To me it seems that they have more movement in the Z-axis (up and down) compared to 401.
To me the design seems to be legit, while of course it's possible that they have been influenced by your design. By their website it looks like it was first designed to be a platform for a flight-sim. They are also manufacturing much of their electrical parts "The range of products include microprocessor based controling devices, compact industrial computers, converters for serial communication, converters for electronics signals, accessories, as well as controlling and regulating systems, including SW.", so it's not simply a "carbon copy".
http://www.motion-sim.com/about/ "The full motion platform was created on the bases of the development for the 737NG project www.737ng.cz Its development took almost 2 years to reach the pre-serial production stage.
After a line of experiments, a concept using non-synchonous motors and cogged belt gearing was used. It was neccessary to work out a way to use these electromotors as servo drivers, especially at low RPM settings. In the end, a solution was found using intelligent converters and a specially designed control system. The result is an almost noiseless, compact platform which is able to operate without any special requirments."
Is the Force-Dynamics design identical to what's been explained above?
Hard to say from the video. They might have a bit more strut travel, but the cuing has a huge effect on what you see going on. They seem to be pegging the limits of the struts on almost every corner, which isn't necessarily what you want. If you use the whole travel of the platform in normal circumstances, then the cuing goes horribly wrong when things are a little beyond normal - think turning your amp up too high. It's louder, but not necessarily better.
No, definitely not - the 'moving group' is quite different, for one. There are a lot of little differences. And it looks like they're rolling their own servo control system, which is ballsy. But the basic geometry of the 301/401 is unique among motion system manufacturers; in particular I've never see anyone using a strut design which provides lateral stability the same way ours do.
If you do a quick look back and forth here and here, you can see a few other similarities - the use of clamp collars to anchor the tops of the struts, the 'clevis leg' mount point for the strut-to-mount joint, and most remarkably, the stainless steel track, screw-mounted every 10 degrees or so, for the r-axis drive wheel, complete with wear line where the wheels go!
Theirs is also red and grey.
So, yeah, all of those things together could have been developed independently, but it seems quite unlikely.
No, of course it's not identical. And they may well have experimented with motion systems slung inside the struts before. But their '401' is so similar to ours that people are confusing them on a regular basis. Except they're saying 'slightly dangerous-looking' and 'needs refinement' about the motion-sim simulator. I'm not terribly pleased with the idea of people thinking, "That thing from Force Dynamics looks dangerous and rickety", and I've already seen it happening.
The major difference appears to be, as I said above, that it seems that their servo control system is their own. We went with an off-the-shelf servo control system from Galil and MCG motors because it's very difficult to make a powerful, reliable, high performance servo system. You're competing with people who make tens of thousands of the things; it's a bit like building a race car and trying to save money by making your own tires.
You can save money if you do it yourself, but there's significant risk involved if you don't get your specs dead on, and we felt it wasn't worth it given the relatively small amount we'd save percentage-wise.
The motion-sim guys tell me that they'd never even heard of us before I contacted them. Given the similarities between the products in a broad, broad range of disparate areas, I find that difficult to believe. I'm personally less inclined to be charitable than if they had just come out and said, "Yeah, you inspired us but, we think we should be able to sell these things anyway."
Its great to see my first post has generated such a good conversion.
To everyone who works to create these devices, my hats off to you and your amazing effort. Regardless of similarities or tech, you all have the same goal to create something very special. Thank you to all of you for your dedication.
But to bring it back full circle a bit, I contacted the original creator of the posted video and suggested they file a copy right infringement with youtube ASAP. This group is trying to scam people into donating to them on something that so blatantly stolen.
The first thing I'll say to you Perisoft is that ideas are free. You can even sign up to daily emails of ideas (if memory serves right one such list is ideaaday.com but I'm on my phone and can't easily check URL). My point being that an idea in itself isn't worth any money.
I am more than happy to impart what I have learned about ecommerce (which is a reasonable amount) and I'd do it for free. It costs me nothing to do. The ideas and knowledge i've accrued in my job is in itself worthless. (although I mention this as an example, if you do want to know some stuff I'll happily do it), of course if you want me to use my skills to help you - then that's where I start charging. I've always shared my methods, knowledge and skills as a programmer, and in the past I've even sent product concepts to companies with no copyright just because I thought the idea was cool (some even became real products, but if I said which you'd call me a right geek lolz).
Aside from patents, which are in my view a ridiculous system designed to benefit the rich, and slightly unworkable since China ignores them, there is no protection for ideas.
To be sucessful as a manufacturer you need a good product, but to market it sucessfully you need an edge. Calling your product dangerous is as good as halving the price, because it makes the product remarkable: A remarkable product is any product that causes someone to remark about it. Being remarkable is easy, you take something to the limit, and push it that little bit further - it's a concept called Edgecraft (If interested I'd recommend Reading Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin. It's a remarkable book. It's got a free prize inside...).
The point I'm making is not to begrudge this other company, as otherwise the only remarkable thing anyone will remember about Force Dynamics is something about toys and prams, but to simply beat them by being more remarkable. Make it your you tube video that is next posted on these forums, make your next innovation so far on the edge of one aspect or another that we all talk about it. Can the everyday simmer afford or have space for a motion platform? Why not. Can a motion platform spin through 360 degrees? Why not. Can a motion platform pack into a box under my desk? Why not. All these things are from edge thinking, whilst I wore his paragraph. Sure half the ideas are implausable (unless you dare to imagine), but ou can have them for ... Free
David, sorry to say, but the similarities you described and I can see are very general: using struts and circular turning base for yaw. I wouldnt be surprised if that is the optimal layout - IMO the rest are the differences between producers of the type of products.
btw. I know you got Polish roots, so greetz from Poland. btw2: I was trying to convince Pawel Tomczyk to run an event company for couple (3-4) of FDs but Polish market is too small and not sim-educated for that kind of business
Thank you to all of you for your dedication.
for that kind of business 