteen 0-10 volt analog sion can be used to add gramming and setup of the Motion Base. outputs. The DAC-QUAD has four 0-10 volt even more inputs and out- Once the Motion Base shows are pro- analog outputs. puts to a KP-300-DMX. ~ G grammed, the shows are stored on the 'Master' (usually in an Sd or SdHC flash card), and the You can use a single DAC-QUAD for up to a 'programming tools' are removed from the 4-DOF Motion Base. You will need to use two system to be used to program your next instal- DAC-QUADs for a 6-DOF Motion Base, with DMX-512 lation.