My Cabinet Build *Updated* Post Mortem

[Howard_Casto]

Ok you know where I said I had to go to a junk yard and get a seat before I get started?

Well never underestimate the bounties of junk when you are in WV. 

Found a tan bucket seat with power everything lying beside the road a mile or two from the house.  It looks like it's been outside for a while so I'll have to take it apart completely clean it and put it back together, but hey, free seat!

It's like a million degrees here right now, so I'll take pics later. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok here's the seat:

[Howard_Casto]

And here are the controls:

[Howard_Casto]

The color isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but that's what seat covers are for.  I looked at the bottom and while a bit rusty, the motor and gears are still in place, so hopefully I can get it moving.  If not I might look for another one.  I'll start tearing it down tomorrow.  I'll take the gears and dunk em in a rust remover and remove the fabric completely just in case something odd is living inside. 

Honestly the thing is in damn near perfect shape, so I'm not sure why it was thrown out.  Knowing my luck it's got meth hidden inside or something.

I've pretty much had to take all of May and most of April off due to real world stuff, but  things are clearing up so hopefully I can work on this and my software stuff soon.

[Fursphere]

Excellent score for $0.00! 

[Howard_Casto]

I thought so... assuming I can get the electrics working that is. 

Now maybe you guys can help me pick a seat cover.  I'm still working out the color scheme, so it might be best to start with which cover colors I can get. 

Kmart, for some odd reason, seems to have the best covers.  I'm pretty sure the "body" of the cab is going to be red, so these are nice. 

http://www.kmart.com/elegant-usa-seat-cover-low-back-black-red-razor/p-082W874690110001P?prdNo=17

They also have it in a more universal gray. 

http://www.kmart.com/elegant-usa-seat-cover-low-back-black-grey-razor/p-082W880907110001P?prdNo=16

Big Lots always has a bunch of printed ones for 10 bucks, but honestly, even I'm not that cheap. 

Remember before when I said I wanted to go with a tan interior?  Well Walmart has this one which is interesting.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bell-Tan-Ostrich-Ub-Seat-Cover/14324173

On the one hand that was more of what I was going for, but on the other, that looks really yellow... I was wanting more of a cream/off-white.


So that's what I've seen thus far.  If you find any interesting ones let me know. 

[isamu]

good catch. Free is always good

why so hot in west virginia right now? Isn't there a big storm around the area?

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah, it was a build up to the storm.  Right now it's ok but today it was around 85-90. 

[BadMouth]

The ones from Kmart that you linked look nice, but they won't work on that seat unless they come in a highback version.

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

That seat will be cool if the motorized adjustments work.
You could even hook up the seat adjustment motor in Hard Drivin!
(although that would be a pretty big time sink for little reward)

When I feel like avoiding work today, I'll look at seat covers.

[Fursphere]

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

So..  what would you prefer to see? 

I have a rather different concept idea for mine, but I'm still hunting for the right "pieces" to make it work.

[BadMouth]

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

So..  what would you prefer to see? 

I have a rather different concept idea for mine, but I'm still hunting for the right "pieces" to make it work.

People shouldn't build their cabs based on my preference.
I'd just like to see something different.

I think these seats on a black cab with orange t-molding would look sweet:

I'm considering it for my twin build, but am waiting to see if I find a deal on seats that I like better.
I have similar red and black seat and it's comfortable, but a tight fit.  Any friends larger than myself won't fit.
While I have other projects I'm trying to finish, I'm holding out for sporty looking real leather seats from a junker.

......or bright yellow....or bright green.....or bright green and blue.....or blue with white muscle car stripes......or the Devil Z

[Fursphere]

I really wanted those same seats for my cabinet.  I wasn't going to pay $250 + shipping for one though. 

[Howard_Casto]

Now see I like the color scheme of those posted, but they are a bit "racery" to me. 

Looking for more of a sports car look myself. 

Yeah I was just looking at the color schemes and patterns in those links I posted, they generally have them in a few styles. 

The reason I originally wanted cream colored seats was because of Outrun actually.  If you think of the older Ferrari's they were typically painted red with black trim, had black or tan carpeting, and cream leather seats.  A lot of the nicer American sports cars (Camaros, firebirds, Corvettes ect) use the same color scheme.  I'm not a huge fan of "tan" but in cars like that it seems to work, and like yourself I'm sick of every cab looking the same.  Everything's up in the air atm, so please keep the patterns/styles coming. 


Anyway, I did a bit of work on the seat today before I got rained out.  I took the back off and carefully undid all the staples to remove the fabric.  If you find a seat by the side of the road step 1 is to make sure there isn't a small family of mice living inside.    That took me the better part of an hour.   

Anyway now the the seat is in a few pieces I'm getting a better idea of what shape it's in.  The foam is flawless, it isn't compressed or flaking off or anything.  The frame has a decent amount of rust in the unpainted areas, but it was outside, what do you expect?  Upon inspecting the seat I found another set of controls.  Apparently this was one of the fancier seats with water heating/cooling.  Either that or it's used for air cushioning... I'm unsure but there are a lot of controls on the thing.  Now I'll never be able to use that, but it's still good news because that means the foam is removable from the frame (the plastic bladder from a water system sits behind the foam.)  The motors for the seat look brand new as does the wiring going to it.  Probably because it had some sort of cover over the entire assembly. The incline gears are flawless and they should work fine but the worm gear that controls forwards/back is really rusted, probably because it's on the ground.  But I did turn the gear with a set of pliers and it moved along the track pretty freely, so I should be able to get it working. 

I'll have to figure out the wiring before I attempt hooking it up, but it should be simple as there are only 4 wires coming out of the main cable.  I figure a old pc power supply should supply enough wattage to move it.  Maybe not with my fat butt in it, but still.... 

I'll try to post pics in a little while but like I said, I got rained out.  (There's no way that things coming inside until it's stripped bare to ensure lack of mice.)

[BadMouth]

I'm not a real big fan of seat covers.  (but I am a fan of getting things for free and building stuff cheap!)

The seat cloth doesn't look like it has any rips or anything.
If you've got them removed anyway, soak them in the washer with some kind of stain remover and see how well they clean up.

If they still look dirty, maybe dye them darker brown with RIT dye.

I tried using spray on dye to turn seats that color black before and they turned out an uneven chocolate color and very stiff feeling.
Definitely do not recommend going that route.  (That was in my old '83 TransAm    )

Also if we knew what the seat came out of, you might be able to find new skins.

[Howard_Casto]

Well it's funny you should mention that.  I still hadn't removed the cloth from the head rest so I popped it out, and a Nissan logo was on the bottom.  Hopefully that should narrow it down.  If I could find a copyright somewhere on one of the parts that could narrow it down further. 

I debating if I should throw them in the washer right now.  These seats have metal splines instead of plastic ones, and while I'm not worried about them rusting (they usually have a coating) I am worried about tearing up the washing machine.  I might be able to stuff them in a sack or something.  Or I could go to the nearest laundry mat and ruin their washers. 

I've had mixed results with the spray on dye.  Tried it on my dash in the Camaro and it refused to stick right.  But I restored the rear shade to like new color... so I dunno. 

I had to take the incline motor off to get the cloth off anyway, so I just went out and hooked it up to an old power supply.  As expected it works just fine.  So that's one down.

The rain slacked up so I managed to get outside and take pics.  I'll post them this evening. 


In terms of seat covers I'm perfectly ok with getting fairly high end ones or getting custom skins.  I had planned on spending 50-100 bucks at a junk yard on a seat anyway so I'm ok with putting a bit of money in this one.  It's just in regards to the generic seat covers, all the expensive ones were really ugly imho. 

 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok going by a little ebay snooping I *think* it's from a 86-89 Nissan 300zx

[Howard_Casto]

Well I put em in the washer, added some detergent, a cap of Oxy Clean and one "Cactus Jack's one shot Laundry Bullet" so either they'll come out really clean, or they'll fall apart. 

[Brian74]

My cab is yellow. I was either going to keep it or go orange and black or redo the yellow and make it black and yellow. My vertical cab is lime green and blue. Gotta mix it up )

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

[Howard_Casto]

Ok pics as promised...


As you can see, the cloth isn't that bad, even before washing and most of the seat is relatively rust free.  Those worm gears on the bottom are roached though, so like I said before, I'll want to dunk those in rust remover or something. 

[isamu]

Yeah the cloth is not bad at all. Looks like it's a pretty sturdy seat. Have you decided on what kind of cockpit/racing cab you're gonna mount it on yet?

[Howard_Casto]

I really don't have space for a full sized cockpit (got too many cabs already) so I thought I would try something different.  There won't be monitor, I'll just hook the whole rig up to the big screen.  The seat will be mounted on your standard sega style raised platform, but the floor will slide under the seat platform until the dash area is over top of the seat... sort of like a tv tray.  The pedal section will fold forward towards the seat so when not in use it'll take up about as much room as the seat by itself. 

So basically when expanded it'll look a lot like fursphere's, only with the monitor section missing. 


I might not be able to pull that off, if not I'll probably do a roll cage style that dis-assembles. 


I got the covers out of the washer.  They came out really clean so aside from being the ugliest color scheme ever, they turned out ok.  There was a weird smell on the headrest fabric after I washed it, so there might be some mold... I'll spray some bleach on it tomorrow. 

The only thing that worries me is the weight of the seat.  I can understand why most rigs use manual seats now because with three motors and gear assemblies, the thing weighs a ton.  I see casters or sliders in my future. 

[Howard_Casto]

Got to work on it a bit more today.  I started disassembling the lower portion of the seat.  I had to move the seat forward to remove all the bolts, so I wired the whole thing up to a power supply and to my surprise those rusty worm gears work just fine.  It's a little squeaky towards the end, so I'll still probably add some rust remover and grease the whole thing.   

The up/down adjustment motor doesn't seem to work though, but I'm pretty sure it's a wiring issue as I don't hear anything binding.  I'm not super concerned about it anyway.  So long as the forward/back and the back incline work (which they do) It'll be functional for my purposes. 

I took the fabric off the bottom of the seat... it seems to be ok as well, I'll throw it in the wash tonight.  The foam for the bottom seems to be even cleaner and in better shape than the back rest, which seems odd to me.  I'm going to take the bottom of the seat completely apart later....   it's super rusty on the unpainted areas and it's lined with that nasty horse-hair-like material which I didn't even know they still used.  I'll pop the foam off, remove the hair and replace it with some memory foam and vinyl screen mesh.

So I'll do a final rust-cleaning, check over the wiring and re-assemble tomorrow hopefully. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok more slightly uninteresting pics!

Since I had the lower worm gear assembly and the incline motor off the frame to remove the fabrics, I decided to bring them in the house and clean them up a bit.  Once I took a bit of soap and water to them, there was very little rust.  I took a BBQ brush and some sandpaper and cleaned the crap out of the worm gears and as you can see they are pretty much rust free at this point.  You'll see a bit of rust on the one side but that's because the assembly is in the way.  When I hook it back up to the switches I'll power it up, move it back and get that end.  The lower fabric is in the washer as we speak, so I'll see how that turns out. 

I don't really think I need to re-spray or treat any of the remaining rust spots.  You won't see this stuff anyway and the only real rust remaining is on a bit of tin bracket that holds the wiring loom in place. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I got the seats completely apart and removed all that horse hair nastiness.  Then I took a grinder to the metal to get all the rust off.  It's mostly clean now.  I took a look at that up/down motor and although I can't find anything wrong with it or the wiring, I can't get it to function. I believe that it might just need a lot of power to operate, because that giant rusted spring you see in the pics is part of the tension on that particular drive.  I might hook it up to a car battery to get it in the position I want and then be done with it. 

I looked up the purpose of the horse hair and it's not really padding... it's supposed to keep the foam from rubbing against the springs and flaking off.  So I'm thinking I could just put a bit of cloth in there or something similar. 

Anyway, I should be able to assemble it tomorrow and if so I'll post pics. 

[Howard_Casto]

You know I got a second wind this evening and thought "well I'll just put the fabric back on and reassemble everything this evening."  That was at around 7... it's almost 12 now and I'm still not 100% done.   

Anyway I replaced the horse hair with some vinyl screen I had lying around... it seems to have done the trick.  As you can see in the pic I didn't get all of the rust off of it, but it's pretty clean and nobody will ever see it anyway. 

My next obstacle will be the mounts.  The rear mount holes are pretty standard but the front ones are both angled, with the passenger side having a compound angle!  I thought they might have been bent, but upon further inspection, nope, they are cast that way.  After I get those done I'll put the worm gear back on and I should have a complete seat. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well it's back in one piece. 

I managed to get everything re-assembled this time and then some.  While adjusting the foam, I found the air bladder motor disconnected and roached inside the upper seat.  I took it apart, cleaned it up, re-assembled and fixed a few busted tubes and it's actually good to go!  It's pretty awesome actually.  It has three controls for a various lumbar area, one for the "wings" on the outside of the chair so that it holds you in, and one on the butt area.  It's extremely comfortable.  I also took some 2x2's and fixed the mounting issue but attaching those to the convoluted mount points.  Or so I thought.  When re-assembled the chair leans to one side.  Everything on the chair is right as are my mounts so I can only assume that the mounts are lower on one side than the other.  I'll sick a 2x4 underneath  the low side for now, but I'll have to carefully measure and build up that side's mount later on.   

For now at least it's a moveable chair so I can start building a cab around it! 

I'll take pics in a little bit but I need to hunt up the good camera as it records video....  seat pr0n time. 

[BadMouth]

http://wvmetronews.com/seat-from-vehicle-used-in-shooting-sought

[Howard_Casto]

Remember BM, I have access to power tools and areas where nobody will ever find your body.   

Good camera is on charge.  I'll post a vid sometime tonight. 

[BadMouth]

Remember BM, I have access to power tools and areas where nobody will ever find your body.   

 

When re-assembled the chair leans to one side.  Everything on the chair is right as are my mounts so I can only assume that the mounts are lower on one side than the other.  I'll sick a 2x4 underneath  the low side for now, but I'll have to carefully measure and build up that side's mount later on.

I hope it's just the mounts and the chair feels right when you sit in it. 
Everything has worked out pretty cool so far.  It would suck to not be able to use it after all this work.

[Howard_Casto]

Oh yeah I stuck a 2x4 under it like I said and it's *almost* level... I'll probably have to shave a little bit off of it to get it perfect.  It would have to be the mounts... they are crazy, one's at a 45 degree angle from left to right! 

I've been sitting in it to make sure my fat ass doesn't bog down the power supply I'm using to run the motors. 

[Fursphere]

Buy a pack of door shims from your lcoal hardware supply.    I use them a lot when fine tuning things like this.

[Howard_Casto]

I've got some but I'm afraid it would look ugly.  I might resort to them but I'll try it the hard way first. 

In the video dept there seems to be something wrong with my camera... I think that the battery has went bad.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow but I can always post a cruddy 320x240 vid from the old junk camera. 


I'm still trying to figure out a color scheme in my head that might work.  After cleaned the outside of the seat is a rich chocolate color, but the middle is the most hideous, worn out shade of tan you've ever seen.  The wings on the seat back are huge as well, so I doubt I could get a seat cover to fit well save a custom 200 dollar one which would defeat the purpose of getting the seat for free.  I'm still open to suggestions on that one. 

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be a busy day, but if I get time I might whip up a prototype H-shifter. 

[Howard_Casto]

Heh... I found the car it came out of... not literally of course, but the same model and color scheme.

All I can say is ugh... that's a lot of tan. 

http://www.dealsonwheels.com/cars/nissan/300zx/1985/Dn8663n5

[Fursphere]

If its all fabric, and you've already taken all the fabric off, just die it black. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not real fond of that idea... right now it's a ugly color scheme, but it's clean and looks ok.  Dye is really unpredictable, especially on weird materials like the suede on the sides.  Besides, my back is still sore from tugging and pulling on that thing to get the fabric in place.  It had something like 40 attachment points. 

[Fursphere]

Well, that's why I said black.  You can keep adding dye until its all black.  

Other colors I completely agree - you'll never know what you'll get. 

[Howard_Casto]

Fair enough..... I think it's one of those deals where I'm just going to have to think on it a while and maybe shop around with different covers/dyes. 

I FINALLY got the Camaro ready for inspection so I'll take it down tomorrow and while I'm out I'll look around town to see what I can find. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok here are tow of the most boring youtube vids you'll ever see.  I stupidly waited until everybody left before I did these so I didn't have anybody to hold the camera while I worked the controls, but you get the idea. 




Pics to follow.

[BadMouth]

I think it's a pretty sweet looking seat! (and power adjustments to boot!)

[Howard_Casto]

You know, thinking on it a while I do remember one car that had a similar color scheme:



I might try to work with it, I dunno. 

I forgot to post pics last night didn't I?   Man I was tired.... getting the Camaro ready for inspection, I set today aside for it.  And it passed, so that's good.     

I got done early so I've got the rest of the day to fool around. 

Here's some additional pics....

The cleaned up seat, which looks pretty new aside from the fact that I didn't get that one pleat towards the back tied down exactly right (the wire broke off so I had to improvise).
The air bladder controls, which are inexplicably on the side of the seat.

And the one flaw, a big tear on the rear panel.  The plate is a hard black plastic and it's used to access the air bladder hoses.  The material covering it is more like the stuff we would put on our arcade panels than seat vinyl.  When I get ready to fix that I'll probably just rip the vinyl off the whole thing and paint it. 

[Howard_Casto]

Not much to report, real world stuff has gotten in the way again and I've been super busy.  Decided to just relax today. 

As I've mentioned earlier, my cockpit is going to be collapsible.  I did some initial measurements of the seat to get an idea of what I'm working with.  The rails are around 14 inches long, which is a lot shorter than I thought they would be.  The idea is to keep the collapsed cabinet as close to the footprint of just the seat as possible.  I think the seat itself takes up more like 2 feet of room, so that's the dimension I'll probably go with.  The seat moves forward a whopping 10 inches, which is more than the seat in my car moves I think. 

I'm going to try to take detailed dimensions of the Camaro later this week and base a lot of the stuff around that.  Camaro's have a comfortable, yet tight cockpit, so it should be a good base. 

Unless I find a really good seat cover I'm probably going to stick with the seat's current color.  I have two options as I see it.  Go "knight rider" style and have the dash and all plastic components black with tan carpeting, or go the classic Ferrari route and have black carpeting with tan leather on the dash, shifter, ect.  Thoughts?

[isamu]

Not much to report, real world stuff has gotten in the way again and I've been super busy.  Decided to just relax today. 

As I've mentioned earlier, my cockpit is going to be collapsible.  I did some initial measurements of the seat to get an idea of what I'm working with.  The rails are around 14 inches long, which is a lot shorter than I thought they would be.  The idea is to keep the collapsed cabinet as close to the footprint of just the seat as possible.  I think the seat itself takes up more like 2 feet of room, so that's the dimension I'll probably go with.  The seat moves forward a whopping 10 inches, which is more than the seat in my car moves I think. 

I'm going to try to take detailed dimensions of the Camaro later this week and base a lot of the stuff around that.  Camaro's have a comfortable, yet tight cockpit, so it should be a good base. 

Unless I find a really good seat cover I'm probably going to stick with the seat's current color.  I have two options as I see it.  Go "knight rider" style and have the dash and all plastic components black with tan carpeting, or go the classic Ferrari route and have black carpeting with tan leather on the dash, shifter, ect.  Thoughts?

I like the idea of a tan seat cover and black carpeting. Make sure the seat covers are excellent quality though, and can easily lend itself to vacuuming and wiping with damp towel. Stuff is bound to get on there over the months/years.

Out of curiosity, once this cockpit is done, do you anticipate racing games becoming your main genre of gaming? Or do you have other genres you enjoy like first person shooters, rpgs, sports games, etc? I was always into racing games but once I got my cockpit and wheel, pedals, etc it just cemented my addiction further, and for a long time I stopped playing all other genres. Now I tend to mix it up a bit more and will throw down on some COD with my bros every once in a while, or hop on a random fps adventure like Bioshock Infinite.

[Howard_Casto]

It's more like I've been running out of games to play, if you can believe that.  Remember I've been doing this MAME thing since high school so I've been in the hobby almost as long as the emulator has been in existence.  Yes there are a metric ton of games in mame, but there are also a metric ton of awful games in mame.  I've played all the good ones 10 times over. 

The exceptions of course would be games with really weird specialty controls, like analog gun games (thus ts2) and racing games.  When I got into mame I was really into fighters and although I still enjoy them from time to time, I'm kind of burnt out on the genre. 

In terms of pc games there really isn't much out there.  I've never liked rpgs so all that's left are the aforementioned fighters and fps.  I've been playing the fps since the Doom days and let me tell you, if anything that genre has had a massive leap backwards since it became console centric.  It went from over the top monsters and locations, and having the ability to carry 10 weapons at a time to...well.... your choice of Halo and one of those generic "war" shooters. 

That's why these days most of the games I play are console games... where you still have platformers and lightgun games, ect....

[Fursphere]

God of War ftw! 

The lines are really becoming fuzzy between consoles and PCs.  I play whatever I find fun at the time, and buy Steam games like crazy during the big sales - so I've always got a back log of games to play.

And I totally agree about MAME - its got 10x more bad games than good.  And just no good way to sort through them.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I was busy again today and it didn't really matter because it was HOT outside.  While I was out I took a look at some seat covers at the Kmart.  They look like they would fit and the quality of the vinyl is actually really good BUT the back of the covers is that cheap cloth you see on those 5 dollar car wash sets.  Like I said, I think I'll stick with it as-is unless I run into something really good. 

Did some more exact measurements of the seat.  It's 21" by 21"   I'll probably round that out to 2 feet by 2 feet for added stability.  The plan is to make a 22 3/4" wide plywood pullout about 24-30 inches long that comes out of the platform the seat sits on.  It'll have a 2x2 "rail" under each side for strength.  That platform will have the traditional arch with the dashboard and wheel mounted on the end of it.  The pedal box will mount on the end of this and either slide or fold out.  I sat in the seat with a yard stick in front of me and the geometry checks out... I should be able to make something that collapses into the footprint of the seat when not in use. 

The new problem I'm looking at is how to get into the thing.  In a car it's easy, you open the door, but for strength I'd like to keep the arch a solid U shape.  I never realized it, but the Arcade racers really have the wheel too far away don't they?

[isamu]

It's more like I've been running out of games to play, if you can believe that.  Remember I've been doing this MAME thing since high school so I've been in the hobby almost as long as the emulator has been in existence.  Yes there are a metric ton of games in mame, but there are also a metric ton of awful games in mame.  I've played all the good ones 10 times over. 

The exceptions of course would be games with really weird specialty controls, like analog gun games (thus ts2) and racing games.  When I got into mame I was really into fighters and although I still enjoy them from time to time, I'm kind of burnt out on the genre. 

In terms of pc games there really isn't much out there.  I've never liked rpgs so all that's left are the aforementioned fighters and fps.  I've been playing the fps since the Doom days and let me tell you, if anything that genre has had a massive leap backwards since it became console centric.  It went from over the top monsters and locations, and having the ability to carry 10 weapons at a time to...well.... your choice of Halo and one of those generic "war" shooters. 

That's why these days most of the games I play are console games... where you still have platformers and lightgun games, ect....

Good post. Agreed about consoles still having some unique games. I just can't bring myself to get into them anymore though. And yeah there's a lot of garbage out there on the PC side, but there's also some really good gems too. The PC versions of BI, Tomb Raider and FC3 are very good. Hell, I even enjoyed Skyrim wih a bunch of mods, and got REALLY addicted to Fallout 3 a couple years back. Still, racing games is where my heart lies

And I totally agree about MAME - its got 10x more bad games than good.  And just no good way to sort through them.

+1. Took me a while to realize just how many ---smurfy--- coin-ups got released in the arcade in the 80's and 90's. With that having been said, one thing I really enjoy doing sometimes with mame, is getting online with my friends and playing mame games online in MAMHub. Or sometimes we'll just kick back and chit chat while they spectate me play some random mame game. It's pretty fun actually.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok again... frikkin hot, too much to do any real work. 

Took some initial measurements of the Camaro's cockpit and since they might be useful to someone else, I thought I would post. 

First the lengths, which are measured from the front of the seat (not the rail, the actual seat) to the back firewall with the seat as far backwards as it'll go. 

Steering wheel = Even with front of seat.
Front of dash = 7 inches
Start of dash Support (where the cutout for the door ends) = 14 inches
Length of cockpit  ~ 30 inches. 
Pedals (not the assembly the actual pedals themselves) ~ 25 inches


The width of the cockpit is around 20-21 inches and narrows ever so slightly towards the end.

The heights from the floor are a bit tricker to measure, but I'll try to get them later this evening. 

So my initial plans fit right into these dimensions. 

One thing I did notice is that the floor is a lot straighter than I suspected.  It's practically flat.  I guess it's where the pedals are a little bit off the ground but you always have the feeling that there is a drop in the back.  So I'm thinking I might make my platform much shorter. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok I whipped up some rough plans based upon the measurements.  This is in no way final and there are already some design flaws, but this helps to understand where I'm going. 

Some of the parts of this won't get finalized until after I've built the platform and slide out floor, the arch that holds up the wheel especially. 

[Fursphere]

I don't know if my plans will help you at all, but I posted a google sketchup of my cabinet in the first post of my thread.  And its got call-outs of all the measurements and angles.

I used gbeef's cabinet for reference, then my 2006 Honda Civic as a reality check on things like seat height and distance to steering wheel.  I think it still ended up being a little tight.

[Howard_Casto]

I check those out, thanks. 

The only thing I'm having a hard time figuring out is that arch that holds up the dash and wheel.  Like I said before I want the thing to be as collapsible as possible.  If I do the arch at a huge angle like in the picture I can slide the entire floor section back into the platform, but the arch will be so long that it'll crash into the back of the seat about halfway through.  I can do a more traditional "U" shape arch that just goes straight down but again, when the floor slides into the platform it'll stop about halfway. 

The only solution I can think of is to have the floor section with the pedals slide into the platform as planned but have the arch mounted to a separate rail system mounted to the outsides of the platform.  That's certainly doable, but I worry about the arch lacking stability as well as finding a way to make it look nice. 

[BadMouth]

Crazy idea, but I'll throw it out there.
I was once trying to figure out what to do with an old treadmill and considered making it into a driving cab that could be folded up when not in use.

Just putting it out there in case you see one along the road. 

[Howard_Casto]

Actually I've got an old treadmill in parts in one of my storage sheds.  I kept it because it has these massive bearings and I thought they might be useful.  You'd have to elaborate a little on what you mean though. 

Never underestimate the amount of random junk I have lying around. 

[Fursphere]

Where are you planning on mounting the screen?  Is it going to be part of the cabinet, or mounted on a wall or something?

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah the screen will be separate.  I'll make it sturdy enough to accept a vesa mount in case I change my mind, but since I need the thing to be portable I'll hook the whole thing up to the big screen. 

[Fursphere]

In that case, why aren't you going with the Playseat concept?  Doesn't get much more portable than that.  I see them on craigslist fairly cheap from time to time.

[Howard_Casto]

I just don't care for them.  Besides, the truly small ones have that bar in the middle, like the one you posted.  They are worthless for working the pedals.  I actually have the steel lying around to build one of those, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I just want something a little more traditional looking. 

If I do this right (and that's a big if) the cockpit will be pretty much as large as a regular cab when extended, which is good because I intend to add vr buttons, thumpers, ect....

[Fursphere]

Well, you could always go this style, and hinge it to make it fold up smaller/ tighter.

[Howard_Casto]

If you look at my pics, it's not far off from what I'm designing.  I have some ideas on the arch, but right now I've been working on my real car as well.  I'm trying to finish up the body work so I can get it out to paint. 

It's supposed to be cooler this coming week, so hopefully I can get the platform and pull-out floor built to have something to work off of. 

[Fursphere]

Are you using wood or steel?  Or a hybrid of the two?

You're sketch-up made me think wood for whatever reason.  That's why I posted the metal frame one.  I originally wanted to go the metal "playseat" style - but went with the arcade version instead.

Go big or go home! 

[Howard_Casto]

Probably a hybrid.  the structure will be wood because it's just easier to deal with, but I'm thinking of skinning the thing in metal and painting/shaping it to look like a car.  the arch might use metal supports as well. 

[Howard_Casto]

Man I've been busy.  I hate it when I don't get to work on any of my projects. 

Not much to report.  I went into my workshop and took inventory of what I have lying around.  In terms of lumber I've got enough to build 12 of the things.  I'll probably need to stock up on screws and misc junk but other than that.  I'll also have to pick up a single 2x5 to start on the platform.  If the main platform is on a 2x5 that'll give me roughly an inch of leeway for the slide-out floor to add carpeting and ect....

I thought I would take another look at that non-working height adjustment motor.  It is dead, but I've got a cordless drill motor that might fit it.  It's something to work on later.  Regardless, power seats are heavy, so I completely removed that motor and it's drive assembly to reduce the weight.  It did make a noticeable difference and the seat is still stable with it removed thanks to the giant spring. 

[MTPPC]

That playseat above is really junk because of that centerpost. I have a buddy with a raceroom setup and it's a lot better, but they all sort of suck when it comes to the slider joint in the middle. It really causes the front half to be unstable compared to a lot of the homebrew setups. I think they are around $350 for the setup with a few accessories. I'm sure I guy can build twice the setup for about half the price. How much are nice passenger bucket seats in a junkyard? Around $40. Another $100 in wood and hardware and you can really build a comfy and stable sim chair.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that was my thought really.  I think the sim frames are really over-priced.  Every one I've ever been in seems flimsy and I would be ok with that if they retailed for around 100 or so, but they usually want 300+

Anyway, I've got to get a 2x5 to build the platform out of and I'm going to pick that up tomorrow, hopefully there will be some rapid progress after that. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I picked up a 2x6 today.  Apparently they don't carry 2x5's anymore... who knew?

I've got a rip saw though so if the height difference is too much I can always cut it. 

It's terribly humid right now so my outdoor projects might have to go on hold for a while.  Maybe I'll work on some software stuff again?

[Howard_Casto]

Ok time to resurrect this necro thread.  I'm getting an early start this year so the heat doesn't swamp me out. 

Since last year I got the broken motor in the seat working.... it was just crusty with rust on the inside.... cleaned the windings and it was good to go.  Too bad the gear box for that particular motor is bad.    I might use this motor instead make the angle of the wheel adjustable... the gears are kind of screwed up to where they don't work under load, but how much would a FF wheel weigh anyway?

If you guys with Daytona cabs would help me out I would sure appreciate it.  I want to know the width of the control panel (in case I decide to use one) and the width of the podium where the seat sits.  If you could get that for me I sure would appreciate it. 

I got the lumber last year, it's been sitting around waiting for me to work on it.  so I guess it's time to start. 

[Brian74]

cp width is 29" and the base is 21"x 57"

[Howard_Casto]

Thanks.... that should be workable with what I've got sketched out anyway so I shouldn't have to change anything. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I finally started construction.  I've got all the parts for the main base cut and I'll try to get the slide out portion as well.  I'm actually running a little low on wood, but I think I'll improvise for now and get the proper stuff later on.  We have a string of rain coming in tomorrow and I'd really like to be able to bring the main base inside so I can figure out the dashboard mount. 

I'm taking a break atm... hopefully by tonight I'll have something worth taking a picture of. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok who wants to look at pictures of a box?  Of course you do!

I only managed to get the main base done this evening, but at least I can mount the seat since that part is indoors.  I've just got it thrown up there right now for scale.  I think I might have went a bit too big, in terms of width, but the slide-out platform really needs to be 21 inches wide, which means the main platform needs to be 24 to accommodate the 2x6's. 

I mentioned running low on wood and just kludging it together for now, but it actually ended up a happy accident.  I threw some scrap laminated particle board on the bottom just to get it square, but because it's so smooth it slides really well on the carpet.  Even with the 60+ pounds on there just far it slides like a dream.  So I don't have to worry about wheels.  I'm not really concerned about how it looks.  The sides are getting skinned with something, probably metal, and the top gets carpet... so as long as it's square I don't really mind the ugly PB on the bottom. 

[Howard_Casto]

Other side:

[Howard_Casto]

And the hole in the front where the platform will come out... you get a nice shot of that horrid pb in there. 

[Jitterdoomer]

Howard, are you managed to install a pneumatic parts to the seat just in case SailorSat made an output for the Daytona USA SE for Model 2 Emulator?

[Howard_Casto]

I would like to, but it's probably out of my budget range.  Getting pneumatics strong enough to hold up my fat butt would probably cost quite a bit.  I did leave enough room for expansion though. 

I'm probably going to install either butt-thumpers or some hacked up gamepads under the seat... more of a san Francisco rush setup, which isn't as interactive, but still gives you some feedback.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I built the 2x4 frame for the slide out base today.  It was a tight fit, so tight in fact that it created a vacuum and made it hard to pull out, so I shaved a little off just to make things easier. 

I went ahead and cut the two rails waay too long, about 3 feet, in case I need it for the support system.  Now that I've gotten everything in place it looks like the entire thing might be too long honestly.  I put a cross beam at the 2 foot mark, pulled the whole thing out and my feet were really too far away.  I might be able to get away with making the whole thing shorter, which would be great as it would take up even less space. 

I really need to figure out my pedal situation and then I can trim things to the exact size and start building the control panel area and it's supports. 

I'll post pics tonight or tomorrow, but right now I'm too tired.  I think the shop camera is dead anyway. 

So I'm thinking that the pc could go in the slide-out portion, with a access door on the top.  The only problem is those a 2x4 studs, so the pc can only be 3 1/2 feet tall.  If I can find some plate metal for the access door, maybe, just maybe I can get another inch or two.  Of course I don't have to put it in a case, but that sure makes things easier to deal with. 

So can anyone recommend a good pc with a small form factor actually capable of running stuff like supermodel?

[ant2]

Id build the  pc caseless.

For my mario kart build ill be screwing everything to a plywood board that will be screwed underneath the seat section.

The spec will be a core2duo - e8500
4gb ddr2
500gb sata drive
Ati 5850.

Apart from the proc, which cost £30 and gfx card £20. The rest were old surplus parts from friends.
So id look for something similar. Spec wise

And that will run most / all current racers
Hoping ill be finished with the rig exterior in the next week and then ill be starting on the pc - check my photobucket for progress, link in thread.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I'm back from the abyss, sort of... unfortunately now I'm really busy and don't have a lot of time to mess with stuff, but hopefully in a week or so I can get back to things. 

 I got a real good deal on a core 2 duo .. only paid 83 bucks!

Check it out:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140112.0.html

Anyway it's form factor *almost* fits in the slide out portion of my rig.  I think if I route out a little of the access door it'll fit just fine and a tight fit would actually be preferred to keep it from sliding around. 

I've been doing a lot of woodworking lately to remodel rooms in the house, so finishing this up would be a good excuse to make room for all that scrap lumber. 

Hopefully I can rough out the thing this weekend and get back to my software projects as well.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so some visible progress this time.  I finished up the slide out drawer and slotted the bottom so that it latches inside the main podium. 

When fully extended there is a bit of horizontal leeway (you can turn it left and right) but I think I can fix that with a bigger stop.  Other than that it works well... slides in and out easily, and stops where it's supposed to.  Yeah the front looks terrible, but I don't really care because I'm going to make a shroud for the front once I figure out all the mounting.  That'll cover any imperfections.  The hole in the front is the hand hold to pull it out btw.

I threw some pedals up there just to give an idea of scale.  My real pedals will either be mounted vertically or will hinge up so I can put the drawer completely back in the podium when not in use. 

Anyway, time permitting I'll build the dashboard tomorrow and then I can figure out how to mount the two together (I have some ideas finally). 

[BzZziLLa]

It's looking good! Sweet seat too. That thing is perfect for a long haul. I'm using one of those rocker gaming chairs for my cab and I'm going to need some sort of padding on mine.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah found it beside the road if you can believe that.  Took the thing  apart, cleaned it and it's fully working. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I'm trying to figure out the dashboard bit it's hard without the wheel.  To anyone with the driving force gt.... the base of the wheel is about the same dimension/angle wise as the rest of the Logitech wheels isn't it?

I'm basing it on the wheel I've been using for beta testing which is also a Logitech.  I hope that they are similar enough to where I can just swap em out. 

I found some tube steel in my junk pile.  It's from an old manual treadmill... 1 inch square and about 4.5 feet long so that should be great for attaching the dash to the base.  It looks like that the tubes wouldn't hit the seat when the platform is slid back in place.  That should simplify the build significantly.  I can cut the 2x5's on the main podium at an angle so that the drawer slides back in place completely.  This would mean the whole dash assembly wouldn't need to tilt forward and eliminates a lot of the (over)engineering.

It all depends on if the angle is shallow enough to where the dash will fit in the seat when collapsed.  I think it should barely fit and I intend to make the wheel removable anyway, so that should give me a couple more inches. 

Anyway, time for me to sit in the floor with some cardboard and figure out the dash.   

[SegaOutrun]

ive got a dfgt but i dont understand the question. What are you looking for?

[Howard_Casto]

You know the base part, where the motor and stuff is housed and not the wheel itself. 

What are the general dimensions of that?

[Howard_Casto]

Well anyway, I'm roughing stuff out regardless. 

I've been at it off and on since around 6pm, but I think I've got the dash-box finished.  Here it is propped up so I can get a general idea of how to mount it.  (I knew those vhs I mentioned in EE would come in handy for something.  ) That piece of tube steel in the pic is what I'll be using for the mount, along with some big old carriage bolts.  The treadmill it came off of was rated for 300 lbs, so I think it should be sturdy enough.  If not I can add additional bracing. 

I'm not sure how I'm doing the front yet.  I'm thinking that I'll put 3/4 plywood for structural reasons with a hole for the base of the wheel to stick out.  I'll put a piece of 1/8th inch finish board over top of that to cover the hole and make everything look nice. 

I'm going to make an actual dash pad via some wiggle board, memory foam, and some vinyl to staple over it.  I want to put a bit of a curve as well so I'll have room for gauges if I ever get around to it. 

[BzZziLLa]

I'm not sure how I'm doing the front yet.  I'm thinking that I'll put 3/4 plywood for structural reasons with a hole for the base of the wheel to stick out.  I'll put a piece of 1/8th inch finish board over top of that to cover the hole and make everything look nice. 

I'm going to make an actual dash pad via some wiggle board, memory foam, and some vinyl to staple over it.  I want to put a bit of a curve as well so I'll have room for gauges if I ever get around to it. 

Good thinking with the wiggle board and memory foam. It'll be awhile until I get around to building the dash on my cab, but this was definitely one of the better ideas i've heard yet. 

Edit: Oh and I especially like the use of old VCR tapes to help visualize the scale of the model lol

[Howard_Casto]

Well let's see how it turns out.  I've re-upholstered stuff before and am decent with it, but your end result is only as good as the material you are using and considering I'll be using the cheapest vinyl I can find..... 

I mounted the seat today, which is long over-due.  Originally I was going to use lag screws to mount it directly, but now that I've got everything together I realized how awkward that would be.  Instead I found these really wide l-brackets that they use for waterbeds and screwed my 2x2's down that way.  It seems pretty sturdy. 

That means I'm locked in btw.... time to figure out the geometry for the dash, cut my steel and mount everything. 

[Howard_Casto]

UGH! 

I was done for the day so I thought that I might try to get the dash bolted on to the base.  So I used my vhs tapes to hold it up again, measured the angles for the tubing... clamped everything together and went to work.  My hand drills just couldn't cut it.  Even stepping up the size when I got to that magic number (1/4 inch) it just wouldn't drill through.  So I was pressing as hard as I could, it finally went through and as per usual when you are drilling through something hollow, it lunged forward as it went through which was just enough to knock the dash box off the tapes and everything went flying. 

So I take the tubes to my drill press and it drills through them like they are nothing.  Long story short, get a drill press.... they are more handy than you think.

Anyway, I've got the holes for the upper stuff drilled, but I need to stop anyway.  I've got to get some big old 1/4inch hex screws for the bottom so it can screw directly into the 2x4 frame.  I'm using machine bolts on top so I can remove the box easily.  I'm hoping this works because if it doesn't I've basically got to re-design the thing from scratch.  We'll see this weekend after I've made a trip to Lowes. 

[twistedsymphony]

Drill Press FTW.

I've got a pretty bad-ass drill press, it's got a 2ft arm and is capable of drilling at measured angles too. paid $75 for it on Craigslist 

I love that thing and I get more use out of it than I would have expected.

[Howard_Casto]

Gee it's only been over a year since the last update..... (stupid medical issues)

Ok so I'm super stressed out so I decided to take a day for myself and I finally mounted the control panel to the base.  I was worried about it needed reinforcement, but damn those lag bolts into the box steel tubes did the trick!  Also my concerns about the rig not collapsing properly seem to be unwarranted as well.  The whole thing, with the wheel mounted seems to slide all the way back in without catching on anything.  I could make it slide back even further if I notched the sides, but I think for now it'll do. 

Anyway I sat in it and for the most part it feel good.  The wheel position could use a little work, but I've left myself some adjustment room. 

I'll take some pics once I've cleaned everything up.  It's a bit of a mess, even by my standards. 

[Howard_Casto]

So even though I'm busy I managed to find a lull in the stuff I have to do and I've been working on this on and off all week.  I think I'll be done with the basic structure soon.  I managed to get the front and back of the dashboard roughed in and I'm currently cutting the trim board that covers them.  I re-mounted the wheel... the board it's on is now on a hinge.  I intend to mount a worm gear to the back of the board allowing for angle adjustment on the wheel.  I think that's a first on these forums, I dunno.  Currently I just have it screwed in place. 

I'm going to finish up the trim boards today and hopefully I can work on the pedal area next.  The pedals are a bit tricky because my rig collapses.  The plan is to make an angled floor to hold the pedals and mount the back of it on a hinge... bolted to my support struts.  So when the rig collapses you fold them upward and they store vertically in front of the seat.  Because the support struts are angled towards the seat, the vertically stored pedals will still fit in my 2'x2' footprint. 

I've also decided to do a vesa mount on the back of the dash.  For now I think I'm going to use an old 4:3 lcd I have lying around, but depending upon how some of the display experiments currently going on in the forums turn out, I might swap to a wrap around layout later on.

*edit*

Pics tonight when I get a chance to upload.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok here are some pics....  after I get all the trim in place I'm going to remove the whole box and run the edges with my router to give it a nice rounded look.  I haven't decided on the color, but the plan is a buttload of polyurethane. 

As you can see I need to do a minor adjustment here and there... the wheel is sticking out just a bit at the highest adjustment so I think I need to pull the hinge attachment point back a little.  If you are thinking there isn't a lot of space between the dash and the wheel you are correct.  More on that later. 

[BadMouth]

I'd want another support leg on each side or maybe an x brace on the back.

[Howard_Casto]

It doesn't need it.  I sat on the control panel after I got it bolted in... didn't budge.  It looks a lot more unwieldy than it is. 

[lolomc2]

what about pedals ?

[Howard_Casto]

Read above ^^

Right now we have bad weather so I'm at a standstill, but the other reason I haven't gotten to them is I have to decide which set to use.  For whatever reason I have a bunch of pedals.  It seems the wheels break over time but the pedals live on.  I've got the ones shown.... a very unique set for an xbox wheel and a set of ginormous (and very sturdy) pedals from a n64 wheel.  Obviously the mounting geometry is going to be different for each one, so I'll have to think on it. 

[BadMouth]

The N64 pedals might not be analog.

I've got a big Friday night of doing laundry and piddling around the basement planned.
I'll dig out a set of those VLT buttons and upload a pic.
The bank of them if mounted Daytona style will be about 4" wide.

I think I've got a round button from cyber sled that says "view point" if you wanted to try a single button solution.
It looks a bit cruddy, but might clean up good.

[Howard_Casto]

They've got pots in them, but I might have to switch them out for a different value.  Both the brake and the gas are these super huge rectangular pedals... they look more like something you'd see on a flight sim BUT they've got a nice feel to them and are super sturdy.  The xbox pedals are part of a pedal/wheel rig that came with a "seat" (yeah I have to use air quotes for that one).  They are a little on the small side, but they are mounted to this steel tube and you can actually adjust the angle.  So I could probably do a set of hang-down pedals with them.    I'm going to fish them all out tonight so I'll post pics. 

In regards to the buttons... I'm looking at the panel now and the space I have to work with isn't THAT bad, so I might be able to use standard ones.  It looks like I have about 3.5 to 4 inches of useable space on either side.  I might end up having to do a vertical line of buttons like someone suggested, but man that's going to look weird. 

[BadMouth]

Belated pics of vlt buttons.  They will need just shy of 4.5" width to fit in.  Thry can't be mounted in anything too thick, 1/8" at most.

[BadMouth]

Tapatalk seems to only let me add one pic per post....

[Howard_Casto]

That's what I was afraid of.  4" I might have been able to squeeze in somehow, but that's not going to work... at least not in a straight line.  Let me pilfer the autoparts websites and stuff outside of our normal scope.  I'm going to have to think on this one a bit. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok does anyone have any experience with these guys?

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-Quality-Angel-Eye-Metal-LED-illuminated-Momentary-16mm-Push-Button-Switch-Car-Dash-12V/32447624253.html

If one can believe the specs they only need a 16mm hole, which would make the total size around .70 - .75 inches a button.  So I could probably squeeze 4 in there somehow.

It's certainly a unique look, and I kind of wanted to do nickel/chrome on wood as the aesthetic anyway. 

[Slippyblade]

I've seen a few builds with that style switch.  They look great!  Though the ones I've seen used were larger than that.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah what I'm worried about is the size.  if I remember correctly they have a bezel around them so they might be hard to press where they don't stick out any. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I got a lot accomplished today in terms of function but boy do I need to work on the form.  I tried a lot of things with the pedals and ultimately what worked best was a simple 1/8" piece of plywood that hinges to the front of the rig for the pedals to bolt to.  It's ugly, but it gets the job done and I'll make an angled floor to make it look nice later.  It folds up pretty well when the rig is collapsed, but I think I need to put a stop on the control panel struts so that it doesn't flop down in the floor... the seat makes the plywood almost vertical when folded up.  I also made an extremely crude vesa mount.... a 1x4 bolted to the back of the control panel box.  Again, quite ugly, but gets the job done. 

Initially I was going to make this to use in front of the big screen, but as the build has progressed I kind of like the idea of just throwing the whole thing in a corner and pulling it out when I want to play.  Thus the vesa mount.  I threw an ancient 19" 4:3 lcd on there and to my surprise it looks gigantic mounted that close to my face.  I think I'll just pick up a 16:9 or 16:10 lcd the next time I see one on sale.  The smaller sizes are rather cheap. 

Anyway, of the three pedals I mentioned the other day I liked elements of each.  I liked the spacing of the ones that came with the wheel, I liked the pedals and springs on the old n64 wheel and I liked the way the pedals are hinged on the lever on the xbox pedals.  So I might end up taking them all apart and building some sort of franken pedals. 

There is still a lot to do even before I get to the cosmetics and drilling the control panel.  The dashpad has to be finished... I'm warping a piece of plywood as we speak, and the floor's underside has to be routed out so the pc will fit inside.  Then I need to build the trap door, which I might skip.... the floor is easy enough to unbolt.  Holes for airflow will need to be drilled... I'm thinking in the front.  Then I've got to figure out the power distribution and cabling as it's a bit tricky with a pc the slides in and out. 

If I don't get done before winter hits the rig is in a playable state, so at least it won't sit around un-used for another year.  Pics tonight or tomorrow once I've rested.

[Howard_Casto]

Oops!  Forgot to upload pics. 

As you can see from the pictures, the wood I used was a bit rough, but it's temporary.  Also note that the monitor isn't crooked, I'm just a bad photographer. 

[Howard_Casto]

Anyway on the buttons front I'm a bit overwhelmed.  I looked through those metal buttons and the selection is a bit dis-jointed.  In the 16mm buttons it's hard to find any color other than blue.  Nearly all of these are 12v buttons, but I'm assuming a resistor just needs swapped... I can't think of a 12v led.  There is a "high flush" version of the buttons, where the plunger sticks up, but I can only find those in blue. 

Also there are black metal and gold metal buttons.  The black really mimic the look of the old Daytona buttons, only a bit updated.

And that's just one style of button.  If anyone wants to take a look and chime in I'd appreciate it.  Remember I have around 3.5 inches to work with. 

[Howard_Casto]

So taking a break from my button woes, I got a lot accomplished. 


I finally bit the bullet and cut the wheel to make it detachable.  I'm probably going to get a better wheel when all is said and done, but this was more of an exercise on how to do it. 

I first removed the entire shaft assembly (with steering wheel attached) from the gear box.  I then removed the big gear on the shaft and went to the hardware store to find a schedule 40 (aka very thick) pvc coupling that would tightly go over the shaft.  The shaft on my wheel is tapered so it only fits on so far but that is OK. 

I took my dremel and cut the shaft slightly longer than where the coupling stopped. 

With the wheel now detached I sanded the gearbox end of the shaft sliding the coupling over it.  When in place the fit is incredibly tight and the end of the coupling lays flush with the outer housing on the gear box, allowing for added support.  I then put a set screw to hold it in place and re-assembled the box. 

On the wheel end I had to cut off the shaft because it tapered too wide.  With just the slightest bit of sanding, a 2" pvc end cap (with hex top) fit inside the hole on the wheel where the shaft was.  This 2" end cap fits perfectly inside the coupling I put on the gearbox.  I then bolted the end cap to the wheel.  The end result is sturdy, but I'm not super concerned anyway as I think I'll make a wooden wheel like "lew" did. 

Now I can attach the wheel by just sliding it inside the coupling.  I'll eventually get a quick-release pin and put it through the shaft to attach it firmly. 

There's a minor bit of work to do but overall I'm pleased with the end result.  It also gives the shaft an extra inch or two in length, so I won't scrape my knuckles on the dash. 

I'm sure this is a bit confusing without pics... those are coming either in a few, or after the walking dead. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok pics incoming. 

You'll see some holes on the front of the wheel, that's from a failed mounting attempt.... just ignore them. 

[Howard_Casto]

I can't sleep tonight so I'm sitting here trying to figure out what kind of dongle I'm going to use for the wheel connection.  The original wheel has 7 wires... one for each button and ground.  I also want to run the pedal inputs through there for the yoke.... I think there are four wires for that.  I'm thinking perhaps a 5v line might also be useful and maybe a few other wires for lights if I decide to make the buttons blink (might be useful for spyhunter).  DB 25 might be overkill... maybe a db 14?

If I can beat the cold weather I really want to try making my own wheel.  I've got a new router and router table and they've yet to be used significantly.   I'm thinking an art-deco style wheel would be fun. 

I'm sniping smart phones to use as gauges on the dash.  For now I'll probably use idisplay to put mamehooker on the phones, but eventually I'll probably write my own app. 

I started test fitting that optical wheel I made last year..... yeah it's not going to work attached under the dash..... it just sits too low.  So I might try mounting it above the wheel instead.  I'm thinking of a re-design.... all of the components except the optical sensor and pcb will go inside a pipe.  So a simple hole can be cut in the dash and once inserted, the optical pcb would fold down on a hinge.  It'll take quite a bit of engineering to get it right, so it's a low priority atm. 

I'm also going to add a removable flight stick.  I would like a force-feedback one, but that seems to have fallen out of fashion.  Maybe a hacked gamepad with rumble?

[Howard_Casto]

So I made the top of the dash today.  I still have to put some vinyl on it, but it looks pretty good.  Pics later of course.  I want to tackle the pedals issue tomorrow... I really don't like that mounting solution.  Then I'll try to deal with the trap door and then I need to start applying finish. 

[Howard_Casto]

So the pedals solution for now is a simple one.  I ditched the plywood and just bolted the hinges directly on the pedal assembly.  It looks much better.  I will eventually make a wooden enclosure around the pedals, but as I mentioned before I'm probably going to mod them heavily, so it's better to wait until I'm done. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I upholstered the dash board today and it turned out pretty good!  I know I had mentioned earlier about wanting tan vinyl, but all the samples I could find looked kind of yellowish, so I went with some black I had lying around instead.  Good stuff. 

Pics later tonight hopefully. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok as promised pics.... first one of the wiggle board without anything on it and then one with the vinyl and 1" of memory foam.  I cut half circles of plywood the contour of the dash and screwed the wiggle board to it if anyone is wondering.  (I'll try to get a pic of it the next time I have it opened.)

[Howard_Casto]

Well minor progress today.  Obviously I don't want a big white pipe for a steering column, so I pulled out a needle and thread and made a real tight sleeve from leftover vinyl to go over it.  I can't believe it is holding.  Thanks jr. high home ec teacher that I can no longer remember your name!  I also pulled the spline from the already stripped back panel on the seat and covered it with leftover vinyl.  I'm not as impressed with the results and I'll probably sand and paint it later on, but for now it looks ok. 

I need to figure out the trap door (if I do one) next.  It's going to take a bit of engineering, so I really need to get it done before it gets cold and I'm stuck in the house away from my tools. 

On the button front I've decided to get a few different kinds and try them out.  They aren't super expensive and it's quite difficult to figure it out without having the buttons on hand.  I found one seller that carries those metal buttons in every color but yellow for a mere $1 a pop, no shipping.  Unfortunately they are the latching type but I'm going to get them anyway because you can often remove the latch or break it by removing a tab.  I'm also going to get some extra white ones and try to convert them to yellow via some yellow leds and the yellow indicator repair tape you can get at auto stores.  You know... the kind of tape used to repair signal lights on your car if the lens gets cracked?

[Howard_Casto]

So something you might have noticed from the pics is the fact that the wheel is a bit off-center from my hole.  Actually it's my front panel that is off, but it's such a small amount I just decided to nudge the wheel over a bit.  The bottom part of that slot is going to be filled with a segment of wood that can slide up and down... remember my wheel will have an angle adjustment. 

I'm going to sit down and order a few sets of buttons tomorrow.  The outrun purist in me wants to get styles that match the sega cabs, but the artist in me wants to get chromed buttons to match the art deco look I'm going for.  We'll see which one wins out.  I've decided that I need to order floor mats before I cut the trap door as the best way to hide it would be to put a mat over top.  With thick enough rubber/carpet I could probably use the mat as the hinge as well. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm having a strange issue with the button ordering.....  If I want a full set I might have to order from 5 different sellers as nobody on eBay appears to have a full set of all the colors in stock!  Quite frustrating. 

[BadMouth]

So I'm having a strange issue with the button ordering.....  If I want a full set I might have to order from 5 different sellers as nobody on eBay appears to have a full set of all the colors in stock!  Quite frustrating.

Which style of button did you decide on?
Some of the regular byoac vendors are stocking the round chrome ones now.

I'm still willing to part with a set of my VLT buttons.

[Howard_Casto]

They aren't super expensive, so I was probably going to get a few and just use the styles I don't like on other projects.  I'm going to sit down and have another go at it this evening. 

I did find a set of rectangular buttons that are only 16mm wide.... those might work. 

[BadMouth]

groovygamegear has the standard size chrome illuminated buttons for $2.35 under the name chromalite.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah and if they would fit I would save myself a lot of trouble and use them.  The nickel plated "angle eye" buttons are a bust for now.  All the good ebay sellers are currently out and what's left are sellers that send a random color.... unless you want to pay 10 bucks a button, and if I was going to do that I'd get a Daytona harness and figure out how to fit it.  Also, and I'm trying to confirm, apparently the leds are on an internal circuit to where they only light up when pressed?  If that's the case then I don't want them. 

I found these and they were so cheap I went ahead and ordered a test set:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12-24V-16mm-Push-Button-Self-Reset-Self-Lock-Switch-LED-Momentary-Latching-/361421282594?var=&hash=item5426631d22:m:mBHNVOrRkF3sLncLj_vKnDw

They look pretty much like the sega buttons but are only 16mm wide and are designed to butt up against each other.  Again, supply woes.... I had to get half in 12v and the other in 24v... considering I have to remove the resistors anyway to make them work on a 5v system I doubt it'll matter. 

[BadMouth]

Yeah and if they would fit I would save myself a lot of trouble and use them.  The nickel plated "angle eye" buttons are a bust for now.  All the good ebay sellers are currently out and what's left are sellers that send a random color.... unless you want to pay 10 bucks a button, and if I was going to do that I'd get a Daytona harness and figure out how to fit it.  Also, and I'm trying to confirm, apparently the leds are on an internal circuit to where they only light up when pressed?  If that's the case then I don't want them. 

I found these and they were so cheap I went ahead and ordered a test set:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12-24V-16mm-Push-Button-Self-Reset-Self-Lock-Switch-LED-Momentary-Latching-/361421282594?var=&hash=item5426631d22:m:mBHNVOrRkF3sLncLj_vKnDw

They look pretty much like the sega buttons but are only 16mm wide and are designed to butt up against each other.  Again, supply woes.... I had to get half in 12v and the other in 24v... considering I have to remove the resistors anyway to make them work on a 5v system I doubt it'll matter.

Latching?  Might be a way to break the latching mech.

[Howard_Casto]

Nah... I mean the led is tied to the switch, so you can't control it independently.  Or at least that's what one of the auctions said in the description.  I'm pretty sure a description on another button was for a ball bearing though, so I don't know how accurate that info is. 

I looked at the estimated arrival date.... sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas......  stupid China and it's low, low prices. 

I guess I better at least order a sample of the nickel ones to see if they are fixable. 

[Howard_Casto]

So on the gauges front I've decided to cut some holes about the size of a common smart phone and fill them with plexi and black paper.  I can back-light the plexi like they do on the outrun 2 sp cabinets until I find a solution I like.  I'm leaning towards NIVO's boxes......  I would just de-solder the 7 segment displays and split them out over 3 or more gauges. 

[Xiaou2]

Why would you want to use a smart phone?   IMO, thats far more added expense, with so many possible failure points.

 Why not just use a smaller LCD display, or a larger lcd that is visually cropped?

Best solution, imo:
 
 You could even use a LCD facing up or down... with a small front-faced mirror above / below it  (mounted at a 45 degree angle) .. to reduce mounting footprint.

 That would give you some natural looking gauge depth,  reduce glare issues,  and possibly allow for more display possibilities.
(Wider window of use)

[jaharr01]

What about this Howard it's small relatively cheap

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Coby-Kyros-Mini-4-3-Inch-Android-4-0-Internet-4GB-Tablet-MID4331-4-BLACK-/161692980679?hash=item25a5a715c7:g:y54AAOSwrklVRXHY


Jay

[Howard_Casto]

I've got one of those tablets (the regular sized version) and they are kind of crappy.  I'm not sure if it's the processor itself or their custom build of android, but they chug on the simplest of tasks. 

To answer the question of why a smartphone....  Any thing I've test fitted doesn't fit in the small space correctly.  I have to kind of arrange multiple displays around the wheel.

[Howard_Casto]

Oh about the added expense part....  cell phones are cheap these days.  There have been a few for around 10 dollars this month.... one was a pair of phones for 10 bucks. 

Like I said though, Nivo's solution is looking better and better.... with some modifications of course. 

[Nuexzz]

A little off topic and I'm sorry accurate • Measures of furniture daytona someone has?

[n3wt0n]

Hi Howard,

I noticed that you were considering using smart phones in your build and I saw this and though it may help with your idea. Different application but the info may still be relevant. They are used phones that are broken in some way. He asked his Facebook friends for old broken phones and he got a few donated to him to use. No cost except the apps needed to run the images. Good luck with your build.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah if I go the cell phone route I was going to use tasker to load up a program of my design that would allow me to display different, skinned images similar to mamehooker's display files.  The only issue is I've never wrote a program for android before.  I'm studying as we speak and which route I go entirely depends upon how comfortable I am making an app. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm thinking about re-evaluating my design a bit.  The plan all along was to put the computer in the slide-out podium so it would move relative to the control panel and save me a whole lot of headaches in terms of wiring.   The only thing is, now that I've got the computer I'm going to use and the platform built, I would have to route out the underside of the floor to get it to fit.  I didn't know how much until today.... it's about a half an inch, which would make the 3/4 inch floor dangerously thin. 

So options:

I could increase the height of the slide out platform.  This is the easiest solution, but I only have about a half inch of leeway that I had added in the design to compensate for the thickness of carpet or a floor mat.  That means if I go this route I have to leave the platform bare and even then there is the potential for the finish to get scraped to heck every time I open the thing. 

I could increase the height of the seat and put the computer under it.  This would cause a cable nightmare and throw the geometry of the rig off as well.  Probably not the best solution. 

I could mount the pc on the outside of the steel tubing holding up the control panel.  That solves the cabling issue, but now the pc might get shook to pieces. 

Anyway I'm going to my scrap pile as we speak.  I'm hoping to get this done this week as it's the last big structural issue I have to deal with. 

[Fursphere]

I was originally going to mount my PC on the 'back' of my cabinet, or inside. 

Now, years later, I've got a subwoofer and 2x Aura bass shackers mounted in the cabinet.  So my PC sits on a table behind the cabinet, with a pretty bundle of cords all wrapped up leaving the cabinet to hook into the PC.

I don't think there is enough vibrations to kill a hard drive (it will degrade performance though for sure), but why risk it?

[Howard_Casto]

Well I shimmed up the floor to see how it would go and it's not too bad.  That being said when I put the pc inside for a test fit and scratched the crap out of the bottom side from a flush screw that wasn't necessarily as flush as it should have been.  I think with some additional shimming or perhaps by taking off the outer panels of the case I can fix it, but I'm beginning to wonder how safe a pc is in there. 

Another option would be to turn the pc into an arm rest and mount it beside the seat.  It'd be pretty easy to do, but that would totally ruin my 2'x2' footprint and I'd still have the issue of the wires. 

[BadMouth]

I personally don't think a pc looks bad sitting beside a driving cab.  A lot of twin cabs had a pc sized box with an over/under coin door in between them.

[Howard_Casto]

It's not the looks I'm concerned about at all.... my rig is pseudo-portable, so I don't want to have to unhook the pc and all those cables every time I move it... I want the pc to go with the rig. 

I could probably make a pretty nifty arm rest and put the pc in there... I'm going for a regular car cockpit and not a racing one after all.  I plan on putting an analog shift box in anyway.  I'm just worried about increasing the footprint and how to manage all those cables so they don't get mangled when everything is collapsed.  I've just got to think on it a little. 

It seems I'll be dead before my buttons arrive anyway.  I'm pretty sure there is a poor Chinese man swimming across the ocean to send me my buttons... and I'm not even sure if those are the ones I'm going to use!

[Howard_Casto]

Well I think I might just put the pc on the side as an arm rest for now.  I'll build it in such a way to where I can remove it if I change my mind.  I started thinking and putting a sub right under the pedals would be pretty cool... it'd be like I feel the engine vibration. 

I'll mount it backwards so the connections are facing the dash and build some kind of covering to hide all the ugliness. 

On the aesthetics front I pulled out some old brass decorations I took off of a 1940's office chair.  As you can imagine they are quite art deco.  It's just scraps, not enough to decorate everything but I can use them as inspiration.  I covered one of the plates in aluminum tape and burnished it into all the nooks an crannies.... it made a convincing chrome look.  Foil tape is quite fragile, but with a coat of clear varnish it should do just fine.  It does such a good job I'm thinking a could use regular metal scraps or perhaps even wood and plastic to make my trim.  Of course I'm waiting for my dumb old buttons to come in so I can't really start.... I have a rough idea of the layout but that's if the buttons I bought are useable. 

I'll post pics of the trim when I get a chance. 

[Xiaou2]

Its a prototype right?   Rebuild it with a larger under-base so the PC can fit better.
Or, place the PC elsewhere.   Having a nice base shaker under the seat.   Its so worth it.

 If the PC has an SSD drive, then no problems.

 You might want some access to USB, DVD, power, reset...  etc.

 IMO,  the steel legs are not that good of an idea.    Using some wood supports would look nicer.
Probably more stable too... if you do it right.

 Also, Thinking... why case the PC?  Mount the parts to a sliding pull tray.  Make sure you have push in and pull out fans.. to keep it cool.

[Howard_Casto]

Ok with the shims I installed previously and after removing the bottom panel of the pc it fits! 

I've decided for ease of tinkering to cut the floor into three sections.  There will be a 4" long section in the front, where the pedals mount, and a 2" section in the back, where the floor is under the seat box even when fully extended.  I ran across these 90 degree hinges I bought ages ago.  They unhinge in an odd way and are specifically for oddball instillations where the door doesn't have room to unhinge the traditional way (which mine won't due to the 2x4 on either side.  The only problem is they are 1" thick, so I'll have to make my opening slightly longer than the pc and brace it so that it stays between the hinges.  Probably not a big deal.  My buttons STILL haven't came in, so I'm on a holding pattern on that one. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I cut my trap door today.  It went pretty well.  I've decided to bypass the hinge all together due to the odd angle the door would open and use cabinet clasps instead.... just pull the floor off when I need access.  I need to drill vent holes and put in a couple of fans just in case.  The plan is to put them in the front and make it look kind of like a car grill. 

I've also started bending metal for some of the skinning.  The brake I built this summer works pretty well.... I just need to get some more metal cutting blades.  Also ordered a wifi adaptor so I don't have to plug the thing into a network.

[Howard_Casto]

Not much to report..... I put stop blocks on the trap door so it doesn't wiggle around too much.... I need to pick up a couple of cabinet latches. 

I also started squaring everything up... things were just kind of test fitted as I was working on things.  After everything was tightened and adjusted it appears that the chair needs moved about an inch to the left.  That shouldn't be a big deal to fix as I used L-brackets to attach it. 

It's far too cold to work on the metal parts today  (I have to do that outside) so I think I'm at a standstill again.  Baby steps.  So I haven't done any pics in a while so maybe I'll do that tonight if I have time. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well my buttons FINALLY came in.  Just in time for the holidays so I can't install them. 

I think for machines where space is tight like mine they are a good solution.  The build quality is excellent and they appear to be 2/3 scale replicas of the traditional VR buttons.  Here's the rub though.... I'll have to mess with them a little to confirm, but it looks like the leds and resistors aren't meant to be swapped out.  Even more frustrating is the fact that I had to get half of them in 24v because they had ran out of stock.  I mean this isn't the end of the world.... I have a 24v power supply lying around and I could just put resistors on the two 12v buttons, but that means I'll have to control the lights with relays, which is just weird. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well you've got to love China for it's lack of quality control.  After testing them, the only apparent difference between the 12v and 24v buttons is the 24v sticker slapped on them.  Yeah they all run brightly at 12v.  So I'll have to use a transistor array or something to drive them but that's preferable to the relays I would most likely have to use for 24v. 

I apologize for the lack of pics... it's just it's the holidays and everything is a bit of a mess inside.  After getting my car back I've been working on it a lot as well.  Third gen Camaros don't have cup holders so I thought I would build a new set to match the exterior beautification. 

[Howard_Casto]

Man I really need to take some pics don't I?  Eh but I'm lazy. 

I haven't had much time to work on things, but I can't sleep tonight.  Those VR buttons I ordered are actually fairly easy to get into now that I know how.  The face of the button just snaps on, so holding the base and pulling on the side will make it snap loose, allowing access to the leds.  Now the LEDs are in a little plastic sleeve and it appears that the resistor is inside the sleeve somewhere, but the led is soldered on so I think a better route would be to simply put a naked led in the socket and attach the resistor at the connectors on the back of the button.  So that means for the most part I'm back to low voltage, which is nice. 

So since I'm kind of at a standstill on the physical build, next I might work on something that I'm a bit more comfortable with.  Obviously the wheel will be the main I/O device on the rig, but the start, exit, vr and "misc" buttons, as well as all the leds, whatever speedometer solution I decide upon, and an analog shifter. will be controlled via a teensy.  I'm probably going to release the sketch in one form or another to progress the hobby a bit further. 

A racing cab has a lot of special purpose stuff on it.  A disturbing trend I've been seeing is throwing money at the problem.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes you have more money than time, but a full led controller and a keyboard encoder for a machine that most likely won't have more than 6 buttons and 5 leds is kind of wasteful.  We are having such a big revolution in terms of avrs now... it's really time to start building stuff to spec.  Eh maybe I'm kidding myself and it's just the cheap bastard in me, but you can get an Arduino clone for under 10 dollars at this point, so you'll have 30+ dollars extra to spend on something else and more importantly instead of a rat's nest of multiple boards you only have to deal with one.   

[isamu]

good stuff man. get those pix out already.

[SailorSat]

I recommend ULN2003A or ULN2803A for the lamp drivers.

You might grab a copy of my "Daytona USB" teensy++ firmware here and modify it to your needs.
On the other hand, doing it yourself is more fun

[baritonomarchetto]

I second the arduino way! It has been used little to norhing in our hobbie and deserves it's own space. I am working on an arduino project too (a "densha" project ) and will report soon (hopefully )

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I think we need an avr section tbh. 

Thanks for the help as always SailorSat,  I've got a feeling that combining the two aspects of our projects would result in one hell of a starting point for most people.  Your sega hardware interface has been extremely impressive. 

[Generic Eric]

Yeah I think we need an avr section tbh. 

pi & dev board

See: What's this board about?

I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm sure if there is an abundance of AVR projects that they may be moved to a sub forum.  That is why tags are important. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm sure it says something about also including avrs, but go and look at the content.  100% pi.  This is probably because "pi & dev board"  sounds like raspberry pi and developer boards for the pi. 

[Howard_Casto]

So not much to report as due to family issues I haven't really had time to work on anything.  I found these stainless steel bezels off the top of coffee mugs... they look very much like those used on a vintage instrument panel.  I've had them lying around for a while, but without anything to put inside they've just been in the maybe pile.  I ran across some smoked plexi today and that was the solution.....Try cutting plexi with a whole saw bit btw.... real fun when you don't have a guide bit.  Anyway, I cut out some circles to put inside and they fit nicely.  Now I can go ahead and mount them as the smoked plexi will hide whatever is behind until lit.  So if I do LED gages, or needle based, or even a tablet/phone they will look nice. 

I've got a microwave to scrap and the front is stainless steel, so I might swipe some metal for my dash. 

My wifi adapter finally came in over Xmas, so I really need to get this in a playable state, but the little stuff is just more fun. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I mentioned that my wifi adaptor came in.  I just now got around to installing it, mainly because I hadn't ran all the cables and sheesh is it a mess.  I have the usb cable and pedal cable running to the dash and the power, audio and video running to the monitor.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but considering there isn't anywhere to hide them.... yeah... for now I've just got them zip-tied to the left support beam.  It'd be nice to run them through the beam, but I don't know how I would make the large ends of the cables fit. 

So anyway, I powered on the assembled rig for the first time and so far so good.  I need to drill the hole for the quick dis-connect of the wheel and then it'll be playable. 

I wasn't feeling super great today though so I figured I better wait.... I'll only have one shot to make it fairly straight. 

[Howard_Casto]

So the first test run was tonight.  So far so good.  I drilled the hole for the wheel disconnect and it was actually much easier than I thought it would be.  If anything it's a bit too tight, but I figure after I drill the holes for the star wars yoke they'll open up a bit. 

Played a few rounds of Daytona 2 and everything seems to be working.  I've still got to install the view, start, coin and exit buttons and then it's the pain-staking task of installing and setting up all the software while I work on the cosmetic details. 

I'm still not feeling great though.... must be the flu or something, so one thing at a time.  Yes I know still no pictures, but the only thing you would notice atm is a pin in the steering column, so there isn't much point. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok finally some pics!

I cut the holes in the dash for the faux gauges.  It's some smoked plexi from a document stand or something.  So for now they display nothing, but because they can be back-lit I could add one of those button boxes like NIVO made a while back, a secondary monitor, or anything really.  The one in the center hides a hole where the optical wheel assembly slides in.  That's the bottom of a pop can... I'll cut plexi for it later. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok and here is my issue with buttons.  As you can see there really isn't a lot of room if I want to keep them away from the wheel.  Also that bezel is temporary, I want to make something art deco like in the included sketch. 

[Howard_Casto]

And here are the pieces that inspired the art deco design.  They are actually brass, but I covered them in foil tape.  I really want to stagger them to look even more art deco, but I only have 4 of them.  I'm wondering If I could cast them and make copies.  About all I've ever been able to make are plaster copies, which wouldn't be rigid enough for this.  Maybe hot-glue or some sort of plastic?

Anyway, as you can see I've got almost everything in place, but it's still kind of rough.  I see a lot of wood putty and sanding in my future. 

[Xiaou2]

Stack buttons Vertically.

 I find it somewhat odd that you are trying to make the thing look nice... when you have a plastic / rubber  toy wheel on it.

 But beyond that...  the gauges are almost pointless.  The wheel is such a small diameter,  and so close.. that you could barely see them.

[Howard_Casto]

I've got a stand-in for the cosmetic details I mentioned before.... vinyl tiles cut to shape and then covered with foil tape... looks pretty good, who would have thought?  I'll probably replace most of it with aluminum stock once it gets warmer, but I'm not setup to work with metal (and the mess associated with it) in the house. 

So in preparation for the teensy programming I'm removing all the 12v leds from the mini vr lights and replacing them with leds from a string of xmas lights that will run well on 3-5 volts without a resistor.  Something that should be simple is taking forever.  The buttons are quite tiny and the leds fit in the absolute bottom of the button.  Because I can't re-use the led housing, I have to bend the leads from the led in a 'V" shape and wedge them in.  Getting them in is easy... getting them in and wedged in good enough to where they will never fall out is a colossal pain in the butt.  I've spent over two hours on the first two.... my neck is cramping up so I'll do the other ones tomorrow. 

The teensy programming will be interesting.  Apparently the board has issues running a HID composite device and a keyboard/joystick so I'll most likely have to control the leds via serial communication.... that is a new one for me. 

I was going to hack a mouse for the removable 360 degree wheel, but I can fake a mouse on the teensy along with the keyboard and serial communication, so I might just do it that way.... I've got to see how many pins I have after I map everything out. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I finished the leds last night.  I'm pretty sure I'm cross-eyed now, but eh.... who needs vision. 

I'm looking at my teensy 2.0 to figure out the best pin mappings and something has to give.  I've got start + the 4 vr buttons, an exit button a radio button and probably a coin button just to be on the safe side.  So that's 8 pins.  I've got to light 6 of those buttons as well so that's 14..... out of 22.  I want to do a analog shifter and a nitro button as well so that's 17.  That doesn't leave a lot for misc lights or a mouse encoder or a button box. 

So it's one of those deals where I can do it, but it'll be really tight.  I've got to think on this one a bit. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I was working on the 360 degree wheel mount.... man I might have to rethink this.  The plan was to use that design I posted in that thread from last year, only cut circles out of 2x4 and shove them in a plastic pipe.  My hole saw bits are crying for mercy though and I really don't want to buy new ones just for this. 

So I think I need to go to Lowes and find some end-caps for the pipe and attach the bearings to them. 

I did run across some gears that look about perfect for the star wars yoke though, so that's one less thing to worry about.

[Howard_Casto]

I started on the avr programming tonight.  I decided to go with serial control for the leds because HID seems to have some issues.  It took far longer than it should have to build a test app because the teensy tends to jump around in regards to which port it occupies.... I'll have to look into that.  Anyway, I'll get the I/O done tonight hopefully and then I can start doing some tests with an analog shifter and encoder. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I got the outputs working.  I haven't really messed with sending data TO the Arduino before.... it's string management is almost as bad as C.  Btw, to those wanting to do custom driver boards I tested mamehooker's serial functions and they do indeed work just fine.  So communicating to an Arduino, or any avr really as they all support serial comm should be no problem. 

I'll do the inputs tomorrow or maybe tonight if I get a second wind.  Still tons of space for some fancy code if I can think of anything. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I have a lot going on right now, but I'm still squeezing in a bit of fun when I get a chance.  I finished the 360 degree wheel.  I had decided upon an arbitrary pipe size to stuff the guts inside early on as it seemed as small as I could get and still be sturdy.  In hindsight I should have went one size larger.  It's 2" pipe and my design was based around those "slip" end caps that fit inside the pipe.... get some of them, cut a hole for some lipped bearings I found, bolt them tight and the whole thing is good to go.  Only I couldn't find 2" slip fittings, only traditional, over the outside, end caps.  So I tried some knockout plugs but they were too flimsy.  Eventually I cut up the 2x4 test rig I made in another thread to fit inside the pipe.  After entirely too much fiddling I managed to make it sturdy while looking fairly nice. 

The build is entirely too odd to explain, so I'll post some pics later. 

Next on the agenda is adding code to my teensy to make the spinner control the mouse.  I found some source and in theory it should be easy.  We all know how well turns out though. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm having trouble getting the 360 wheel to work on the teensy.  An incremental encoder isn't all that hard to setup... give the sensors power and read the two pins, but the pins are throwing back garbage, flickering on and off even when the wheel is at rest.  I hooked it up to a mouse hack and it works, so it isn't the encoder pcb.... perhaps it needs more power?

I might have to drop this one and do a mouse hack.... it's holding everything up. 

[BadMouth]

What game was the optical encoder originally out of?

The standard was "active low", but there were some oddballs that were "active high".
I have a badlands setup which IIRC is active high.

Since it's throwing garbage at rest then that might not be the issue, but it could play a role.

[SailorSat]

throwing garbage at rest? you might need external pullup or pulldowns as BadMouth suggested.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I tried it with a pullup for each pin, but then it just never changed, so I'm not sure what is going on.  I might try mapping each pin to a joystick button to see if I can see some sort of a pattern.... the serial monitor sucks for rapid debug. 

It was out of a wico trackball for the 2600, so it used standard wico/Atari pcbs. 

[BadMouth]

It was out of a wico trackball for the 2600

I didn't see that one coming.   

[Howard_Casto]

Eh the bearings wore out on it and since it uses arcade parts anyway.....

I'm beginning to wonder if I've got the wrong pinout, but I don't see how. 

A 5v Gnd B

That's pretty standard right?

I would check my mouse hack to confirm, but I did it 15+ years ago so I can't remember how I did the pinout. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I'm at a loss on this one.  I still can't get any readable data.  If someone can find me an Arduino based example of a trackball or spinner maybe I can figure out what I'm doing wrong, otherwise it's time to move on, which is frustrating.

[BadMouth]

A 5v Gnd B

Those are the usual pins.  No idea about the order.
If "active low" it's easy enough to tell from the traces.
5v to all 4 thingamajigs.  Ground on a shared trace to the 2 emitters.
Then A and B each on a separate trace from the sensors.

You should be able to just test for voltage coming from one channel and it should change as the sensor is blocked.

I can see having a brain fart and reversing the 5v and ground because you're used to ground going to all the components, but in this case the 5v does.

[Howard_Casto]

Well they look correct to me. 

I hooked the outputs to analog pins and with them set as a pullup they don't move much at all.  Without the pullup they are all over the place.  So I'm thinking it's a power thing.  I might try hook them to an external 5v source and see what happens. 

[SailorSat]

No, you need pulldowns. (10k to gnd or something)
If the signal is active, the line is 5V/HIGH
If the signal goes inactive, the line will disconnect - hence the readings are all over the place.

a pullup will keep the line at 5V/HIGH once the opto disconnects.
a pulldown will pull the line down to GND/LOW.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm honestly not sure if I used pullups or pulldowns.... pretty sure I tried both and neither worked, but I'll try one last time tonight.  Thanks for the advice. 

[Howard_Casto]

I get what you mean now... I guess my brain was fried from trying this all day.  There's a resistor on the pcb that I assumed was a pulldown to ground, but looking closer it's actually going to the 5v, so that's most likely the issue. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I tried a resistor with some power to keep the pin from disconnecting, but it's still jumping all over the place, so I'm not sure if it's a board issue or what.  Anyway, it's time to quit playing with this... it'll just be quicker to hack a mouse and I have one lone ball mouse remaining. 

The pin layout of a teensy is rather odd, so I'm going to wire everything up to a breakout strip and that way I can re-visit the issue later easily. 

[Howard_Casto]

I hate to keep posting about lack of progress, but the whole reason I do these logs is to show people what kind of work they will have to do and what problems they may run across when building their own rig. 

I started mapping out the pins to the teensy, and I'm going to run out anyway, so keeping the 360 degree wheel attached to separate hardware is probably for the best anyway. 
I've got the led controlling part of the firmware written and it works quite well.  I'll do the inputs next.  I've been reading up on how to save settings in a program directly to the avr, so the hope is I'll be able to re-program the device on the fly like the pros do.  I'm actually thinking that changing variables in memory might be better though... it doesn't write to the device, so it would be less wear and tear. 

I'm doing some creative things with the programming and I will release my source... I think it might be especially helpfull for those doing conversions. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm chugging right along with the avr software.  I got inputs working along with a user-definable alt-mode key and alt modes for all the inputs.  All keys can be re-defined via serial communication.  Right now everything is a keyboard key, but I'll add the ability to switch to joystick mode.  Tomorrow I mess with my analog shifter idea and see if it's going to pan out. 

I need to order some parts for the tacho/speedo so I'll re-assemble my rig after my shifter experiments as they will take a while to come in.

[Howard_Casto]

So I've confirmed that some of the pins on this particular teensy is a little wonky... it's been abused somewhat though, so I can't complain.  Anyway, I had to do some rather creative wiring to get a clean signal for the analog joystick I intend to use for my shifter.  Totally worth it though.  I'll code that tonight hopefully. 

[Howard_Casto]

So the virtual gear switches from the analog joystick is actually working pretty well, so I think I'll go ahead and build a simple h-shifter. 

[Howard_Casto]

My little ps2 to usb adaptor came in today, so I just simplified my life and hacked one of my few remaining ball mice.  Man, those traces seem to have magically shrunk over the years, I can barely make them out.  Getting old sucks you guys. 

Anyway, the hack is in place.... I played a few games of Offroad.... all is right with the world.

I might try to build my h-shifter box tomorrow.

[Howard_Casto]

So originally I thought I wouldn't put a coin and escape button on my rig.... I just don't like a lot of button clutter, but upon further testing I figure at least an escape button is necessary.  So I hunted up some buttons I bought for another project.... they are black and only 3/8 inch across.  I can put those on and they will be fairly non-descript. 

The part of the puzzle I'm trying to figure out now is the shifter box.....  I did the math.... I need a 5.5"x5.5" box.  The thing is I'm not sure where to mount it.  Ideally beside the seat would be best, but It's have to be 10 inches tall to be high enough and a 5.5x5.5x10 box is going to look really weird. I kind of wanted to stick to my 2' x 2' footprint as well and that would decidedly stick out the side.  Also I'm not sure about the wiring.  As you all know my rig is collapsible, which makes anything mounted to the seat tricky to wire up to the control panel, which is mounted to the sliding platform.  I'm open to any good ideas. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I'm still working on the code for the avr.  My problem is I really like to program.... it's distracting sometimes.    I've decided to abort my plan to steal one of the pedals for an axis on my star wars yoke.  I've got pins to spare on the avr and there aren't that many games in which having the axis from two different joysticks will cause an issue.  Borrowing the axis with the pots I want to use would require a lot of trial and error in regards to adding resistors to get the right values that I just don't want to bother with. 

So I've got some cosmetic stuff to do and I need to drill the holes for the coin and esc buttons, but I should have everything back together and playable very soon.... just in time to tear it all apart again for stain/paint.  So yeah, before I do that I'll be sure to take some more pics. 

[Howard_Casto]

I guess a monthly update is all I'm doing now. 

So a bit of a setback.  Apparently while the airflow in the bottom of the cabinet is more than adequate for the pc, adding in the transformers for the wheel and amp made it too hot.  I'll have to add additional ventilation and possibly some fans.  Also the cheap amp I mentioned in another thread went poof on me.  It technically still works, but the board is getting crazy hot and I've got a hum that I can't get rid of via normal ground loop isolation.  The speakers are still fine though, so I'll just pull another amp. 

I picked up some stain and I've also cut the box for the gear shift.  Things are moving right along.

[Howard_Casto]

Man I really need to post some pics don't I?  I'll try to pull it out of the corner and take some snaps tonight/tomorrow. 

Ok a ton of progress, but it's the fiddly stuff that drives you mad.  I've used a poly-stain on the pull-out platform... antique walnut.  I've also taken an old microwave shell and used the metal case to skin the sides.  I did this because it already had these nice metal louvers on it which will help with the ventilation issue.  I sanded all the paint off of the metal and polished it.  The idea is to give you the feel of a 1930's/1940's sports car.  Why?  Well because in that era airplanes looked virtually the same as race cars, and I also intend to do flight games on it.  On that note I made a star wars yoke with a walnut and brass finish which turned out fantastic.  I still need to paint the handles and wire up the buttons, but it's good to go. 

Right now I'm struggling with the shifter.  I'm trying to make a design that can be removed as it adds so much to the width of the cab.  Nothing I've tried thus far seemed right.  I'll try to fix that later this week and if all goes well I can stain the box the seat sits on, skin some remaining cosmetic details and put the avr innards in to finish the programming. 

I also need to make a wooden wheel, but from what I've researched that is a project in and of itself.

[baritonomarchetto]

Pics or nothing is happening

[Howard_Casto]

Ok so I'm bad at updating hardware projects... I'm trying to fix that.  Anyway, the racing cab is officially dead, I'm rebuilding it.  Before I start a new thread let's got over the finished project so others can learn from it. 

First let's look at a pic of the finished project.....  Excuse the dangling wires as I've already started taking it apart to cannibalize it for my new rig.  Also the seat cover is new.

[Howard_Casto]

As you can see the finish is pretty rough, but it does collapse and it did have most of The features I wanted.  Here are a few more pics before I talk about the results:

[Howard_Casto]

Let's just break it down.....

What Worked:

The detachable wheel system I came up with really worked well.  I just cut the wheel off from the base and attached pvc pipe fittings to each end.  The pieces already stayed in place rather well via friction, but I drilled a hole through the assembled shaft and put a cotter pin in there to keep the two halves connected.  This allowed me to remove the analog wheel when the optical wheel is in use or install my homemade star wars yoke.  The yoke also worked quite well btw. 

My miniature view buttons also worked well.  The smaller cluster makes for an easier mount in a smaller dash and I think I might actually prefer them to the original. 

I think the smoked plexi and old coffee cup rings for the dials worked quite well.  It's a shame I never finished the software to light them up. 

Finally the rig did collapse quite well, which was the main goal at the time. 

What Sort of Worked:

The optical wheel, which inserts in the center dial worked pretty good but it had one issue... I didn't have the sensor pcb mounted well and it'd occasionally scrape the encoder wheel.  It's currently off the tube atm... I now have a 3d printer so I'll design a new mount for the next rig. 

The lighting and controls hooked up to a teensy worked well, but I never got around to finishing the software or fully programming all the scripts in mamehooker.  It worked for Offroad thunder, Outrun fxt and a few other games I bothered to setup.   The main reason I didn't finish is the fact that the teensy and attached buttons/controls weren't easy to remove... so  I had to program on the racing rig's pc... which was rather awkward.   

The powered seat was also a partial success.  It was fine for sitting, but rather heavy and ugly.  When I started this project my grandma didn't need a lot of help physically so it was fine.  Now that I'm lifting on her everyday it's just a pain in the butt.  For now I'll keep it but I'm actively looking for a replacement. 

The analog shifter, made from a pc raider joystick and some L brackets worked surprisingly well for what it was.  The only problem is it shredded the rubber washers I used for stops, the return spring wasn't strong enough and the software I wrote for it had a slight bug regarding 6th gear and I never bothered to fix it because I play 90% of the racing games in automatic mode.  I'm going to do a brand new shifter build based upon the th8a shifter in the future because I want a shifter for daytona and those older hi/low shifter games. 

What Failed:

The overall end look wasn't at all what I had intended to do.  the plan was to cover the whole thing in polished metal with rivets ect. similar to a WWII era plane/race car.  The problem was, as the years rolled on my free time lessened, and I just didn't want to work on that sort of thing in what little time I have to myself.  In addition I totally screwed up the stain, which each piece of wood ending up a different color. 

The led array dials I created for the smoked plexi inserts are also a failure because I never installed them.  I soldered them up, put a test program on there to make sure they worked and just never got around to it.  This is mainly because I wanted to use them more like a secondary monitor, which again required a lot of arduino programming that I just never got around to.   


Overall I just feel that I tried to do to much.  The new rig will be scaled back and I'll start a new build thread soon.