Punknoodle's DIY Sim Racing Build 2.2 Final (Updated OP)

[Punknoodle]

I bought an X360 Controller to enable me to play non racing games on my setup. I still plan to make a little lap table thing which I can place my keyboard and mouse on for extended use. Somehow make it easily detachable but stable. I don't really do a lot of other gaming though, especially with Project Cars coming soon!

After I finish building my garden shed (bought, just need to do the pad for it) and get rid of everything in my garage and build a simple workbench that will be my next project. Along with painting the floor of my garage.

Need some more prints for my man cave, too.

 

[Punknoodle]

Over shoulder laps of Barbagallo to show Dashmeter Pro working. Sound is pretty awful - I normally use headphones but plugged in some crappy little speakers for the purposes of making a video.

 

[Punknoodle]

A bit of ambience for my man cave:

 

[Punknoodle]

One more tiny little detail I've been meaning on doing for a while but finally got around to it last night -

Pulled apart an old swing arm bracket from work and used the ball joint part, cut a plate and made a keyboard mount:

I've ordered some strip lighting which I'm going to stick behind the bottom edge / corner of the left hand screen and I'll get a nice switch to control it and install that somewhere appropriate. That way my keyboard will be illuminated in a soft blue glow for racing with the lights off.

 

[Punknoodle]

So the keyboard is great being mounted up there but I usually race with the lights off for a bit of immersion so it's impossible to see the keys. I could have bought a back lit keyboard, but I took a different approach.

I made this bar up with some LED strip lighting I bought from eBay

Mounted it up like this

Made a little switch bracket and wired it up to a small 12V power supply

And now the keyboard is bathed in light at the flick of a switch. I actually ordered blue LED strip but it turned out to be red. Oh well, I actually quite like it, red is less obtrusive on the eyes in the dark.

 

[Punknoodle]

I got a little present in the mail today, DSD tilton style pedal pads. The package comes with 3, but I decided not to fit one on the throttle.

I really like the feel of them not to mention they look a lot more like race car pedals. When wearing shoes my foot would sometimes get jammed in between the throttle and the back of the brake pedal (I had it moved closer to the throttle for easier heel toeing) with the old pedal because they were so wide.

To get the pedals closer together for heel toeing I drilled the pedal base of the throttle to move the pedal face towards the brake. Previously I'd removed the factory spacer and made a shorter one so that the pedal was further back from the brake but now that the brake pedal is taller (the face is a lot thicker) I refitted the factory spacer on the throttle.

 

[Punknoodle]

Decided to try out a few different software programs to create these videos. It's GoPro footage combined and synced with direct feed audio captured by FRAPS. Used Microsoft Windows Movie Maker to make them, it worked pretty good I think, just did it as a bit of an experiment.

 

[Punknoodle]

CSP load cells can be an issue, and like to fail. This happened to me during a race on iRacing which is incredibly annoying, so I came up with this solution, soldered the wires directly on to the PCB and moved the plug to a much easier to get at location, for quicker changeovers. Will have a spare load cell with lead attached at all times in case it happens during a longer race.

Also, emptied out the garage for a couple of weeks and put some epoxy coat down on the floor. So much better than bare concrete!

 

[Punknoodle]

I've just started doing the occasional Blancpain Sprint Series race on iRacing. It's really fun! I wore my GoPro on my head last night and recorded the race. Still learning this class in regards to the pit strategy, tire wear etc so made a bad call in regards to changing my tires which cost me maybe a position or two, but I'll get the hang of it. I have the full 40 min version on my PC but here is a short highlights version:



My GoPro was set to wide angle and it should really be on narrow to get a better perspective but this is pretty good. Gives a good idea of how my rig looks from the drivers seat. Ignore the fact that the screens aren't perfectly lined up - it's because the GoPro is at forehead height. At my eye level it lines up correctly.

 

[Punknoodle]

I had a spare laptop as we just upgraded, so...

Now I can run telemetry on the spare screen for iracing.

Just have to decide whether to use iSpeed or Z1 Dashboard. Anyone have any opinions?