My Cockpit - The Way I Play

[SMACK900]

Hi all,

Awesome site 

I am new to this site and thought I would share my racing cockpit setup.

I scratch built my racing cockpit some 7 years ago and it sat unused for many years. After my recent PC upgrade I thought it was time to hook up the cockpit into my PC and home theater setup. As my projector can only display 1024x768 I don’t need heaps of video power. Having said that playing racing sims on an 84” Screen is very cool.
It’s made of mainly 18mm MDF and can split in two. The base is fitted wheels so I can move it around easily. It’s fitted with its own sound system and seat shaker.(although now I have it in my theatre room they don’t get turned on much). I recently replaced the steering with a Logitech Momo wheel.


My PC

Mobo: Gigabyte 965P-DS3P
CPU: Intel C2D E4300 @ 1.8Ghz, OC to 3.0Ghz
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX (replaced stock fan with b-cool 120)
Memory: 4 x 512MB Corsair Twin2X 5400C4
Video: Gigabyte 7600GT Silent Pipe
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7,200
PSU: Hyper Type-R 580W
Screens: Samsung 226BW & Optima DLP Projector
Sound Systems : Technics Stereo Amp & Dennon AVR 3300 (5.1 & DTS)
Accessories: Coolermaster & Zalman Fan controllers
Case: Antec 900 with all fans installed

I hope you like it. I am always thinking of ways to improve it so I welcome your suggestions.

PS - My ID is no reflection on the way I drive, its what I came up with when I combined the first name initials of my entire family, truly!!!!!

[SJ_Stein]

Grinn.. That computer of yours is an entertainmentsystem by itself it seems 

I'm surprised you could reach the wheel and pedals that well in that 3rd picture i believe it was 
(but i see your kid loves it too eh?)


Welcome to TWIP and thx for showing your rig, it's still better then mine alltho yers is ehr.. 6.7 years older!




Woof ~ Woof

[SMACK900]

Grinn.. That computer of yours is an entertainmentsystem by itself it seems 

I'm surprised you could reach the wheel and pedals that well in that 3rd picture i believe it was 
(but i see your kid loves it too eh?)


Welcome to TWIP and thx for showing your rig, it's still better then mine alltho yers is ehr.. 6.7 years older!




Woof ~ Woof

Thanks Steiny

Yeh my puter kind of evolved into this bling bling machine. It all started when I recently upgraded my case. I bought the Antec900 which came with 3 blue LED fans and it kind of took off from there.
Bling Bling aside the case is awesome for overclocking

[Tysmyster]

hehe ya it must be great for oc'ing. 3ghz out of that 1.8ghz processor! Great job mate! But so not to get too far off topic  Cool racing cockpit as well. And of course the beamer is always fun. Did you build that cockpit or just buy it somewhere?

Thanks for showing it to us and welcome to TWIP! 

EDIT:

I resized the pics btw.

[SMACK900]

hehe ya it must be great for oc'ing. 3ghz out of that 1.8ghz processor! Great job mate! But so not to get too far off topic  Cool racing cockpit as well. And of course the beamer is always fun. Did you build that cockpit or just buy it somewhere?

Thanks for showing it to us and welcome to TWIP! 

EDIT:

I resized the pics btw.

Hi Tysmyster,
Yeh my PC runs rock stable @ 3Ghz, performance in games is super smooth, the CPU bearly breaks a sweat.
If I need a little more grunt I can easily overclock the GPU as well.
This type of setup is quite common and fairly mundane amongst overclockers but suits my purpose really well.
The cockpit I built myself, took me 18 months from the time I decided I was going to build one.
I got my inspiration from the Hyper Stimulator and set about making my own version.

[SMACK900]

I'm surprised you could reach the wheel and pedals that well in that 3rd picture i believe it was 
(but i see your kid loves it too eh?)

Thank god I installed adjustable slides on my pedals heh

[SMACK900]

Hi everyone,

I have decided to build a new nose cone as well as install button boxes either into the new nose cone or into the base.

The New Nose Cone!!!!

I saw the "Motec Mod Thread"where guys on this site were using a small LCD Display to display Motec related live data (RPM etc).

I believe the were using rDisplay as well.

That got me thinking (quite scary if you ask me )

Tucked away in a corner is my 7" wide screen LCD.

My first question is?

Which racing sims can you use this type of setup?
Currently I am mucking around with GTR2 and Race07, will any of these games allow the displaying of live Motec data?
Also do I need any additional hardware or software to make it work?
Next I need some advice!

I took some pics of of my cockpit with the screen just sitting there to give me an idea just how much the nose cone profile would have to change to accommodate this screen.
The end result would require me to build a nose that has a steeper rake whereby I would have to carry the steeper angle right through (as opposed to my current design where the angle tappers of)

What do you guys think of this as a potential design, does it look silly.

Over the coming weeks I will try and translate some of my pics into sketches (using Software, I have done this before I just can't remember the program I used) then import the pic into Google Sketchup and trace it.
That's the only way I can think of making some decent drawings of my original design (yes I am kicking myself for not keeping my orignal drawings) but if you any suggestions how I can take a standard photo and translate it into a set of drawings please let me know.

As always your suggestions and feedback are most welcomed.

[Tysmyster]

So you want to make the nose higher now so the little screen will fit inside it? I think the guy who did this on here actually used a mini camera that he pointed at that part of the screen which shows the motec data. There are other ways though where you simply extract the stuff from the game and send it to a separate screen. Wouldn't know how though. Good luck with it. Would be pretty cool to have a lil screen with your racedata on it in your cockpit!

[GPI Steve]

Which racing sims can you use this type of setup?
Currently I am mucking around with GTR2 and Race07, will any of these games allow the displaying of live Motec data?
Also do I need any additional hardware or software to make it work?

I know of 2 app's for sure that you just install and run when you are racing.
No.1 is gtr motec pd and no.2 race 07 pd.

I use both when racing in each game and they are brilliant, they are actually designed to run on small 7 or 8 inch tft screens but i run them on my spare 17 inch just to my right so i can take a quick glance at fuel useage, tyre temps etc.

They would run superbly with your set up and that screen you have 
To be honest i have never experienced any performance drop when using them on the same system that7 my game and teamspeak etc is running on. But if its a problem you can actually run them on another networked system... say a laptop or something.

I have taken these 2 screenshots of the apps i run with each game ( the left screen is my 24 inch and the right my 17 )





Now the problem is i cannot for the life of me remember where i downloaded them from 
I'm thinking maybe race sim central (RSC) or no grip.. just not sure.

Google will find em for ya!

[SJ_Stein]

ok.. and now to answer the other question you asked..

it's only cosmetical, you are worried that the line will be too sloped downwards because of the bulge the 7"  screen will present. I did see a hinge on there so somehow i think you can fold your setup up, or have it in two pieces, concentrate on that.. that it will still "fold"   ... When you are sitting in your seat you will see the display.. not the bulge (or you are sitting too high.. haha) the only time you see it is when you either get in or walk by it or leave it behind.

I would worry more about your setup if you'd want a different wheel at one point..  or if you'd want to fit tires to it. but then you'd start with suspension and before you know it you'd be running a le Mans car in your livingroom...   

But if the nose is hinged... could you make the effort of undoing it and just make another nose? (with bulge for 7"screeny?)



WOof ~ Woof

[SMACK900]

Hi guys,

Yes I am more concerned about how the new nose would look cosmetically more than anything else.

Also the nose and the base are 2 pieces which come apart easily. They are held together using 2 door stops.

Ill post pics of what my setup looks like when I take it apart.

Cheers,

Chris

[DieselJC]

Nice Set up..where did you get the 7" screen? I've been looking for something like that to add to my set-up..

JC

[SJ_Stein]

Nice Set up..where did you get the 7" screen?

From one of the trucks at my workplace? 




   

Woof ~ Woof

Grinn.  that's a pic more then 8 weeks old.. i've quit smoking.. hahaha and coughing as much!

[SMACK900]

Nice Set up..where did you get the 7" screen? I've been looking for something like that to add to my set-up..

JC

Hi Diesel,
The 7" screen was a gift. I can have a look tonight for the model number if that helps although the unit is now 2-3 years old.

[SMACK900]

Hi Guys,

Apologies for my absence.

I had to stop sim racing for a while as my good old Optoma projector finally bit the dust.

This put me out of action for a few months until I could raise the cash and figure out what to do next.

Well after allot of research I decided to do the following.

New Projector - The Optoma was replaced with a Mitsubishi HC1100

Screen - Ended up replacing my 84" 4:3 with a 92" 16:9. The main reason for this was due to the different lenses between my 2 projectors. The Optoma has a long throw lens. These days only the more expensive projectors utilise long throw lenses. I was then left with 2 choices. Move the new projector forward around 40cm of my back wall. Not ideal as it would require a ceiling mount and the missus wasn't going to go for it. I ended up buying a new screen instead.

PC – With a new projector and screen I was then faced with some more decisions. My DVD player is quite old (it only outputs in S-Video) and my Set Top Box was driving me crazy as it was having reception issues when I hooked up via its HDMI port. In the end I decided to wack in a HD Tuner into my PC and replace my beloved Gigabyte 7600GT card a Gigabyte HD 4850. I have yet to tune my new setup properly but already the results I am getting are heaps better than my old setup. The only thing left to do is replace my DVD player as the wife uses this when I am not around (she is a little too technically challenged to use the PC  ).

I have yet to hook up my cockpit and give it a spin but hope to this in the next 1-2 weeks. I can’t wait to give GTR2 a thrash with my new setup.
I'll post some updated pics shortly.