My dad was planning to get an arcade racing game unit thing to put in the garage but I've convinced him to get a couple of PCs, a couple of G25s and a couple of Playseats (or similar).

The budget is about £1200 but I can probably squeeze him up to the £1600-1750 mark. Here's what I've priced up so far:

Playseat Evolution inc. gear shifter holder (349€ ~ £229) x 2
Logitech G25 (£147) x 2
Delivery in total (~£25.50)

Total £777.50

So that's about half the money taken up already. Now I need 2 computers, 2 monitors and two desks to put the monitors on (the desks can be cheap crappy things, as long as they won't fall apart from the weight of a monitor.

Any suggestions for:

a) 2 monitors - preferably 19" but flexible on that
b) 2 computers - preferably able to play something like rFactor on high(ish) settings (and of course LFS with everything on max with a decent frame rate (60+))
c) better seats than those I posted above (don't tell me to make them myself, I would prefer professionally made ones)

:bump:

Quote from Leifde :

c) better seats than those I posted above (don't tell me to make them myself, I would prefer professionally made ones)

Well I know you don't want me to say it but...

...make them yourself, I'm currently sitting on an Audi 100 seat mounted on a frame made of computer table box section, it cost me a grand total of nothing (car was a scrapper, box section out of a skip, free touch up paint and welding). There's nothing that can't be done easilly if you can either weld or have access to someone who can do it for you and know how to use a hacksaw and a grinder, the seat is far more comfortable than a bucket seat would be for normal computer use plus the fact the frame weighs a few tons means it isn't going anywhere and TBH is much stronger and more durable than cheaply made commercial frames will ever be. Only thing that currently needs work on is the MDF frame I use to hold my wheel on needs braced brackets, tried to save a couple of quid by going for the cheapest shelving brackets from Homebase. As for pedal stands I find that a brick is a fairly effective method to stop the pedals sliding. I know it may sound crude but I've got a homemade race frame and seat that can easilly be take out to make the computer usable for other things for under £20.

For the monitors you can get some excellent CRTs off ebay for nominal sums of money so long as you can pick them up in person http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=18415

I'm thinking about making it myself out of MDF, the only trouble is we don't have anything to cut it to size and I wouldn't trust myself to get it right anyway.

I've looked on ebay and found some 22" CRTs with free delivery for £69 BIN.

Add a system that I found posted in another thread (can't remember who by).

22" CRT (£69) x2
Acer T180 (£255.31) x 2
XFX 7900GS (£101.05) x 2

Total - £991.89

Grand total - £1769.39

I think that's a bit high to push him to so I think making the cockpits myself is the only way to go.

Quote from Leifde :

I'm thinking about making it myself out of MDF, the only trouble is we don't have anything to cut it to size and I wouldn't trust myself to get it right anyway.

Homebase will cut wood to size for you for free (you take a sheet of wood to the cutting place they chop it up and you then go and buy the sheet). For seat frames I'd suggest making them out of some sort of box section dragged out a skip somewhere, much easier to create a strong structure that's almost guaranteed to last than making it out of MDF which you can cock up more simply IMO. Finding suitable steel should be relatively easy, looking on freecycle for a cheap computer table to chop up would be great because you then end up with box section of consitant sizes and to top it off you'll get end stoppers.

I never knew they did that, thanks, I've got a drawing of what I'd like in SketchUp so it shouldn't be too hard to progress from there.

Quote from Leifde :

I never knew they did that, thanks, I've got a drawing of what I'd like in SketchUp so it shouldn't be too hard to progress from there.

Fancy posting it?

Nicked from RSC + editted a little bit. It's similar to GrandSurf's design. There's still a couple of bits I don't like but I'll sort them out tomorrow.

Quote from Leifde :

Nicked from RSC + editted a little bit. It's similar to GrandSurf's design. There's still a couple of bits I don't like but I'll sort them out tomorrow.

Are you currently doing some for of resistant material/product design subject at school? If so you could try to see if you can obtain a free copy of Pro Desktop from your school, it's far more powerful than sketch up and IMO easier to use. Do it soon though because the company that makes it is stopping offering the free student version soon.

I'm doing Graphic Products so we don't use ProDesktop unfortunately. My dad likes the idea of making it ourselves so I think that's what we're gonna do. Thanks for the help

Quote from Leifde :

I'm doing Graphic Products so we don't use ProDesktop unfortunately. My dad likes the idea of making it ourselves so I think that's what we're gonna do. Thanks for the help

Well if it's a tech subject it may be worth asking anyway.


Very complex design you've got there, doable no doubt and a great end product but I think my design would be easier to make. Quickly made my design for the wheel frame, made of MDF and two floorboards, shelving brackets (get triangulated ones) and lots of woodscrews, does the job pretty well and all it requires to make is a drill and a screwdriver, costs next to nothing as well. Can be used with any chair and you could bolt the floorboards onto the main frame bit if you need to be able to store it easilly. What I like about this is the fact that it can be removed easilly for when I ocassionally want to work on my PC and unlike the playseat simply removing the wheel gives me a large enough area to place my keyboard so it doesn't have to be on my lap all the time (like now).

One problem with your design is that I need somewhere to attach the G25's shifter to, although that could easily be added on. I'll have another go at it tomorrow.

Only thing currently missing from my frame is a pedal mount I can't decide whether it's worth making an angled MDF piece between the floorboards or whether I could just try proping them up with bricks.

Attached a couple of pics of my seat frame, all seats are different so there's not a lot of point in posting detailed diagrams but you get the idea, don't worry too much about the strength of this kind of design, this frame is rock solid, without much consideration given to what the forces will be doing when I designed it, so long as you don't do anything silly you should be fine. MDF is very strong and could do the job if used rightly the problem is joining it strongly is not straight forward as welding metal, all I used to make the seat frame were a hacksaw, a grinder, a drill, a pillar drill (not really neccessary but I got fed up having to drill multiple pilot holes), centre punch/hammer, a vice and got someone to do the welding for me.

Quote from Leifde :

One problem with your design is that I need somewhere to attach the G25's shifter to, although that could easily be added on. I'll have another go at it tomorrow.

Well I have attached a Logitech joystick by bolting it through the top surface with home made threaded rod (because of the tiny diameter I needed), there is plenty of room for it on the top surface next to my wheel (make it as wide as you like) I found it was actually really natural having the short reach shifter, otherwise you could modify the design to get a conventional shifter position, no idea how the G25 clamps on but I guess it must use a system of clamping to the desk like the wheels do.