R-Pod MkII Driving Simulator

[ericleroi]

The ducting has been completed.

Pieces cut:

My friendly tool, the staple gun:

Velcro stapled to the inside and sheathing fitted:

[ericleroi]

More progress. Velcro squares are being used to attach various things to the inside of the dash:

Power strip attached:

Main inside panel covered with vinyl:

And trimmed:

This will need to be cut further to allow me to glue and screw to the main frame.

The monitor mount has also been addressed (the cable hole isn't the tidiest but it's functional and will be covered):

[ericleroi]

All but 1 of the interior pieces has been covered.

Wheel shelf and stem (inconsistencies are due to holes):

Bolts are hot-glued in place to prevent movement.

Some cable management:

Underside of wheel shelf:

Velcro strips to keep cables in place:

This will all be covered with a thin panel.

Internal shot - it's difficult to get a good picture:

[ericleroi]

I spent a lot of today fitting and refitting, doing and undoing cutting and re-cutting. I'm beginning to feel that I'm on the final straight with this now as most of the pieces have had their final fit.

I cut a new shifter and Buttkicker panel ... incorrectly ... then made another one. It's easy to get frustrated when an hours work goes down the tubes but I was determined to at least get that done today.

These are the pictures from the first attempt. Unfortunately the top panel wouldn't fit back on so I had to move the kicker closer to the shifter.

I also spent some time wiring up the two remaining Buttkickers - despite the close proximity to the shifter, the one in the shifter pod is surprisingly weak. I have a couple of options there to improve the feedback, neither of which involve cutting yet another panel.

Edit:

With the cabling sorted out, it's looking a lot tidier now:

[richie_jones]

Looks great. What software will you be running, I see it's PC based, will you modify hyperspin for car games.

[ericleroi]

Looks great. What software will you be running, I see it's PC based, will you modify hyperspin for car games.

It's predominantly for simulation software (rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa, Game Stock Car etc) and the Simvibe software requires that you launch it from it's own frontend so I'm having to use that unfortunately. The interface does look nice anyway though.

Cutouts to allow for the inlays have been completed on both front panels. I'll glue / screw the outer piece to the main section:

[ericleroi]

Backing board has been cut for the rubber inlays with it now glued in-place:

Test fit:

Temporarily leaning against the side:

[zomboided]

Good updates and top quality work, keep it coming. Really enjoying seeing the progress you're making

Monitor is looking a little on the small side compared to the rest of the structure - if you were doing this again, would you go up in size for that? Or does the proximity mean it's plenty big enough?

[ericleroi]

Thanks mattedsmith. The monitor is a 29 inch Ultrawide so it's a 21:9 ratio. I will probably upgrade to triple screens at some point in the future and am designing this so I can create a new monitor mount for that configuration without having to take it apart.

I think the perspective of the pictures sometimes has a tendency to make the monitor look a lot smaller than it is.

[zomboided]

Would be cool to see a photo from behind the drivers seat next time you're showing off your work.

[ericleroi]

I'll need to wait for some decent light to take a good one but here's one I've taken previously:

The monitor is 70cm wide.

I've routed the channels and cut the aluminium bars:

[ericleroi]

Vinyl backing to accentuate the mesh:

Mesh sections for the front panels:

Loose fit:

Close-up:

Edit:

[sucramjd]

This is some crazy skills you got there, I cant wait to see the finished rig, can I have a go oh and whats the spend on this must be into the £1000's

[maxxsinner]

Looking brilliant ericleroi. Cant believe your pace of your build.

[ericleroi]

Thanks sucramjd. Not sure of the cost of it but yes, it's in the 1000s. I'll have to calculate it once complete. That will be scary.

Thanks maxxinner. I keep telling myself it's not going to build itself so am just keeping at it and trying not to lose any momentum. Once a cab is operational, it's very easy to lose focus

[ericleroi]

I have a day off today to sort a few things out but I'm also determined to spend some time on this.

Just started on sorting out the dashboard section. Ive created some spacers to give it a more interesting profile:

These attach to the front sides:

The reason they don't extent all the way is that I will need to trim the sides a little to allow clearance for the buttons on the dash. I will attend to that once the dashboard fascia is in place and I can see what's what.

Profile:

Top view:

I'll sort the paneling on these side pieces out next.

[ericleroi]

The cutouts for the dashboard sides have been done. Just the beveling and inlay work to do now:

Rough cut:

Router guides:

Flush trimmed:

Cloned:

[ericleroi]

Just about finished the dashboard sides. There's still a little bit to do on the inside pieces.

Beveling:

Inlay (I had to be very careful with the depth of the router bit as these pieces are 6mm thiner than the others I've been shaping):

Profile:

Top view:

I need to get the ribbed rubber inlay sorted next.

[HazzardActual]

Can i request some gigapig style woodworking tutorial vids? your edges are so damn clean and I wan the same for my cab when i build one.

[ericleroi]

I'll do that when the weather is better HazzardActual. The inside of my garage is too dingy for a decent vid!

I've made the inlays for the dash.

Backing board:

Rubber Sheet (I made sure the orientation of the ribbing was correct - pretty much run out of the material now):

In-place:

I'll go and set one of the panels up to get a view on how it looks all together ....

[ericleroi]

Here are all of the side pieces dry assembled:

[ericleroi]

I've been thinking about lighting and as I'm too tired to do any real work on the rig tonight, I decided where I wanted to place the lighting. This is just an initial view and subject to change.

I'd ordered some LEDs a while ago but also some connectors. The idea will be to run connected strips in certain parts of the rig:

The first location will be here:

Which should provide lighting dispersed like this:

I will then attach some to each of the spacers on either side:

This should drive light down the side of the rig:

The third location will be under the monitor hood / shroud (but set back to provide more dispersed light):

And the forth will be underneath the grill section on the front:

I'll fit a single toggle switch on the dash to activate it all. I don't want to make this overly complex or elaborate.

[ericleroi]

I wanted to complete the dashboard sides so I can start filling and sanding as soon as possible. I've chamfered the inside faces and cut out the access panels. It's the usual sandwich approach:

I need to keep making progress, no matter how small.

[ericleroi]

This morning I have prepared the LED strips for fitting; cutting to size, stripping wire, testing, hot gluing and testing again.

Side location:

I will drill small holes through the side panels for the the cables.

Testing:

It's very difficult to capture this type of light on camera unfortunately:

[connorsdad]

Don't you find those led connectors very temperamental, I had a mare with rgb led connectors not fully touching the contacts.

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