This is yet another gaming chair build thread.
Hi all,
I've been playing ED since premium beta. At the outset I knew I'd need a good HOTAS and invested in a Warthog, and soon discovered the delights of VR from the community here. After investing in a DK2, I'm now fortunate enough to fly with a Vive. Throughout this time I've been using a lightly modified dining chair for both work and play. The chair has a buttkicker transducer attached to its base, and a piece of angle aluminium supports the Warthog stick to one side. The Warthog throttle rests on a simple open-sided box that was put together from a single panel of material in about 30 mins after the nice man in B&Q made the necessary cuts. It holds the amp and separate PSU for the buttkicker.
the mark 1
All this has been great, but the chair is now showing signs of wear and to be honest it's never been perfectly comfortable as the backrest gets in the way of my elbow and the stick should really be mounted a bit further forward - I had to compromise to avoid making the chair too unstable. It's time for a change.
One of the things about VR is that you don't need huge screens, and so I started to think about creating a gaming chair that could contain just about everything in its base - the PC, amps, vive breakout box, chargers for the vive wants and of course HOTAS. While we're at it let's have a cupholder too! There is nothing on the market like this - GameCab come fairly close, but their seat is designed to be used with a giant triple screen desk and doesn't have the storage I want. So, self-build it is.
My DIY skills are going to be challenged enough on this project, and I want the seat to be something that's comfortable to use all day, every day - I work from home a lot and don't have the space for a second chair. For these reasons, I figured a car seat would be a good start rather than attempting upholstery. After a trawl of ebay, I noticed that the seats from a Mazda RX8 looked perfect - the way the headrest cutout matches the Vive logo is just too good a coincidence to miss out on. After deciding on the RX8 seats, I also found this build for converting an RX8 seat into a HOTAS chair. My approach will be somewhat in between that and the amazing CP-1.
Yesterday I aquired a pair of lovely leather RX8 seats, and I'm setting about the driver's seat for this build. The passenger seat is surplus to requirements and I'm open to offers!
My first objective is to mount the seat to a bit of scrap plywood, so that I can figure out the ergonomics that will determine the height of the base cabinet. This involves quite a bit of work - I've already removed the seatbelt clip and cut back the airbag cable. Next, I'll need to grind the brackets from the seat runners, and drill holes for my own mountings - I plan to use anti-vibration bobbins to allow the buttkicker to shake the chair without having to also shake the cabinet. I'll then need to mount the buttckicker to ensure it doesn't foul anything.
Once that's done I will figure out how high the seat base needs to be, and from that the height of the cabinet (less the castors). I already know that it will need to be 800mm wide, and between 400mm and 600mm deep. I rather fancy the idea of getting a kitchen unit from ikea and cutting the height down. This will mean I can get reliable right angles and something that will be strong enough to take the weight, and have some nice choices about front panels. The back of the cabinet will be covered by another door panel, to keep things looking nice.
There will be a fair bit of work to do inside the cabinet to add fans for PC airflow, route cables, and install the power supplies for the seat itself, buttkicker, and vive. I'll need a 4-gang in there too just to hook everything up.
After all of that, it will be time to figure out the HOTAS mounts. At the moment I've very little clue on this - much depends on the vertical distance between the top of the cabinet and the ideal mounting position.
Today I've ordered an angle grinder and cutting disks - this will be a first for me. I also wired up the seat to my van's battery using some jump leads, so that I could move the runners fully back to give the best access for grinding without risking the mechanism. While I was at it I checked the current the motors draw, and happily discovered that they only need about 2-3 amps. Given that they come off a 30A fuse, this saves me a few headaches for working out how to power it from the mains. I've ordered an 8A PSU. Coach bolts, bobbins, castors and other bits are on order too. I'll post updates as we go.
upgrade time!
RX8 Seat base, before the grinding begins. I've already cut a piece off one of the brackets with a hacksaw, but all of it must go.
Hi all,
I've been playing ED since premium beta. At the outset I knew I'd need a good HOTAS and invested in a Warthog, and soon discovered the delights of VR from the community here. After investing in a DK2, I'm now fortunate enough to fly with a Vive. Throughout this time I've been using a lightly modified dining chair for both work and play. The chair has a buttkicker transducer attached to its base, and a piece of angle aluminium supports the Warthog stick to one side. The Warthog throttle rests on a simple open-sided box that was put together from a single panel of material in about 30 mins after the nice man in B&Q made the necessary cuts. It holds the amp and separate PSU for the buttkicker.
the mark 1
All this has been great, but the chair is now showing signs of wear and to be honest it's never been perfectly comfortable as the backrest gets in the way of my elbow and the stick should really be mounted a bit further forward - I had to compromise to avoid making the chair too unstable. It's time for a change.
One of the things about VR is that you don't need huge screens, and so I started to think about creating a gaming chair that could contain just about everything in its base - the PC, amps, vive breakout box, chargers for the vive wants and of course HOTAS. While we're at it let's have a cupholder too! There is nothing on the market like this - GameCab come fairly close, but their seat is designed to be used with a giant triple screen desk and doesn't have the storage I want. So, self-build it is.
My DIY skills are going to be challenged enough on this project, and I want the seat to be something that's comfortable to use all day, every day - I work from home a lot and don't have the space for a second chair. For these reasons, I figured a car seat would be a good start rather than attempting upholstery. After a trawl of ebay, I noticed that the seats from a Mazda RX8 looked perfect - the way the headrest cutout matches the Vive logo is just too good a coincidence to miss out on. After deciding on the RX8 seats, I also found this build for converting an RX8 seat into a HOTAS chair. My approach will be somewhat in between that and the amazing CP-1.
Yesterday I aquired a pair of lovely leather RX8 seats, and I'm setting about the driver's seat for this build. The passenger seat is surplus to requirements and I'm open to offers!
My first objective is to mount the seat to a bit of scrap plywood, so that I can figure out the ergonomics that will determine the height of the base cabinet. This involves quite a bit of work - I've already removed the seatbelt clip and cut back the airbag cable. Next, I'll need to grind the brackets from the seat runners, and drill holes for my own mountings - I plan to use anti-vibration bobbins to allow the buttkicker to shake the chair without having to also shake the cabinet. I'll then need to mount the buttckicker to ensure it doesn't foul anything.
Once that's done I will figure out how high the seat base needs to be, and from that the height of the cabinet (less the castors). I already know that it will need to be 800mm wide, and between 400mm and 600mm deep. I rather fancy the idea of getting a kitchen unit from ikea and cutting the height down. This will mean I can get reliable right angles and something that will be strong enough to take the weight, and have some nice choices about front panels. The back of the cabinet will be covered by another door panel, to keep things looking nice.
There will be a fair bit of work to do inside the cabinet to add fans for PC airflow, route cables, and install the power supplies for the seat itself, buttkicker, and vive. I'll need a 4-gang in there too just to hook everything up.
After all of that, it will be time to figure out the HOTAS mounts. At the moment I've very little clue on this - much depends on the vertical distance between the top of the cabinet and the ideal mounting position.
Today I've ordered an angle grinder and cutting disks - this will be a first for me. I also wired up the seat to my van's battery using some jump leads, so that I could move the runners fully back to give the best access for grinding without risking the mechanism. While I was at it I checked the current the motors draw, and happily discovered that they only need about 2-3 amps. Given that they come off a 30A fuse, this saves me a few headaches for working out how to power it from the mains. I've ordered an 8A PSU. Coach bolts, bobbins, castors and other bits are on order too. I'll post updates as we go.
upgrade time!
RX8 Seat base, before the grinding begins. I've already cut a piece off one of the brackets with a hacksaw, but all of it must go.
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