Mobile Driving/Flying Cockpit with Motion and Tactile ( Build )

[Noctam]

Damn! I couldn't resist. That wheel mount just looks too well thought out.

Nice!
I've been contemplating how one could implement a removable (or on hinge and lockable) front profile to have something like the WinWIng MIPS installed in place when the racing wheel is removed. ASR solution would be perfect but it's a bit too pricey just for the MIPS imho.
Does one of you have any idea how such a system could be built, maybe locked from the outside of the rig with some lever bolts?

@RCHeliguy , if you did not have your racing pedals inverted, would you swap them with the rudder back and forth (maybe possible to use lever bolts or something similar?) or could you think of another solution to have both installed at all time?

 

[RCHeliguy]

I used to have the flight pedals submerged and just slid the driving pedals backwards. However when I upgraded to the Slaw RH Rotor pedals, that wasn't an option.

I know some people are able to just slide their seat backwards to use their flight pedals. A lot depends on your rig. My current pedal deck is a bit convoluted.

I also swapped my wheelbase deck for the vertical mount I have now with a guy who wanted to swap between his wheelbase and a yoke. Lots and lots of changes over the years.

 

[Noctam]

I know some people are able to just slide their seat backwards to use their flight pedals. A lot depends on your rig. My current pedal deck is a bit convoluted.

I've seen that too but always with the VKB rudder because they are tiny. I'd like to install rudders with toe brakes, that's going to be too wide just like your Slaw.
Any idea how one can make the transition as seamless as possible between the two setups?
I've been thinking about installing both on pedal baseplates so that you only have 4 screws to get in and out but I feel like even 4 screws are going to be bothersome in the long run...

Stupid question, but I've never seen any keyboard mount on your rig, where do you store yours?

 

[RCHeliguy]

My rig is pretty densely populated and I do have space constraints or I would have figured out a way to make the new SimuCube Pedals work for me, but I can't make them fit at this point.

For my keyboard I simply use this little table without the rollers. It slides easily on my carpet, the height is adjustable and the support angles forward so there is no interference.

Amazon.com

Here is an old picture.

You can see how I can just pull the keyboard in easily when I need it or just pull it off the table if I want it temporarily in my lap.

 

[metalnwood]

I've seen that too but always with the VKB rudder because they are tiny. I'd like to install rudders with toe brakes, that's going to be too wide just like your Slaw.
Any idea how one can make the transition as seamless as possible between the two setups?
I've been thinking about installing both on pedal baseplates so that you only have 4 screws to get in and out but I feel like even 4 screws are going to be bothersome in the long run...

Stupid question, but I've never seen any keyboard mount on your rig, where do you store yours?

Noctam, I dont think that it will be easy ot have the winwing mips installed inplace of removing your rim. I sit in my pit an feel where my rim is, and I assume you have a good position and it is similar. The mips woould be further away from you and I think would cetainly interfere with the wheel base itself.
This is what I did for the pedals some time ago, just how you described but you can see how it works in reality. I put it in a spolier to not have a big thumbnail clutter this thread.

Spoiler: video

 

[Noctam]

For my keyboard I simply use this little table without the rollers. It slides easily on my carpet, the height is adjustable and the support angles forward so there is no interference.

I imagine that you chose to have it external because keyboard trays are incompatible with motion?

Noctam, I dont think that it will be easy ot have the winwing mips installed inplace of removing your rim. I sit in my pit an feel where my rim is, and I assume you have a good position and it is similar. The mips woould be further away from you and I think would cetainly interfere with the wheel base itself.
This is what I did for the pedals some time ago, just how you described but you can see how it works in reality. I put it in a spolier to not have a big thumbnail clutter this thread.

Thank you for the video! I did not think of the possibility to have cutout holes so that it slides in and out after half a turn, smart thinking.
Yes, the MIPS is problematic in terms of clearance with the wheelbase and would be quite annoying to move in and out even if it worked.
Maybe I have to accept that I need to click that cockpit and not press real buttons...

 

[mechsicko]

Just because of my comments about SimLab removing slots, it's probably worth showing how ASR removed ALL the side slots! Rather than using curved corners, it has a large plate on the back with slots for the seat mount to move. It's definitely interesting, but is even less flexible than the new SimLab chassis. I couldn't make that work for me.

However, I think they have one of the best and easiest to adjust wheelbase supports I've seen and I'm glad they are selling that separately, because I find it tempting.

I'm debating redesigning my button box to fit it. I'm just hoping it comes with silver or black profile for the interior connecting pieces.


View attachment 704565

Personally I like smooth sided t slot for this better, one of my gripes about this stuff is how messy/busy it usually looks, usually for no good reason. There's still plenty of slots left to work with on that rig but a lot less places to trap dust or introduce business. Probably a bit lighter too.

I know you just bought their wheeldeck but here's an inspirational reminder of another direction this could go. Or not but this rig has my favorite custom wheeldeck/button box integration. I say reminder because I'm pretty sure I posted it here before but it seems relevant again.

French simmer @Natalucciu has a cockpit thread on racingfr.net that has a lot of parallels with your own, with a nested set of cool diy wheels and other projects as he refined his rig over years. It stands out to me as one of the more cohesive and well thought out rigs though, that manages to keep from looking complicated despite being pretty busy... a difficult design regime to stick to.

Full thread: https://www.racingfr.net/wbb/index....atalucciu-sfx-100-partage-des-plans/&pageNo=1

His wheeldeck/dash, from render to completion:

design work begins here: https://www.racingfr.net/wbb/index....0-partage-des-plans/&postID=495115#post495115

Lasercut steel

Housing pods on back for electronics and fans

 

[RCHeliguy]

That is beautiful workmanship and is a nice aesthetic upgrade from the existing front plate of the SimLab vertical plate. Unfortunately it doesn't give me the ease of adjustment that was the driving force behind my purchase of the ASR Pro adjustable wheel deck.

However, all is not lost since I can start with a blank page in terms of an aesthetically pleasing dash that fits over this and I've had 3 years to hone my Fusion 360 skills since I designed the last dash/button box. The tricky part will be making the adjustment levers easily accessible while still creating an aesthetic that I'm happy with.

As a first milestone, I have a plan to migrate the critical functionality over. That would make it functional, but not pretty. Once I have it in place and can see what kind of access I need, I can start designing a new dash to fit over it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The Motion Compensation shock mount was a failure.

Do not print that out and try to make that work for sim racing or rally.

It might work for MSFS tooling around smoothly, but all it could do was make me nauseous in iRacing.

I've already pulled the Vive Tracker off my rig. I'm done messing with that.

I also have a couple pieces of 40x120 standing by for me to bolt up the new ASR wheelbase mount in the next week or so to start the design of a new buttonbox.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Also got a little update from Bigscreen beyond.

The new shipping schedule has improved rather than creeping forward.
The start ship date for me as a first week of June order is now Nov 13 instead of Nov 19

 

[Clover11]

I'm sure looking forward to seeing wha you come up with. Got to admit, I'm a little surprised as I know how much work went into your current dash, which seems awfully nice to me. I'm going to guess you partially wanted to make a new version with your current skill set.

The design of the adjustable wheel deck does seem well thought out. I printed off your stick mount and basically copied your flight stick layout on my P1-X and it seems to fit me but I also the only orentation I have tried. Curious, are you going to change your stick mount once you have more room from moving your wheel deck?

 

[RCHeliguy]

The stick mount will have to change to accommodate the FFB base that is still on the way.

The placement may not change much. My seat is causing more interference than the wheelbase is at this point.

However what I'm not sure about is if I can dial in the stick position so that it will no longer need a counter balance.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I've been mostly happy with my dash/button box arrangement for the last 3 years, but there is a lot of real estate being used by controls that collect dust.

I'm looking at designing a simplified dash with only the controls that I've used over the last 3 years. My first stage of this will be just to get the required functionality I need to make it usable.

I'll move the iRacing specific controls to my Precision Sim Engineering wheel since that's all I use in iRacing. The shared controls and Dirt Rally 2.0 controls will stay on the dash.

The rotaries are gone. The replay binnacle is gone as are a bunch of buttons I don't need.

I'll probably keep a set of spare controls on the edge of the outside of button box just in case I need them, both easy to find, but out of the way of the controls I know I'll use.

I may attempt to print something a more organic this time.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Hoping to see a shipping email from BigscreenVR and ASR any time now. I have no idea which will get here first. ASR is shipping my new adjustable wheelbase mount from Canada and BigscreenVR is in CA.

A friend of mine who ordered his ASR mount a day before me got his shipping notification yesterday. I think it's going to Austria. Hopefully I'll see my shipping email from ASR today.

Meanwhile I'm seeing a lot more people showing pictures of their new BSB's on the Bigscreen discord and leaving reviews. To date the reviews are from people going from Reverb G2's, Valve Indexes and Varjo Aeros. Others waiting have Q2's or Q3's, Crystal's, Pico 4's. So far the weakest video card I've seen used with a BSB is a 4070 and it seems like he's getting reasonable results but he's not using any beefy sims.

The BSB feedback has been mostly very positive, but not perfect. Still really curious to see how I feel about mine once it gets here.

I'm continuing to get updates from @mechsicko and it's looking like maybe some time before Christmas is possible for the FFB stick. Fingers crossed, but also no pressure. He continues to make some very thoughtful design changes and I think by the time he is happy with it, it will be a piece of art

Recently I watched Artur (of Somnium VR)'s in depth technical video about the state of VR. It runs about an hour and a half and covers a lot of meaty subjects in depth. After letting that sink in a while, it got me thinking and I'd put some additional context around it in terms of the crazy expectations that people have for VR right now and how it describes exactly what we see right now being offered by headset manufacturers.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Just ordered some adhesive backed aluminum anodized rulers for my ASR adjustable wheelbase. I'll see if these will work.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

I'm thinking I'll use one for the fore/aft slider and two vertical rulers on each vertical slider.

I'm debating sticking them to a 3D printed part that I can slide to easily reset "MY" center point if I decide to change where I like it.

I'm also thinking about quick release supports on each vertical side to make it easier to adjust them, but I'll have to see how it works in practice to see if this is helpful or not.

 

[RCHeliguy]

A little song I generated with some AI help that seemed appropriate.
Using app.suno.ai

heavy metal aggressive fast-paced
[Verse] Sittin' in my room, waitin' for the postman to come
Got my fingers tappin', heart is pumpin', I'm not done (not done)
I ordered somethin' wicked, somethin' heavy, somethin' loud
A package full of metal, gonna make me scream and shout (scream and shout, yeah)

[Chorus] Deliver, deliver, deliver to my door (my door)
Gimme what I ordered, I can't wait anymore
I'm a random internet guy, lost in the cyberspace (ooh-yeah)
But when I get that package, it's gonna light up my face (gonna light up my face)

 

[RCHeliguy]

I sent ASR a link to this video and they just replied below

 

[RCHeliguy]

These are pictures of the ASR Adjustable wheelbase. (not my rig)

Looks very nice. Notice that the SC2 bolt heads are completely recessed into the mount plate. It not only looks good, but it won't rub against any wound USB cables, but the side plates for tilting could catch depending on where I put the plug. I won't be using my mount cover with this.

ASR is using profile slotted on one side and smooth on the other.
That means I can rotate the slots up if I want to use them for mount points, which I do!

 

[RCHeliguy]

It's a good day!

 

[RCHeliguy]

It's Christmas!