Showroom DX - Compact Simulator

The parts just turned up this morning to build my portable VR computer, but after being up all night with the Rift Pre-order I will leave putting it together until after I have had a good nights sleep.

I also have other bits that are due any day now so I can build a portable haptic chair. That project will not have motion but the haptic setup may be of interest to others.

I have a a large Buttkicker mounted under the seat of my sim, have played around with creating a haptic harness and have set my rig up to add more transducers in the future.

I am about to start building a portable 9 transducer haptic chair without motion, to experiment a bit more with haptics.

At this stage SimTools does not support transducer control but it is a planned addition for the next version.

That is the sort of question you should ask on your own build thread. you can start one here:
http://www.xsimulator.net/community/forums/diy-motion-simulator-projects.22/

I don't know of a Germam supplier.

Your could import from Motion Dynamics in Australia, but I suspect shipping may be expensive: https://www.motiondynamics.com.au/industrial/

This Canadian seller has similar motors and ships world wide: http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEAR-MOTOR-...483?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51bed470a3

As theses motors are hard to get or expensive in some places a possible alternative is modifying electric jack mototors: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/faq/modify-electric-jack-motors-for-sim-use.212/

Or common winch motors, though these can be a bit noisy: http://www.xsimulator.net/community/faq/dc-winch-motors-for-motion-simulators.151/

Unfortunately not @Azeal, a compact design like mine needs a fair bit of torque to drive it and wiper motors are not really suitable.

I am changing the heave motor to 50:1 next week and really with the spring assist that would be suitable for all motors. You do need gearboxes that can't be back driven, otherwise the heave assist spring creates problems when nobody is on the sim but there is motion data, as a 25:1 is not strong enough to compensate for a spring that can balance your weight.

This is the new compact VR computer I just put together, interestingly the brilliant Corsair case would neatly fit HP server PSUs if anyone wanted to build a portable PSU, control board and perhaps sound system out of one.

Corsair Graphite 380T Mini ITX Black Gaming Case

Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 Motherboard

Intel Core i5 6600K

Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 Black

Samsung 850 EVO Series 250GB 2.5in SSD

HGST Travelstar 7K1000 1TB

Corsair Hydro Series H100i GTX 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW+ ACX 2.0+ 4GB

Cougar RS 750W PSU (a modular PSU would be better but I already had this lying around)

I deliberately chose the 2.5in 1gb 7500 rpm HGST drive for storage so I could remove the double bay 3.5 housing to give more room for cable management. If I ever feel the need for more space with cheap drives I can put the 3.5 housing back in, but as this is meant to be a portable VR rig for a 9 transducer chair I plan to build I won't be adding more to it than I actually need.

While a mini PC supporting x86 could run SimTools and games not needing high end graphics, they are not suitable for VR which needs high end specs like the compact PC I just built.

Much appreciated guys.

I have since fitted the 50:1 gearbox for heave. While I had it in bits I swapped in the brand new boxed HP server PSUs that I got really cheap some time ago.

At some stage I will make a new and longer aluminium seat base plate, just so I can squeeze a little more leverage on the heave axis, but it is not urgent just a longer term upgrade. Heave is great with most things but really shines when you have rally style jumps in games like Dirt 3 or tracks like Nordschleife.

My next project will be messing more with a haptic chair rather than the motion sim.