R-Pod MkII Racing Simulator: Now VR Enabled

[SpaceHedgehog]

It can provide that feeling but it's for cooling me down - with lots of equipment in a smallish room with the weather warming,  a fan is essential!

[SpaceHedgehog]

Did some more work on the hood - filling and sanding to get the edges straight:



Covered in vinyl:



Real carbon fibre arrived:



As did some heat shrink tubing to cover the wire hangers for the wall rack:

[SpaceHedgehog]

Started on the wall rack. Cut the backing board:



Put the heat shrink tubing on:



Bent it using pliers and craft foam to protect the tubing:



One headphone hanger:

[SpaceHedgehog]

Filled, primed and applied 2 coats of flat black to the monitor sides:



Also fitted an aluminium bar to the lower section of the hood:

[SpaceHedgehog]

 I'm making  panel with - yes you guessed it, an aluminium insert to sit under the wheel base:



The wood will be vinyl'd

[SpaceHedgehog]

The Wood strips have been sanded on the edges so they are round. This makes the vinyl much easier to apply and ensures it doesn't bubble.

Vinyl attached:



Now to expoxy ...

[SpaceHedgehog]

Cut some more dash panels - I'll likely modify the layout at some point in the future (Symprojects instrument gauges):

[SpaceHedgehog]

Guess what this is:

[ChanceKJ]

Wood?

[SpaceHedgehog]

Yes ...



Hurrah

[ChanceKJ]

Why isn't it milled all nice and fancy? 

Pretty anticlimactic.

[SpaceHedgehog]

lol It does have a beveled edge.

Here's the dashboard strip I made earlier now in-place:



The last piece is under the wheel shelf, waiting patiently to be sanded down. My wife likes the last piece because that means I can start clearing the house ...

[SpaceHedgehog]

Monitor hood sides are varnished and ready to attach:

[emphatic]

I haven't been commenting, as I don't want to interrupt the flow of your updates, but now I'm just gonna say, well done!

[Superfrog]

 

 

[SpaceHedgehog]

Thanks for your continued feedback emphatic and superfrog - interaction on this thread has been important for me; I found it a great motivator.

Hopefully the button box will arrive fairly soon and I can build that in. I'll then make a video tour of it.

[Malenko]

any plans to move on to a 3 monitor set up?

[SpaceHedgehog]

Yes, definitely. I need to save up some cash for that and also a new video card to drive them 

[Generic Eric]

Looking forward to seeing this with its final coat of wax!

[SpaceHedgehog]

I'll be the guy who spends Sunday morning cleaning his car ... indoors

[Superfrog]

Love to see a video tour when it's ready 

And I can imagine that you have to save some cash for the monitor setup..... even dear to ask what your build has cost at the end..
I can even imagine that you don't want to know it at the end 

I even don't get it that so less people response to this great build 
Think they wanna see another WeeCade clone  ( great for them who jump in for the first time, but not for me    )

I love great detailed build where put a lot of love into it 

[SpaceHedgehog]

looking forwards to putting the video together tbh Superfrog

The back of the monitor hood is complete, just a blanking plate visible from the front to cover. Also just finished up with the initial prep for the dash panels. I've filled, sanded and painted the outer edges so everything is clean. These are covered with vinyl but will have the carbon fibre set in from the edge to make the effect more interesting (besides which, the sheet of carbon fibre is 1/2 cm too short to cover both panels):



A couple of bad pictures due to the lighting:



Front view of the monitor hood/blanking plate:

[emphatic]

Looks great! Are there that many racing games that support 3 screens?

[SpaceHedgehog]

Cheers 

Yes, all of the ones I will be playing - rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Game Stock Car - for a more arcade type experience, a lot of the Codemasters games (Grid iterations and Formula 1) are 3 screen compatible too

[Superfrog]

Always when I see some update I think, Why didn't you paint the whole build... It looks very solid.
It was cheaper also instead some laminated pieces, or was it to give it some extra flavor to it   

ps: I'm still a Dutch cheap bastard 

[SpaceHedgehog]

Admittedly, it would be cheaper to paint but I love the vinyl. It has such a nice texture, is fairly thick and relatively forgiving if the surfaces are prepared well. The contrast between materials gives significantly more interest too

[BadMouth]

Cheers 

Yes, all of the ones I will be playing - rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Game Stock Car - for a more arcade type experience, a lot of the Codemasters games (Grid iterations and Formula 1) are 3 screen compatible too

Supermodel Emulator(Daytona USA 2, Scud Race) can do 3 screens as long as your video card accepts it as one big wide resolution.
I don't recall if it was in the last official build or one of the SVN builds since, but it is possible.
Check out the vids on youtube. 

There are a few in MAME.  Buggy Boy and TX-1 come to mind, although I don't know how well they play without a 360 degree wheel.
IIRC, the extra screens aren't emulated for Hard Drivin/Race Drivin because they required multiple copies of the original pcb running simultaneously.  Virtua Racing had a widescreen option.  It's not 3 screens, but you'd definitely want to set it to that on your setup.

Edit: Model 2 emulator will also do widescreen on Daytona and Sega Rally if you set a custom resolution in the ini file.  (The other games it doesn't work with will just display 4:3).  I haven't tried it with ultra-widescreen or multiple screens, but it's worth a try.

[SpaceHedgehog]

Thanks very much for that BadMouth 

[SpaceHedgehog]

Right side seat panel is now attached to the base:

[Superfrog]

  You can be very proud of your build SpaceHedgehog 

[Generic Eric]

I predict that all "HL3: Confirmed" replies will be replaced with "R-Pod MKIII confirmed" henceforth.

You can be very proud of your build SpaceHedgehog 

The bar is set friends and neighbors!

[SpaceHedgehog]

Thanks Superfrog, I am extremely please with how it's turned out.

Thanks Generic Eric. I think I would need a bit of time (probable the same amount of time between HL2 and HL3 - whatever that ends up being) before I would even contemplate building MkIII ! That would likely have to include motion of some description. To be continued?

Compressable high density foam has been used to secure the monitor hood. This sits between the monitor posts and the inside of the hood. It provides a great deal of resistance to avoid the hood being accidentally knocked off. There's no chance that will happen now.

Hood in place:

[Gatsu]

 

[emphatic]

Very impressive hood. There's some weird, black sausage sticking up from it though. 

[floriske.nl]

...

Thanks Generic Eric. I think I would need a bit of time (probable the same amount of time between HL2 and HL3 - whatever that ends up being) before I would even contemplate building MkIII ! That would likely have to include motion of some description. To be continued?

...

Don't have to wait with motion, you can add it to this version, it's not that hard, even I managed to build a motion sim 

I used x-sim, but there is another player in town "simtools" which is supposed to be a lot more simple to set up compared to x-sim: http://www.xsimulator.net/

Ontopic: this is one of the best looking racing rigs I have seen in a long time!

[SpaceHedgehog]

 

Cheers Gatsu 

Very impressive hood. There's some weird, black sausage sticking up from it though. 

I've gone for the Dipsy look :

...

Thanks Generic Eric. I think I would need a bit of time (probable the same amount of time between HL2 and HL3 - whatever that ends up being) before I would even contemplate building MkIII ! That would likely have to include motion of some description. To be continued?

...

Don't have to wait with motion, you can add it to this version, it's not that hard, even I managed to build a motion sim 

I used x-sim, but there is another player in town "simtools" which is supposed to be a lot more simple to set up compared to x-sim: http://www.xsimulator.net/

Ontopic: this is one of the best looking racing rigs I have seen in a long time!

Thanks for that. I had looked at the D-BOX and it would be possible to retrofit. Liking the build in the link a lot 

[Automark]

impressive, well build 

but for the money spent, youd probably also could have bought a real race car 

[floriske.nl]

Thanks for that. I had looked at the D-BOX and it would be possible to retrofit. Liking the build in the link a lot 

I'd keep my hands off of D-Box if I where you. It's told to be too slow for proper race simulation. Would be better to look at simxperience or DIY.

Also if you ever plan on adding 2-dof (pan & tilt) motion moving just the seat is more than enough. A moving platform like I did is fun but overdone for just 2-dof.

Thx for the compliments and KUTGW!

[SpaceHedgehog]

Thanks floriske.nl. I'll look into this seriously when I'm ready to give it a go.

I've been waiting for some 2mm plastic card to come and it's arrived. I've used this to create a blanking plate for the front of the wheel stem:

Cut to shape:



Covered (air bubble has since been removed):



Attached:

[SpaceHedgehog]

Now for some real progress

During the build, my room had deteriorated into this:





After 6 hours of serious tidying and organising, I managed to turn it into something habitable:





I can now relax a little and walk across the room.