I just wanted to throw out my 2nd Vigolix cabinet that I put together. This one is a mini sit down racer. Very comfortable, very stable. And still build mostly from the one sheet of 2X4 wood. For those unfamiliar with the Vigolix, here is a link for the original
Vigolix Cab, and also a link for DrChek's awesome vertical Vigolix,
The Spike.
I decided that building a vigolix was so easy, I would build one for my father as a birthday/fathers day/retirement present. I gave myself a month to complete this cab from start to finish. Well, life got in the way as it always does, and I found myself sitting less than a week away from his birthday without even making that initial first cut.
Determined to see the project through, I managed to put my nose to the grindstone. I had collected everything needed to put this cabinet together. I had bought a 15" monitor from a garage sale for $3, I had my old work computer to power the bitty beast. I had a sheet of MDF, and scrap wood lying around to fill the rest. I had stealthy pinched my dad's old racing wheel from his current "racing cabinet". (And by previous racing cabinet, I mean racing wheel bar clamped to an old empty pacman cabinet with a monitor inside sitting on a stack of milk crates. It's a humiliation to even call it a racing cabinet
).
So working through the weekend, and spending my weekday evenings scraping everything together, I managed to complete this cabinet, with the final paint coat being applied just mere hours before I had to go. This project was a good exhibition of Murhpy's Law in action, as everything that could go wrong just did. (You might have seen my thread on mangled wiring in the racing wheel that took 5 hours to fix.)
Two hours before the time I had to hit the road to give my present, I give the computer portion one final test run. The monitor fried out at that exact point in time.
It was all i needed to put me on the verge of mental breakdown and hulk out on the crappy little monitor. Was I gonna come this close only to be defeated by a garage sale monitor? Well, I pulled myself together, got on craigslist and found a $40 17" monitor for sale. I gave the guy a call, and 5 minutes later was driving down to pick the monitor up. Got home, built a quick new monitor mount, recut the bezel (poorly) and took a quick photoshoot before shoving it in my trunk and heading out the door. So without further delay, here is Vigolix: Racing Edition.
The key difference is in the front panel pieces. The top panel goes into the cabinet to provide legroom, and the lower panel is used as a pedal platform. Underneath that platform is a 2X6 piece of lumber to weigh the bottom down and give stability to the platform.
I used an old rubber car mat on the pedal platform to give it a more automotive feel. I then used industrial velcro on the pedals to keep them in place, yet keep the position adjustable. I just stapled the velcro to the platform since I don't trust the adhesive on grooved rubber.
I was in a rush and couldn't keep my kid away from the thing for the photoshoot.
I wasn't sure what to do for speakers this time, but decided to give it an automotive feel with an old auto speaker I had lying around. In need of an amp, I just pulled from some cheap 2.0 computer speakers. I put the amp board in a quick wood box I made and wired both the right and left to the speaker simultaneously. For the size speaker I used, this amp does seriously underpower it, but considering the size of this cab, it gets more than twice as loud as I would ever want it to get.
The monitor ended up being a tad low because it was originally meant to be a 15" in there and got changed to a 17" last second. Not low to the point where it is annoying or anything, but I would have put it higher if I had the time. On the upside, it's a good confirmation that a 17" will fit in there just fine. I even think certain 19" monitors could fit in if they were decased first. (I tried my 19" before buying the 17". It was only about 2mm too wide. Oh, and the bezel was cut sloppy because I was in a major rush. It was $3 artboard from Michaels, so no big deal.
Side by side of Vigolix 1 vs Vigolix 2. Notice I moved the cut in the back up by a couple inches. I wanted to keep the bottom more covered from the pedals. I also moved the arms for the panel up as well. For comfort reasons.
A couple final thoughts.
- You may have noticed that the computer is missing from this thing. That is because it is held externally. I didn't want to dump a lot of money in a micro computer that would be under-powered for racing games anyway, so I just had the computer on the side and plopped a keyboard and mouse on the top. It is fine, because a keyboard & mouse is needed for racing cabs unless you really want to spend a TON of time putting methods together to eliminate them.
- This cab is actually really comfortable, very stable and ridiculously fun. My whole family ended up playing on it through the weekend. My Nieces loved Maro Kart 64 and Lego Racers.
- If I were to do it over again, I would have used Plywood. I wanted MDF because I was just gonna originally use vinyl instead of paint. The weight difference is significant between my two vigolix cabs.
- The best improvement I added was leveling legs. Two in the back work well as I have uneven wood floors, and this solved that problem right away. I will be adding them to my original vigolix as well.
- I was thinking about adding a detachable shifter that mounts on the side of the control panel arm. Obviously time didn't allow, but just throwing that idea out for anyone considering making something like this. Since realism isn't the goal of this cabinet, the paddle shifters on the back of the wheel are enough for the games anyway.
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Topic: Vigolix Racing Edition (Read 6146 times)
