Just built an aluminium rig

[ThugUK]

Just built myself an aluminium rig.
Sourced all the gear local to me (Middlesbrough UK).
No real design as such, just copied off a few I had seen online.
Thought it would take a couple of hours, but how wrong was I, it took me all day to build.
Total cost £300.

Ran out of fixings, so still a few more things to do (are we ever finished?).
Hopefully it should be ok, for when I dabble into SFX-100 full motion.

 

[Alex Townsend]

I got the Samsung 43".
If your PC is a dedicated Sim Racing Rig then go triples.
If, like me, you use it for other things, where you need a monitor or 2 (I use them for photoshop plus other games) then go for the ultra wide.

43"? Which model is it?
Hoping they sell it here. I keep telling myself it's also for other games too, but whenever I have any spare time I'm booting up rF2 or ACC. Game catalogue is pretty large and pretty untouched but the sims have hundreds of hours across them.
Maybe I should admit to myself that I'm hopelessly addicted to racing and that I may as well go the triple route.
Now, I only have a GTX1070, so I'm guessing an upgrade in the GPU dept would need to be considered also...
BTW, my current rig pictures will go up shortly and then I'll be posting parts list and pics of my 8020 rig being put together

 

[ThugUK]

Samsung C43J892 (or C43J890) 43" Curved Ultrawide UHD Curved Monitor

https://www.ebuyer.com/900707-samsung-c43j892-43-curved-ultrawide-uhd-curved-monitor-lc43j892dkuxen

 

[ThugUK]

Well I have made a few adjustments to mine now.
I decided that I would like to play other games using my Ultrawide, which would mean somewhere to put my mouse, games pad and Hotas in front of me, and also wanted somewhere to put my keyboard on (instead of on my chair next to my rig) when racing. So I made a coupe of small 'tables' that can be used.

The one in front requires the steering wheel to be removed, which is fine for the likes of Call Of Duty, Red Dead Redemption 2 and a few flying games, but also needed to be set up in seconds (as I hate messing around), so I made 2 fold down arms to rest the table on.
The one to the side (for my keyboard) also wanted to be removable as my room isn't massive and it would have gotten in the way.

Anyhow, here are a few photos to show what I mean...

Set up for racing...

Set up for gaming...

The fold down arms (each side of the steering wheel) in the up position...

Same again but in the down position...

And with the table on, which is only just resting on the arms (on anti slip pads to keep it from sliding around)...

And the side keyboard table, showing the brackets which allows it to be just placed (hooked over) on the gear stick support...

I can obviously use my keyboard table for when I race too.

 

[DrRob]

Good work, thank you for sharing!
Will see if the standard keyboard tray I ordered will be to my liking. Otherweise I might just do a similar thing to what you came up with.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Where did you get the keyboard tray from?
I've checked online here in Malaysia and can't find anything like it...

 

[ThugUK]

Where did you get the keyboard tray from?
I've checked online here in Malaysia and can't find anything like it...

I just made it.
Bought a piece of (cheap off cut) wood, cut it to size, painted it black then stuck some carbon fibre looking vinyl on it.
The metal edging is what is used to edge wall/floor tiles and was reduced in price (£2 for a 2mtr piece).
I drilled counter sunk holes in it to it so I could bolt it to the aluminium and covered the bolt heads with the carbon fibre vinyl so they couldn't be seen.
The 2 trays cost me about £15 for both, the wood about £1, the edging £4 (used 2 pieces) and the vinyl was £9.85.
The aluminium cost me a lot more of course.

 

[Alex Townsend]

That's great to hear and its caused me to pause and rethink.
It's weird. You start amassing profile and connectors with t-slot nuts and M6/M8 bolts and you completely forget about other materials...
I'll look into vinyl covering and wood as that stuff is easy to come by here.

 

[steveA78]

Thanks for the reply.

The price was without the seat (£90 unused 2nd hand off ebay).

Yeah I was worried about these joints as my wheel housing still moves up/down a little. I have now bought extra angle brackets (£3m each) with adjustable slots to fasten it the top of the frame which should make it rock solid. I haven't put them on yet as I ran out of frame inserts to screw them down with.
I will get it finished on Tuesday when I am on nights so will have chance to buy the bits I need (only about £10 more or so). I need a couple of end caps too.

I bought it from here http://www.valuframe.co.uk/
They are in the North East of the UK between Stockton and Durham.

Thanks for the link. I'm from Hartlepool and have been wanting to find a local supplier.

 

[ThugUK]

Thanks for the link. I'm from Hartlepool and have been wanting to find a local supplier.

Well if you go (they are only at Fishburn, so even closer to you) just mention me (say Matt the copper from Middlesbrough) and what you want it for and they will be able to dig out my invoices and supply the same as what I got.

 

[Kieran527]

@ThugUK On the angle connectors, did you buy the cover caps separately or as part of a kit? I cant find the covering caps for sale anywhere

 

[ThugUK]

@ThugUK On the angle connectors, did you buy the cover caps separately or as part of a kit? I cant find the covering caps for sale anywhere

They came with them.
I guess you could buy them separately as they just had them in storage bins and put them all together as a kit for me.

 

[Kieran527]

They came with them.
I guess you could buy them separately as they just had them in storage bins and put them all together as a kit for me.

I'll contact Valuframe when lockdown is lifted and see what they can do.
Can't find them on their website, and im not trawling through pages of catalogue descriptions with no photos.
CHeers

 

[silvestrre07]

Hi:

I'm also from UK (Windsor area) and the only place I found is aluminium-profile.co.uk and thinking going for their black model (https://www.aluminium-profile.co.uk/black-ir-40x80-l-ir02636blk) but now is closed due to the lockdown. Guess I will have to decir.

Cheers

 

[Mike nolan 1985]

hi

how do you adapt the extrusion to the seat mounts are there kits for this or just have to make something out of angle for example?