Showroom Building Journey of "Crate" Racing Cockpit

Thanks @noorbeast. Oh yes, I will make a video when it is put together again, I'm now putting carbonfiberlike vinyl to parts, starts to look pretty decent

Dash is almost ready. What is left to do is to cover tm1638 in a box and wire buttons to SimScreens. I'm very pleased with the end result with carbon fiber look alike, hard to capture it with the camera though Video coming soon.

Edit. 13.11.14
Added descriptions to pictures

Ok, making MFD supports. I used the same 0,7mm aluminium for these also and made square holes with the method described earlier post. This is so soft (good and bad thing, like said earlier, I suggest you to use atleast 1mm thick aluminium) that this can pretty easily be bent on a table edge and with some peaces of wood. Rubber hammer is a also a handy tool to make corrections etc.



Next part was actually the most enjoyable part in dash project: laying carbon fiber vinyl! When buying carbon fiber look-vinyl, make sure it is quality vinyl, not just a carbon fiber theme painted to a plastic, but proper 3d surface where different angles of light make the surface look different (Not sure is there other kind though, newbie talking here). I had never seen carbon fiber surface (fake or real) anywhere before this project, so when I saw this stuff at the store I was like whoo, this looks sooooo pretty! I'm sure real carbon fiber is not this cool looking

Again, no pictures takeng during process, but it is very straight forward, just measure the area you want to cover with vinyl, add maybe 1cm extra vinyl to edges so you can flip vinyl over to back side of the panel. Make sure that every piece you cover is at the same angle when vinyl is aplied, so pattern matches with different parts. I mean if you have for example more than one panel side by side, it would look stupid if every piece has "fibers" in different angle.



Don't wory about holes, just lay vinyl over them and pierce them afterwards. Here also leave 1 cm for flipping backside.



I used "edge string" to finish edges of the panels. I'm not sure what it is called in english! It is rubber "seal" that locks to the edge of the metal sheet, without glue. There are different sizes and looks, with metal reinforcements and without. Somebody must know the english translation for this stuff It really looks good with fiber vinyl and even reinforces panels somewhat.

Top work man!
I really need to get triples for mine.
Rift is not being considered as its suggested I used them everyday. I dont have time for that, and also, with a rift, I cannot see where the ashtray is or my drink.

When you eventually get a chance to test the Rift you will change your mind

I still manage to find my can of beer ok and my ecig

Thanks guys!

I will add details as soon as possible to those earlier posts with pictures of dash building process. There is nothing fancy really

Agree, but @bsft has a point! Though I loved the immersion and precence delivered by Rift (R.I.P. my beloved DK1), It felt that sometimes I just did not want to "go there", to be separated this world.

I think it like this:

Sim with monitors:
"Here we have a cockpit-like device that lets you drive a virtual car"

Sim with Rift:
"Here we have a device that takes you to virtual world to drive a car"

For casual gaming, latter feels sometimes too tiring

But offcourse I'm going to get Rift CV, it is always nice to have options!

Sorry it took so long, I've been a bit busy lately. But now there are additional info with pictures in the earlier posts regarding the dash building.

Video of the working dash is also coming, but not just yet.

Finished yesterday my buttonbox. It is using Symprojects jc-24 controller. For toggle switches to operate properly, I used free program called HIDMacros.

Also designed multiple new custom screens for SimScreens. Maybe I finally am able to record some video also...

Ok, finally I managed to record some sort of video of the dashboard in action. Here driving McLaren MP4 12C (iRacing), notice almost matching carbon fiber pattern with car graphics


And @Lucian asked some footage of wiper motors in action:

Thats really frikkin cool @Scratch love it well done

Awesome job very very nice cool

Thanks for the video

Very smooth wipers motion, good job.

@Scratch , I see you are using DFGT wheel, and what pedals do you have? they look like G27, if so, how did you wire them into the DFGT wheel setup?

Thank you fellows for your kind words.

Yes, my pedals are G27 pedals with TSS hydraulic brake. I used Leo Bodnars usb adapter cable, it makes pedals standalone device and increases accuracy from original 8 bits to 10 bits. You can find cable here: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=97&products_id=187

I see they also have the adapter cable for the g27/g25 shifter too. Interesting!
Thanks for sharing

Had to do some maintenance. Both of my transducers failed after I "tuned" my Simvibe settings a bit One of the diaphragms (or what ever they are called) got loose in both, quick fix was to glue them back. But if they get loose again, it might be necessary to add plate or something under them to press and keep them in place. If they fail again, I post pictures and possible fix to that problem.

I also opened gearboxes of my wiper motors to see what is happening there and was relieved to see that they had no additional wear at all, just added some grease to keep it that way.
I moved my rig in new place to save some space and now had a very good opportunity to shoot video straight behind the seat. So here it is, I drive at Watkins Glen a second or third time ever with Lotus 49, so driving is poor, but at the end there is quite spectacular crash

cool