Case Mod - In Progress Project "Lightning" + Transforming racing SIM Desk

That was the weekends work. Last night i continued to polish up the screens. I hotglued the switch panel to the edges of the screens and masked off a lot of the power led as it is too bright.

I mounted a RGB strip directly into the 12v of the centre screen control panel as i decided if the lights are going to be on, then the centre screen would also be in use at the same time and it saved me routing it to a molex in the pc. I may wire this to the Corsair Link but i think i would rather use the RGB in there for something better

Wired the RGB to the +12v pin


Ran a strip of lights around the edges of the screen and the controller box to the rear for IR
Later i will extend this to the outer screens too


Quite happy with the results of the RGB and belez removal, being able to stack the screens with only 10mm distance behind really helped with the bezel correction and the shrinking of the bezels.







Maybe one day ill expand this to one of the arduino ambilight projects and get controlled backlighting but for now this will do

Next up is to get the speakers set up, the steering wheel in place and then to get the FOV working

 

Been a bit quiet on the build front but theyres not been much of note going on as ive been busy finally playing on it rather than building it



Started a couple of the external jobs. Mainly focussing on the speakers & external parts

Set up the speakers and they seem ok, the control panel (under the screen) works brilliantly but look crap being white so they were stripped and sprayed matt black.


These have been mounted using a homemade Z bracket (just above the speakers) that is fixed to the rear of the panel by JB welding 2 bolts to the rear as a fixing point.


This let me hang the speakers so they sat on the egdes of the screen as head height.

Next job is to mount the centre speaker and rewire the monitors power so its all integrated to the monitor stand.

Another project is to wire a rotary switch into the side of the audio control panel with the following connections

--- NO CONNECTION
--- PC Switch
--- Centre Monitor
--- AMP & Light
--- Outer Screens
--- NO CONNECTION
So this should mean if i move slowly through the rotary over the 6 positions it will power up all the connected devices and switch them all off on the other direction...in theory :/
I can also stop on amp & lights and only have the centre monitor powered, however this will mean when switching off the amp and light will stay on i think

 

Ive take a bit of time off over christmas but im back onto it again.

Couple of updates:

- I rewired the monitor & pc power into the 5.1 control box temporarily. now as long is i only use this to switch on/off the pc then all the components switch on in one. PC, Sound and monitors. Downside that i didnt forsee... if i switch off one of the monitors, this also acts as the main switch and powers down the whole system, so ill have to go back to the drawing board with this one.

- Treat myself to a present can you spot the difference??




It plays much nicer, i wasnt sure if it would be woth the upgrade going from the Force Momo to the G27 but im glad i did, its smoother, quieter, and the feedback seems much punchier. Still trying to learn to use gears but im getting better.

- Birthday and christmas brought me a few gits from the girl

Pipo W3F chinese Dual boot tablet
Arduino Clone
5m adressable LEDS

Love the tablet, its only 1.3ghz intel baytrail (boost 1.8) but its perfectly usable daily for browsing and some light google sketchup. Came with 8.1 & android 4.4. and a 4gb recovery partition, a lot of messing about and its now on windows 10 & Android with loads of free space
Bought the magnetic keyboard & 64gb SD so its a sub £100 surface

The arduino:

All wired up for now temporary




im having problems with. Ive never played with arduino so im struggling with the code and TBH im not sure if it may be because its a clone. Im trying to set it up as an ambilight. I have managed to get it working with the demo script that scrolls the colours but the ambilight script seems to do nothing. Ive only played with it for a while so ill need to spend more time with this i think

In other news, Ive had another idea on how to make the water manifold and close to clicking buy on the acrylic but ill also need a load of fittings (40 ish), im planning to get them from Taobao but I need to research more on how to buy from these guys, Has anyone bought from these before? Any pitfalls i need to be aware of??

And finally.......

Another project I would like to do but i need the tools and space to build it so it could prove difficult is a moving desk. What id like to do is mount the vertical monitor post direct to the desks top and remove the V heavy base plate.

Build a frame from steel box section and hinge the legs, these will be mounted to 1500n actuators so when the desk is in normal mode it stands straight, when the actuators are retracted the legs tip 45 degrees, this then puts it into racing sim mode by moving the pedals further away, the KB tray will move under the top slightly and most importantly the whole top of the desk will drop 30cm.
Ill put the whole thing on wheels and so when i want to go racing ill drop the desk and wheel it over to the sofa.... that or buy another chair

So heres the plans (made on my new tablet )

Verical (normal mode)


Desk Edging (acrylic sandwiched and lit - Tron style)


Sim mode


Ive not seen anyone build something like this before and I would like to be the first as its my idea so I ask kindly if you would like to copy this idea, please let me get there first

 

Im now in a position I can build the table. Ive been playing with the design and I changed it quite a bit due to not being able to guarantee it wouldnt tip over. The new design also means i only have to buy one actuator.

In High Position:


Low Position


Rear


Switch Panel


The desk will drop 20cm, the switch panel will be made from aluminium strips sandwiched into the trim and all wired up with touch sensitive switches to control:
Desk Height + / -
PC power
Amp Power
Lighting Power
Monitor 1
Monitor 2
Monitor 3
Vol + / -
And HDD activity light

 

I have found a donor desk frame which i'll be using as the the top and bottom (thanks dodge ) And who will be helping to cut it up and weld it
The plan it to remove the uprights and replace these with new scissor legs

 

The actuator & Steel has been bought



Steel 60.27
Actuatror 42.11
Carbon wrap 13.99
MDF 15
trim 4
acrylic 25
Bolts 5
Switches 15
wheels 6
runners 6
£192.37

So im waiting on the steel to arrive next week and then its build time.

 

The plan it that the tower will be fixed (semi) to the edge of the desk all on rollers,
This will allow me to roll the table (and tower) out from its normal place, out in front of the sofa and drop the height which will set it to a natural racing position so i can have a normal desk and also a cockpit style layout