Hello all! New sim racer here and looking to start a bit of a build log for a couple reasons:
BACKGROUND
Around mid 2014 I heard about Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) and given I spent my entire adolescence wanting to be a fighter pilot (before the Navy told me the dream was dead due to me being red/green colorblind) it seemed like something that might be relevant to my interests. Boy was I right! As I assume most of you have experienced, I quickly fell down that peripheral rabbit hole. Said "rabbit hole" become more of a "black hole" that I was falling down at hyperspeed, and the rest is history. From one HOTAS to the next, I ended up becoming very enthralled with the high-end boutique peripherals. Over the ~6 years since I started on DCS, I've gone through waves of being on and off with playing - "off" times being mostly due to my career taking too much of my time and/or other personal life obligations - and I've ebbed and flowed with my level of seriousness with playing. I've joined virtual squadrons and fought in the SATAL league there, I've read military flight manuals front to back to learn more about operating the jets, etc. To this day I still retain a love and enjoyment for DCS, although I haven't played much the past year or so.
Around June of 2020, after years of thinking "I should get into sim racing" (and being told as much by some of my flight sim buddies), I started to get serious about it. Again, I fell down that rabbit hole and became determined to get a racing rig put together. The twist this time was that my wife and I were expecting our first child in July, and we had just bought a new home that was undergoing a lot of renovations...plus there was a small global pandemic going on. Not exactly optimal timing, but life rarely lines up perfectly, so I said "Screw it" and proceeded ahead anyway. With the learnings from my flight sim hardware shenanigans, I subscribed to the "Buy Once, Cry Once" philosophy from day 1 here with the racing build.
I had never sim raced before, but I own an AMG and have always loved fast cars. In 2018, I did an AMG Academy Track Day @ Leguna Seca which was incredible and gave me confidence that I would love sim racing the same as I do flight simming. That day I was told by "Nipper" (my instructor for the day) that I "was a natural", but still I never took the leap to get a racing rig put together. Now that has changed...
PRESENT DAY BUILD
At the end of July, after the baby had arrived, I started ordering the racing rig hardware and checking hourly for the out of stock items to come back into stock. Below is what I settled on for the build and I ordered as soon as the items came back into stock:
The contractors were here for a month or so getting all of that done, and at this point everything is mostly finished besides some things I am going to DIY myself, and then having the painters come (which we cancelled in early December due to COVID spiking again, and we will likely have them come in the Spring once things hopefully have settled down).
Here are some photos of the build....
PROGRESS SHOTS:
FINAL PRODUCT:
I have since cleaned up all the wires with some TLC on cable management. I will get more photos of that up soon.
NEXT STEPS:
Regarding adding my flight sim equipment to the P1-X, I still have some more thinking/planning to do on this one. Since we all love photos, here are some shots of my current gear...
FLIGHT GEAR:
Regarding the button boxes, I have about $1500 worth of mil-spec switches, rotaries, and other misc stuff that I purchased when I was planning to build a 1:1 replica cockpit of a F/A-18C Hornet. These are mostly Honeywell and EATON/Cutler Hammer, and are incredibly high quality with a great tactile feel. I've also got a landing gear handle from a GR-4 Tornado fighter jet that I will need to build into one of the botton boxes as well, as well as a landing HOOK handle. My point here is that I've got a lot of the materials already on hand that I can use for a racing box, I'll just need to add a few things here or there maybe.
While I've never soldered a thing in my life, and am largely not "handy" whatsoever, I did acquire all the necessary soldering equipment before...despite never finding the time to use any of it
Hopefully that changes in 2021, but I'm not so sure given it seems that newborns take quite a bit of your free time, and I've got a lot already on my plate. Someday, though.
That is all for now....the baby needs fed again...but I hope you've enjoyed reading. I'll get the specs of my rig and VR put up sometime soon. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts and feedback!
Happy New Year to all!
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Edit to add PC specs:
GAMING RIG:
- It seems like you guys like this stuff like I do
- Because I know I am going to need some guidance and input along the way
BACKGROUND
Around mid 2014 I heard about Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) and given I spent my entire adolescence wanting to be a fighter pilot (before the Navy told me the dream was dead due to me being red/green colorblind) it seemed like something that might be relevant to my interests. Boy was I right! As I assume most of you have experienced, I quickly fell down that peripheral rabbit hole. Said "rabbit hole" become more of a "black hole" that I was falling down at hyperspeed, and the rest is history. From one HOTAS to the next, I ended up becoming very enthralled with the high-end boutique peripherals. Over the ~6 years since I started on DCS, I've gone through waves of being on and off with playing - "off" times being mostly due to my career taking too much of my time and/or other personal life obligations - and I've ebbed and flowed with my level of seriousness with playing. I've joined virtual squadrons and fought in the SATAL league there, I've read military flight manuals front to back to learn more about operating the jets, etc. To this day I still retain a love and enjoyment for DCS, although I haven't played much the past year or so.
Around June of 2020, after years of thinking "I should get into sim racing" (and being told as much by some of my flight sim buddies), I started to get serious about it. Again, I fell down that rabbit hole and became determined to get a racing rig put together. The twist this time was that my wife and I were expecting our first child in July, and we had just bought a new home that was undergoing a lot of renovations...plus there was a small global pandemic going on. Not exactly optimal timing, but life rarely lines up perfectly, so I said "Screw it" and proceeded ahead anyway. With the learnings from my flight sim hardware shenanigans, I subscribed to the "Buy Once, Cry Once" philosophy from day 1 here with the racing build.
I had never sim raced before, but I own an AMG and have always loved fast cars. In 2018, I did an AMG Academy Track Day @ Leguna Seca which was incredible and gave me confidence that I would love sim racing the same as I do flight simming. That day I was told by "Nipper" (my instructor for the day) that I "was a natural", but still I never took the leap to get a racing rig put together. Now that has changed...
PRESENT DAY BUILD
At the end of July, after the baby had arrived, I started ordering the racing rig hardware and checking hourly for the out of stock items to come back into stock. Below is what I settled on for the build and I ordered as soon as the items came back into stock:
- Rig: SimLab P1-X (Black)
- Add-ons: SimFeet + Seat Rails + Seat Slider + Keyboard Tray + Mouse Tray + Cup Holders
- Pedals: Wave Italy WAVE FORCE MONZA - SIM PEDALS PRO
- I ordered the 2 pedal set with no clutch, as I have 0 intentions of ever racing a car that doesn't use clutch paddles
- Direct Drive Base: SIMUCUBE 2 Pro
- Rim: Ascher Racing F-28 Wireless
- I wanted the F-64 but ran out of patience in waiting for Martin to get this back into stock
- I might add a new rim in soon, but TBD (would be a F-64 or a Gomez rim)
- Seat: Sparco Evo II QRT
The contractors were here for a month or so getting all of that done, and at this point everything is mostly finished besides some things I am going to DIY myself, and then having the painters come (which we cancelled in early December due to COVID spiking again, and we will likely have them come in the Spring once things hopefully have settled down).
Here are some photos of the build....
PROGRESS SHOTS:
FINAL PRODUCT:
I have since cleaned up all the wires with some TLC on cable management. I will get more photos of that up soon.
NEXT STEPS:
- Add a pedal slider to the racing pedals
- Add tactile feedback to the rig
- Add my flight sim peripherals to the rig
- Build button boxes for both racing and flight
- Add motion
Regarding adding my flight sim equipment to the P1-X, I still have some more thinking/planning to do on this one. Since we all love photos, here are some shots of my current gear...
FLIGHT GEAR:
- Rig: WheelStandPro for TM Warthog
- Add-ons: Left Side RSG module
- Pedals: Slaw RX Vipers
- Add-ons: Motorcycle damper
- Throttle: Custom made Throttletek F/A-18C throttle
- Add-ons: Made with Halls sensor instead of a standard pot, and I procured ~$500+ worth of custom switches for them to use in the build, these are the OTTO mil-spec switches that are used in the real jet
- Stick Base: Virpil VPC T-50 base
- Add-ons: Sahaj 15cm Black extension
- Grip: Thrustmaster F/A-18C Replica
- I also have my old A-10C/F-16 Warthog grip from when I had a TM Warthog HOTAS
Regarding the button boxes, I have about $1500 worth of mil-spec switches, rotaries, and other misc stuff that I purchased when I was planning to build a 1:1 replica cockpit of a F/A-18C Hornet. These are mostly Honeywell and EATON/Cutler Hammer, and are incredibly high quality with a great tactile feel. I've also got a landing gear handle from a GR-4 Tornado fighter jet that I will need to build into one of the botton boxes as well, as well as a landing HOOK handle. My point here is that I've got a lot of the materials already on hand that I can use for a racing box, I'll just need to add a few things here or there maybe.
While I've never soldered a thing in my life, and am largely not "handy" whatsoever, I did acquire all the necessary soldering equipment before...despite never finding the time to use any of it
Hopefully that changes in 2021, but I'm not so sure given it seems that newborns take quite a bit of your free time, and I've got a lot already on my plate. Someday, though.That is all for now....the baby needs fed again...but I hope you've enjoyed reading. I'll get the specs of my rig and VR put up sometime soon. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts and feedback!
Happy New Year to all!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit to add PC specs:
GAMING RIG:
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090 Founders Edition
- CPU: Intel i7-9700K
- Still searching daily for a AMD 5900X to come into stock and allow me 2 seconds to be able to add it to my cart before the scalpers, and which point I will just go ahead and update the mobo, RAM, AIO, etc.
- Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master
- AIO Cooler: Corsair H115i RGB Platinum
- RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 3200
- Monitor: Dell U3415W Curved 3440x1440
- VR HMD: Reverb G2
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