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Driving Cabinet build


Fursphere

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Don't you lose the buttons when you do that? And the G27 has a board directly under the center steering wheel cap for the on "on wheel" LED tachometer (which is of questionable use to begin with...). Then directly behind that it has the paddle shifter assembly. I didn't dig any deeper than that. I'm sure its possible, I just don't think its worth destroying my warranty.

The way I'm thinking about mounting it should be rather universal - so if I have to change wheels in the future for whatever reason, mounting the new one shouldn't be an issue. I try to do as much "forward thinking" as possible when I build things... :)

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I wanted to try and extend the shaft for the wheel through the dashboard' date=' but after taking the wheel apart a little, I'm thinking its just too much trouble.

I'm probably just going to hack the center of the dash out like gbeef did.[/quote']

If you have a look at gbeef's thread, I'm pretty sure you will see some pics where he got a 2nd dash and re mounted the g27 to the new dash without hacking the centre. Not sure if the steering shaft was extended though.

I will be trying to mount a g27 wheel in a sega rally dash which is similar to a daytona dash. I will post pics when done if it works well.

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Quick side profile shot.... Garage is a mess, but that's what happens when its your game room / hobby room / work-in-progress project room. :)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23959[/ATTACH]

Looks pretty swish. Keep the photos coming. Has anyone here done a three monitor setup?

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Naa, I didn't take it that way at all. :) I was actually very torn between a "cockpit" style racing setup vs. a full blown sit down arcade cabinet. gbeef's build is what ultimately sold me on the arcade style.

The Sega F355 Challenge arcade actually has a fully enclosed three monitor setup. I had a chance to play one at California Extreme last year - pretty cool. But HUGE. Check it out here: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7770

Specifically:

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I was able to completely my upper cabinet frame assembly this evening. One step closer! TV fits too. :)

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Set the upper cabinet on top of the lower this morning before work. Its bigger than I imaged it would be. 68.5" tall at its highest point.

It comes out from the wall pretty far too - I'll probably have to re-arrange some of the other games to make them fit a bit more comfortably.

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The upper cabinet is officially bolted down to the lower cabinet as of tonight. I did some more test fitting of the steering where and shift. I basically set a board up there, leveled it out, and mounted the wheel and shifter, with the clamps from the wheel butting up against the board beneath the mounting board.

The shifter feels like it needs to be about four more inches out (towards the seat). I started taking the dashboard apart too, so I can hack on it. Also, with the seat raised 5" from the base, my eyesight is dead center on where the center of the screen will be, so that worked out perfectly. I should be ready to start working on the screen mount as well.

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I play Dirt 3 currently. Have lot of fun with that one. I'll probably pickup Dirt 2 as well. I've been looking for good newer games

I've been trying to figure how to deal with the Logitech profiler and emulators. Sure, it can load a custom profile when say MAME.EXE runs, but there are so many arcade games that need different profiles. Haven't quite figured that one out yet.

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So my first attempt at modding the dashboard didn't go so well. I got the shape of the G27 housing mostly right, but I measure from the bottom wrong - so there is a huge gap able the G27 housing.

Its not a big deal though, since I had a contingency plan before I even started cutting - just incase something like this happened. I don't want to track down and hack up another dashboard.

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Nice vids Strike, thanks for sharing.

@Fursphere:

Not sure on the wheel support position for some of these but some suggestions with my rating out of 10:

Bang Bang Racing (6.5 Simple top-down racer)

Blur (7.5 - great game but with some stuttering problems I can't get rid of)

Burnout Paradise (8.0)

Dirt 2 (9.0 The best in the series for me)

Dirt 3 (8.5 a great game)

Dirt Showdown (7.0 slightly disappointed with this compared to the other 2)

Driver San Francisco (8.0 great fun with groovy music)

Flatout Ultimate Carnage (8.5 a classic)

Grid (8.5 good arcade handling)

NFS Hot Pursuit (9.0 - some people don't like this but I think it's a blast)

NFS Most Wanted (8.0 - good fun but fairly limited in scope. Framerate issues largely resolved now)

NFS Shift 1&2 (8.0 Number 1 stutters a bit)

Ridge Racer Unbounded (7.5 Good arcade but not keen on some of the events)

Sonic And Sega Allstars Racing (8.0 Original one - Transformed (9.0 score) would require a flightstick - Transformed would have deserved a Cabinet all of its own)

I will be looking into OutRun 2006 when I can find it for a good price. Had it before and from what I remember, I'd rate it as an 8.0.

I also have plenty of sims (Project CARS - subscribed to that one, R Factor, GTR2, GT Legends etc).

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Nice vids Strike, thanks for sharing.

@Fursphere:

Not sure on the wheel support position for some of these but some suggestions with my rating out of 10:

Bang Bang Racing (6.5 Simple top-down racer)

Blur (7.5 - great game but with some stuttering problems I can't get rid of)

Burnout Paradise (8.0)

Dirt 2 (9.0 The best in the series for me)

Dirt 3 (8.5 a great game)

Dirt Showdown (7.0 slightly disappointed with this compared to the other 2)

Driver San Francisco (8.0 great fun with groovy music)

Flatout Ultimate Carnage (8.5 a classic)

Grid (8.5 good arcade handling)

NFS Hot Pursuit (9.0 - some people don't like this but I think it's a blast)

NFS Most Wanted (8.0 - good fun but fairly limited in scope. Framerate issues largely resolved now)

NFS Shift 1&2 (8.0 Number 1 stutters a bit)

Ridge Racer Unbounded (7.5 Good arcade but not keen on some of the events)

Sonic And Sega Allstars Racing (8.0 Original one - Transformed (9.0 score) would require a flightstick - Transformed would have deserved a Cabinet all of its own)

I will be looking into OutRun 2006 when I can find it for a good price. Had it before and from what I remember, I'd rate it as an 8.0.

I also have plenty of sims (Project CARS - subscribed to that one, R Factor, GTR2, GT Legends etc).

All PC games I take it? Nice list!

There is a tread I found over on http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/ that one guy basically went through the pain of getting every MAME driving game working on his cab (or the ones he could at least) and giving them a rating as to if they were really playable on the G27. (I'll see if I can find that thread again)

Its a link to a google spreadsheet in the first post of this thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,105961.0.html?PHPSESSID=l06bf65fkbfq16hio4vkjp0p47

The unfortunate side of emulation is that you are emulating the controls as well - and some games just don't play right without the original controls. That and the 360, 270, 720, 900 degree steering wheel craziness. Take Pole Position for example. 360 degree wheel (free spinning, no stops). When you crash, or start over - the game centers (calibrates) the wheel on wherever the wheel happens to be at the time. So like on a G27, unless your setup your wheel to snap back to center (QUICKLY), if you crash you could be screwed. And this is where I'm stuck with the Logitech Profiler and MAME

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Quick update.

Finished hacking on the dashboard for now. I'll create a custom insert for it later to fill the gap. Aluminum or carbon fiber or something.

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Built the stand for the seat. Its not finished yet by any means, but the height feels right. The 2x4 and 2x6 - I've been thinking that I'll "skin" then with thin aluminum or something to cover up the "home depot" look down the road.

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And finally hooked up the TV to see how the distance feels. Needs to move back a bit (and up!). Awesome picture quality though - no complaints here. I have tomorrow off so hopefully I'll be able to get the screen mounted.

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Another quick update. Monitor mount has been built, and I cut an access hole in the back of the cab to be able to mount the screen. I'm still not sure on the angle I want the screen. The arcade driving cabinets seen to be at almost 90 degrees (straight up and down). I was playing it that way last night a little (as the screen was setup in the last post) and it seem'd ok, but the screen will be higher than that.. so maybe slightly downward? 10 degress or less?

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Monitor mount almost complete. I glued and screwed the side supports to the inner cabinet walls. Part of me is saying "that's not enough" - I'm not sure if I'll add more or not. Maybe screws from the outside in? Small carriage bolts? Dunno yet. I need to pickup some longer bolts to secure the mounting "plate" to the side supports. I could just screw it in there, but if I ever have to change out the screen - it'll be easier if I have to change the mount at all.

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Screen mounted. I hooked everything up and actually played a few games of Dirt 3 to get a feel for it. I think I mounted the screen about 2" too high. Not the end of the world - I just might have to make a new mounting plate to lower everything down.

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