DIY Aluminum Race Sim Cockpit Setup for FANATEC 1/4 (Motivation)
Motivation of this DIY Aluminum Race SIM cockpit is described in this article. I wrote this as a memorandum.
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My design experience with aluminum frames
・ I have a mechanical engineering degree and I like design.
・ About 10 years ago, when I was a student, I had experience in designing and assembling the aluminum frame for experimental equipment.
・ I don’t use CAD at work now.
The reason why I wanted an Aluminum Frame Setup
・ I wanted to have rigid cockpit comparing commercial products. (The rigidity of the Commercial products seems to be insufficient.)
・ Though we can build 2x4 woodworking DIY cockpit with the reasonable price, I felt it difficult to adjust the driving position with wooden cocpit.
・ I bought the following high-power device (CSW V2.5), so I desired to install it on a solid frame.
The foldable seat (Such as Playseat Challenge) is compact and it seems to be convenient, but the rigidity of the steering wheel base plats seems not enough. As you can see in this video below.
FANATEC products will be installed
I bought the FANATEC gears before I designed the frame. This is only because I wanted to play iRacing soon.
I had to design the frame but after unboxing the FANATEC products, I soon wanted to play it. Therefore, I fixed the FANATECs on the 2x4 wooden desk I had made without using the official clamp. How I fixed the FANATEC is below.
At this moment, the pedal was placed directly on the floor or adjusted by raising it with 2x4 wooden blocks, and a heavy toolbox is placed behind the office chair to make the chair stabilized.
The Fanatec CSW V2.5 has a strong motor that can apply a rotational torque of 8 Nm. Especially, when I hit on a wall, or when passing through a curb, or at low speeds, I can feel a large force.
I can show you the force visually. This is when I drove an INDY car with the normal setting of the iRacing FFB configuration. (It can be adjusted to solve the situation.)
After 3 days since I started racing with the MX-5, I have learned a lot such as;
・ When I stepped on the brake, the office chair moved backward
→ I removed the peddal-attached resin material to play temporarily.
・ As the distance between the body and the steering wheel is not fixed, II often felt difficult in turning the steering wheel to the optimum position without changing hands.(Especially on sharp curves, such as the 1st corner and 1st hairpin in Tsukuba)
・ Due to the close pedal position, I had feelings that the knee joint and ankle of the foot are overloaded and felt pain.
・To solve the pedal-position problem, I set the office chair behind, but the distance to the steering wheel became far.
I soon realized that I have to make a SIM cockpit.
At first, I thought this 2x4 wooden cockpit was enough and cheap, and I thought I would make it. It seems that he made it well.
However, I thought adjusting the position of the Fanatec Club Sport Wheel Base V2.5 will be very difficult and I had confidence that I couldn’t set the position at one time. When it comes to disassembling wooden materials, which have been already drilled, adjusting the position and drilling it again … will be very bothersome work. So, I decided to use aluminum frames. According to the internet, in Japan, most of the persons finally built a DIY cockpit with an aluminum frame.
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<Reference> Painting as black reduces the sense of toys.
