This may be on my radar due to my work, and my fear of unstable hydraulic lifts lifting me into rafters. I would much rather put on a climbing harness, shimmy up into the rafters, and walk across them myself (more stable of a platform)… but alas, work will not let me do this.
And so, the idea here is simple:
Build a metal, mesh table that is on 4 hydraulic arms
Connect the hydraulics to an arduino control system
Use UE4 to control the ACS
Player gets onto the platform and closes the gate, puts on a VR headset, and with a controller, they push either up or down. In game, they will be on a lift, and it goes up or down (simple, yes?)… the platform should also “sway” a bit and do the “up/down” motion that you feel on lifts (elevators, etc…).
The idea is for the player to either A) Get over the fear of mechanized lifts or B) Just get used to it so the player’s legs aren’t shaking, cold sweats, anxiety… when the player gets off of one. Either way, although option A would be better.
So, all of that realized, could anyone recommend some reading/learning material on how to build this? I only know the theory on how hydraulics work, and I am neither a machinist or an engineer. Any pointers would be great. Even ff I end up not doing the project, it would be cool to learn about it.
edit: substitute hydraulics with pneumatics… after a short bit of reading a google result, this looks like the route I want to go.
Starting on a bill of materials; this is going to be bloody expensive, as even just the steel plate (4’x4’) is going to cost, retail, roughly $580 before shipping. I also need 4x pneumatic solenoids (not cheap), a regulator, 4x cylinders, steel L-brackets to attach the cylinders to, I’ll need to build a 6’x6’ (at least) platform for the lift to be on. I think I’m gonna head over to my local Graingers tomorrow as I have the day off for more info on this pet-project. I do know that I’ll need for the lift to be able to lift 500lbs for safety reasons, and I do want pivot mounted, double action, single rod cylinders with 3" bore sizes. And while I do have an air pump that’s regulated, it’s not an auto-shut off one which I’ll want for the end project (due to noise).
After picking some brains, I’ll hit up my local after-market shop, see if they have anything I can buy used, and go from there. We’ll see.
Before I even think about building the lift, I’ll want to build the Arduino circuit and UE4 interface to control 1 cylinder, before buying the 3 other cyclinders and lift. Start small, right? If the experiment ends well, I may just have to do a kickstarter or gofundme project so I can afford all this !@#%, lol.
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