I am especially interested in tactile isolation. What have you learned which stands out? What might you do differently now?
Mobile Driving/Flying Cockpit with Motion and Tactile ( Build )
stigs2cousin
Premium
+1 on this request.
RCHeliguy
Premium
But it sounds like the gist of this request, is where did I see the large improvements vs. incremental improvements. I'll see what I can come up with.
I have fallen behind on this. There continues to be a lot of experimentation in the Good Vibrations discord and people there are continuing to learn new things that I haven't tried.
I have never added any devices directly to my individual pedals like some have. I've heard of some other things that have worked for others.
I am also leveraging some of the D-Box haptic effects specifically for the road texture, and bumps. The Engine, wheel slide, and speed effects are still all tactile. The gear shift is a combination of D-Box and tactile. For Dirt Rally I use the Jump tactile effect with priority enabled to make the landings more satisfying. It actually makes all the difference in the world selling the realism. Without that extra kick on landing, I'm still left unsatisfied.
While I'm very happy with the results of my linear rail supported inverted pedal deck, it was very particular about getting the alignment perfect. Because of that and the cost, I have trouble recommending me design.
RCHeliguy
Premium
Getting a bit existential here.
Is some of that how my motivations have changed over the last 6 years?
I think most people know that I am an engineer first and a sim racer second. If I see something I don't like, I feel compelled to design a solution. Or something like the new ASR Pro wheelbase mount is released and it just seems like something that I just need for my rig, so that just happens.
Mr Latte
Premium
Again a lot of people can maybe relate, its not just targetted at you Mark or criticisim. Some have a hobby just continually buying/getting stuff be it tech or whatever their interests are. Even if they necessarily do not use it a great deal.
I don't need an S24Ultra but its ordered, and while I enjoy the S6C watch and S9 Ultra tablet as well, I could live without them. Still though the urge of FOMO I suppose.
You wont be alone in having a brilliant collection of hardware in a rig that maybe does not get used as much as it could. So sharing your own perspective in the honest and down to earth person you seem to be would just be interesting in your own words. I can laugh myself as to what many of our wives think.
Just as we see on these forums some people with multiple wheel rims. yeah they are nice but lets face it, the more you have as a collection, the less you are likely to use them all. Free time is limited for a lot of people too and I think how we decide to spend it differs. Others may be itching to stream live and showcase thier rig and them enjoying it.
"Thats Me Done Now - Its Finished!"
Yet pehaps, maybe we, never want it to be finished when the race is not in the racing itself, if you get me? Such makes us go out, with now a need to modify/find a new solution for a new bit of hardware thats being added or something being changed.
You are blessed, you have health so enjoy it and if sharing your story is part of the enjoyment, I think others will enjoy it too..
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RCHeliguy
Premium
It appears today all my orders for about the last 2 weeks will arrive at once. My Media Room TV died right before the snow hit along with my gas log for backup heat. Fortunately we never lost power.
As a result after my new TV arrives in a few hours, I'll have to put my media room back together before I'll have time to look at the Beyond Audio strap or try it out in game.
This morning I wheeled my sim rig out of my media room for the first time in the almost 6 years since I built my initial profile rig. Lifting a 75" TV off the wall by myself may not be the smartest thing I ever did, but it's down and the mounting rails are off.
As a result after my new TV arrives in a few hours, I'll have to put my media room back together before I'll have time to look at the Beyond Audio strap or try it out in game.
This morning I wheeled my sim rig out of my media room for the first time in the almost 6 years since I built my initial profile rig. Lifting a 75" TV off the wall by myself may not be the smartest thing I ever did, but it's down and the mounting rails are off.
RCHeliguy
Premium
Trickledown....
My media room is back together with my new 85" 120Hz 4K HDR ultra low latency QLED TV. But of course my old AV receiver can't handle 4K, so in addition to a number of HDMI 2.1 cables, I ordered a new 7.2 Atmos 8K/4K 120Hz ultra low latency receiver. While I was at it I ordered replacements for my rear satellite speakers to match the fronts so they will extend a bit lower, be more efficient and blend better with the 4kW subwoofer in the back.
FWIW, I can notice the size increase, but it's not night and day. What is noticeable is the much better contrast. The TV does HD-UHD upscaling pretty well, so it's still handling the bulk of the content it gets at 1080p well. Out of the box the sharpening was WAY too high. The brightness and contrast seemed high too, but I may just need to get used to the TV being the bright. I turned both down some. It has two cinema modes that look pretty good. Standard looked crazy super saturated. It has a whole gaming mode with a number of gaming specific features. I'll calibrate it soon.
In the neverending delivery saga of my Beyond audio strap...
Will it arrive today? Will it go back to the distribution center yet again ?
The thin cushion is still scheduled to arrive on Monday.
Update: It's on a truck again.... and the thin cushion is with it
My media room is back together with my new 85" 120Hz 4K HDR ultra low latency QLED TV. But of course my old AV receiver can't handle 4K, so in addition to a number of HDMI 2.1 cables, I ordered a new 7.2 Atmos 8K/4K 120Hz ultra low latency receiver. While I was at it I ordered replacements for my rear satellite speakers to match the fronts so they will extend a bit lower, be more efficient and blend better with the 4kW subwoofer in the back.
FWIW, I can notice the size increase, but it's not night and day. What is noticeable is the much better contrast. The TV does HD-UHD upscaling pretty well, so it's still handling the bulk of the content it gets at 1080p well. Out of the box the sharpening was WAY too high. The brightness and contrast seemed high too, but I may just need to get used to the TV being the bright. I turned both down some. It has two cinema modes that look pretty good. Standard looked crazy super saturated. It has a whole gaming mode with a number of gaming specific features. I'll calibrate it soon.
In the neverending delivery saga of my Beyond audio strap...
Will it arrive today? Will it go back to the distribution center yet again ?
The thin cushion is still scheduled to arrive on Monday.
Update: It's on a truck again.... and the thin cushion is with it
| 01/27/2024 7:16 A.M. | On the Way Loaded on Delivery Vehicle Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/27/2024 5:12 A.M. | Processing at UPS Facility Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/26/2024 9:24 P.M. | Recent weather has caused delivery delays. Recovery efforts are under way to deliver your package as soon as possible. / Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/25/2024 9:40 P.M. | Recent weather has caused delivery delays. Recovery efforts are under way to deliver your package as soon as possible. / Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/24/2024 6:37 P.M. | Severe weather conditions have delayed delivery. Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/24/2024 6:37 P.M. | Severe weather conditions have delayed delivery. Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/24/2024 10:09 A.M. | Out For Delivery Today Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/24/2024 6:40 A.M. | Significant weather events across the globe are impacting the UPS network. Although your location may not be impacted by adverse weather, the movement of packages in the network may be impacted by weather conditions in other areas. |
| 01/23/2024 9:05 P.M. | Recent weather has caused delivery delays. Recovery efforts are under way to deliver your package as soon as possible. / Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/23/2024 4:21 P.M. | Processing at UPS Facility Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/22/2024 9:10 P.M. | Recent weather has caused delivery delays. Recovery efforts are under way to deliver your package as soon as possible. / Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/19/2024 11:51 A.M. | Severe weather conditions have delayed delivery until the next business day. Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/18/2024 1:48 P.M. | An emergency situation or severe weather condition has delayed delivery. Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/18/2024 11:43 A.M. | Out For Delivery Today Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/18/2024 7:48 A.M. | Loaded on Delivery Vehicle Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/17/2024 3:25 P.M. | An emergency situation or severe weather condition has delayed delivery. Knoxville, TN, United States |
| 01/17/2024 11:54 A.M. | Out For Delivery Today Knoxville, TN, United States |
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RCHeliguy
Premium
I've spent a couple hours in game with both the thin cushion and audio strap this morning. The Audio strap is comfortable and lightweight, so you don't loose that light airy feeling of being able to flip your head around easily. Because it is rigid rather than a stretchy strap, it will hold the headset in place with less pressure on your face making it more comfortable.
The audio quality is very good even when slightly off my ears. I don't have my Index handy to A/B them, but I had no complaints in game. It doesn't have the bass response of my $900 IEM's, but that's expected. I had the Beyond speakers at 50-60% volume in game Playing Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer that have good audio tracks.
The head strap was very simple and easy to adjust to feel comfortable. You simply rotated and pushed pulled the speakers over your ears and then turned the adjustment knobs on each side to adjust the speaker towards or away from your ears. With the headphones adjusted off my ears slightly, I could put the headset on in 1-2 seconds.
My pre-production unit has a few known issues. They had no spring to hold the speakers out so they were floppy out of the box. I fixed that and a couple other issues with some non-hardening window caulk that I use like duct tape. With that the speakers are angled well and not moving, and my audio strap is perfectly silent when I shake my head around.
I'm liking my thin cushion as well. I believe the optics are better when your eye is closer to the lens. I don't have long eye lashes and my brow didn't bottom out into the lenses, but I believe this thin cushion is as absolutely as close as I could be to the lenses and have it still be functional. If I press it into my face a small amount, my eye lashes are into the lenses.
The in focus area that I can look around in appears larger than I would expect from the additional few degrees of FOV I got. However, given how close I came to bottoming out with this thin cushion, I can understand why they prefer to ship with a cushion that will be less likely to have issues.
I think that the pairing of the audio strap and thin cushion may be the right way to go just because the audio strap puts less pressure on the cushion to hold it in place and the thin cushion doesn't give me as much room to tighten it.
I've been told that the final versions will have more adjustability, so likely longer headphone mounts to fit more head shapes and sized. Mine are nearly fully extended.
Likewise I had my adjustment knobs close to fully open to be just off my ears. A bit more caulk to remove a bit of play.
A little dab to remove a rattle.
Below the cable clip is a huge improvement over the original on the default strap. I found it very easy to put the cable in and take it out and the position feels well optimized to hold the cable behind my back for room scale games.
I'll see how it feels suspended while I'm in my sim.
The final production copy will have a spring to hold the speakers in place so they don't flop around. Below is my solution for now. It appears to be hold well enough for me to get some hours in with this.
The audio quality is very good even when slightly off my ears. I don't have my Index handy to A/B them, but I had no complaints in game. It doesn't have the bass response of my $900 IEM's, but that's expected. I had the Beyond speakers at 50-60% volume in game Playing Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer that have good audio tracks.
The head strap was very simple and easy to adjust to feel comfortable. You simply rotated and pushed pulled the speakers over your ears and then turned the adjustment knobs on each side to adjust the speaker towards or away from your ears. With the headphones adjusted off my ears slightly, I could put the headset on in 1-2 seconds.
My pre-production unit has a few known issues. They had no spring to hold the speakers out so they were floppy out of the box. I fixed that and a couple other issues with some non-hardening window caulk that I use like duct tape. With that the speakers are angled well and not moving, and my audio strap is perfectly silent when I shake my head around.
I'm liking my thin cushion as well. I believe the optics are better when your eye is closer to the lens. I don't have long eye lashes and my brow didn't bottom out into the lenses, but I believe this thin cushion is as absolutely as close as I could be to the lenses and have it still be functional. If I press it into my face a small amount, my eye lashes are into the lenses.
The in focus area that I can look around in appears larger than I would expect from the additional few degrees of FOV I got. However, given how close I came to bottoming out with this thin cushion, I can understand why they prefer to ship with a cushion that will be less likely to have issues.
I think that the pairing of the audio strap and thin cushion may be the right way to go just because the audio strap puts less pressure on the cushion to hold it in place and the thin cushion doesn't give me as much room to tighten it.
I've been told that the final versions will have more adjustability, so likely longer headphone mounts to fit more head shapes and sized. Mine are nearly fully extended.
Likewise I had my adjustment knobs close to fully open to be just off my ears. A bit more caulk to remove a bit of play.
A little dab to remove a rattle.
Below the cable clip is a huge improvement over the original on the default strap. I found it very easy to put the cable in and take it out and the position feels well optimized to hold the cable behind my back for room scale games.
I'll see how it feels suspended while I'm in my sim.
The final production copy will have a spring to hold the speakers in place so they don't flop around. Below is my solution for now. It appears to be hold well enough for me to get some hours in with this.
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RCHeliguy
Premium
I just spent some time getting beat up in Dirt Rally and it took very minimal tension from the audio strap to keep the headset moving with me perfectly. This is a new level of comfort. I could wear this all day long. I can barely feel it.
I can also look around more with my eyes in a sharp area with the thinner cushion.
This is now my new best VR experience ever.
I can also look around more with my eyes in a sharp area with the thinner cushion.
This is now my new best VR experience ever.
RCHeliguy
Premium
Below are my two WIMFOV graphs for the stock cushion vs. the thin cushion.
The FOV went from 87Vx98H to 90Vx100H as I mentioned earlier.
The Stereo overlap also improved by 2% going from 75.15% to 77.04% this is compounded by the larger FOV. So it is a larger percentage overlap of a larger FOV. All upside so far.
I can recommend this as an upgrade with qualifications. If you can push your existing cushion in hard and your eyelashes don't touch and you have no problem writing the cost off if you end up with brow interference. I do not recommend requesting the thin cushion with your Beyond headset unless they allow buying an extra cushion and shipping with both the normal and thin cushions.
The FOV went from 87Vx98H to 90Vx100H as I mentioned earlier.
The Stereo overlap also improved by 2% going from 75.15% to 77.04% this is compounded by the larger FOV. So it is a larger percentage overlap of a larger FOV. All upside so far.
I can recommend this as an upgrade with qualifications. If you can push your existing cushion in hard and your eyelashes don't touch and you have no problem writing the cost off if you end up with brow interference. I do not recommend requesting the thin cushion with your Beyond headset unless they allow buying an extra cushion and shipping with both the normal and thin cushions.
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RCHeliguy
Premium
I ripped my button box enclosure on a door frame when I moved my rig out of the media room the other day. It was still usable, but every time I touched it the wrong way it ripped a little further,
I'm still not ready for a full redesign, but I moved it forward 10mm and angled it another 10 degrees towards me. I also beefed up the attachment walls and went from 5mm to 8mm bolt holes that are heavily reinforced. So it will be a little easier to reach and more solid.
I'm still not ready for a full redesign, but I moved it forward 10mm and angled it another 10 degrees towards me. I also beefed up the attachment walls and went from 5mm to 8mm bolt holes that are heavily reinforced. So it will be a little easier to reach and more solid.
RCHeliguy
Premium
FYI, I used Equalizer APO and the Peace APO interface to swap the left and right channels of the preproduction headset. Now I can use it in FPS games without having to constantly remind myself that what I hear on the left is actually on the right etc..
I plan to continue to use the audio strap all the time going forward.
I plan to continue to use the audio strap all the time going forward.
This is probably the first reason I've found to get a 3D printer. I don't have one and nobody seems to sell the mounts/brackets for steering wheel cable connections!
stigs2cousin
Premium
Turn Motorsports has a set, at least for their own cable for the button box.
Awesome, thanks so much! I'll check them out!!
EDIT: Well crap, looks like they may be out of them at the moment.
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RCHeliguy
Premium
Tada! A box and the layer lines are perfect. My Prusa i3 mk3S may be a few years old and others may have superseded it in cost and performance, but I think I'll be using this for a while longer.
I was just A/B comparing the two boxes and the box I just printed is better looking than the one I printed a few years ago. I can only assume that the slicer software and firmware have improved and possibly the profiles used.
Now I need to melt in 21 x M3 inserts and 4 x M5 inserts.
I was just A/B comparing the two boxes and the box I just printed is better looking than the one I printed a few years ago. I can only assume that the slicer software and firmware have improved and possibly the profiles used.
Now I need to melt in 21 x M3 inserts and 4 x M5 inserts.
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RCHeliguy
Premium
I'm glad this cracked. It forced me to reprint and as a result measure how I would want to change the existing non-optimal hacked placement.
Did a test mount to make sure. The extra 1cm forward and 10 degrees of angle made everything perfect and comfortable to reach. Everything falls to hand when I put my arm out.
The original side enclosure was mounted much further forward and 40mm to the right of where it is now. I got used to it, but it was actually a bit closer than optimal. When I jury rigged it as a stand alone box after installing the ASR wheelbase mount, that set it back and to the left just a bit far. It was functional but everything was a bit of stretch to reach with my 6 point harness tightened. Now everything feels dialed in I still haven't verified the Stream Deck XL is easy to reach, but this should be an improvement for that as well.
Starting to put in the threaded inserts. Waiting for the tip to cool so I can swap the smaller 3mm tip in place for the rest of the small inserts.
Did a test mount to make sure. The extra 1cm forward and 10 degrees of angle made everything perfect and comfortable to reach. Everything falls to hand when I put my arm out.
The original side enclosure was mounted much further forward and 40mm to the right of where it is now. I got used to it, but it was actually a bit closer than optimal. When I jury rigged it as a stand alone box after installing the ASR wheelbase mount, that set it back and to the left just a bit far. It was functional but everything was a bit of stretch to reach with my 6 point harness tightened. Now everything feels dialed in
I still haven't verified the Stream Deck XL is easy to reach, but this should be an improvement for that as well.Starting to put in the threaded inserts. Waiting for the tip to cool so I can swap the smaller 3mm tip in place for the rest of the small inserts.
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