metalnwood

The only thing about the rift that I have had a couple of thoughts about is with racing. Someone pointed out some for some things just on your periphery that you might just turn your eyes at rather than move your head towards wont be possible with the rift. I am sure you would get accustomed to doing it and it will feel natural although at first thought sounds a bit of a compromise that you dont have to do with triple screens. Not enough by a long shot to detract me though. DECHengst, it is the positional feedback coming from the motion platform that BHawthorne suggests would not be in sync with the rift. He is correct to the extent that today there isn't really any need to get that positional feedback but there is not reason why it could not be gained, especially in a diy solution. If the rift takes off I have no doubt that things like small/personal motion platforms and tactile transducers used like simvibe and intellivibe will get a new lease of life.

OK, you are using a DLP projector. Dot pitch is not really an issue then as DLP has extremely small spaces compared to LCD. I think only LCOS was as close when I was researching a while back. scrap that, it was D-ILA.

I may have this completely wrong because I have not read up on using projectors for this but if my maths is about right.. 200 micros is around 127 DPI if we translate the pixels in the projector. So for a 1024x768 projector we have an area around 200mm x 150mm. The output I have seen from 3d printers at 200 microns doesnt do it for me for knobs, the ridges are too much and they have to be filled and then smoothed over. Similar to what you say about the left over resin filling in the gaps I know that people smooth over the 3d parts from extrusion printers by leaving them in acetone vapour for a while. Does it rely on just the projectors resolution? What about issues like dot pitch, some projectors can have a lot of space between the pixels, does this impact resolution on this kind of printer? Where can I see examples of stuff printed out on diy printers like this? I almost get the feeling you are trying not to say :)

Thats a very good point that would probably be hard to get around. If the sensor they use is as good as they say then even if you only had 150mm (6") of heave and other movement then it might look like you are having a very rough ride when you find yourself being thrown all around the virtual cockpit as the motion platform slowly moves you about :) Still, I am sure that like trackir is configurable that there will not be one fit for all games and hopefully this behavior will be able to be configured out. A simple platform only carrying the weight of the user and a couple of other things would be within what a lot of people on this board are capable of. With the benefit of a totally enclosed view the platform could really fool your senses much more than an open one.

What sort of laser is used for this? The ones that I have seen looked like some kind of galvo laser was being used for speed but it still takes time to traverse the table, if your table is twice the area of a smaller one it still takes longer than the same machine working on the smaller area. What is the resolution of the diy machines? I think the cheap 3d extrusion printers are around 150 microns. Have you got more information about it, other forums? I have no need for a 3d printer at the moment but it certainly interests me from a technology point of view.

I would use this instead of a real pit when the following conditions are met. There is some sort of hand tracking so that I can reasonably access virtual buttons without hassle. I believe this will happen fairly soon with the introduction of this technology. Secondly the resolution is high enough that I can rely on the instrument panels, mfd's etc. Who knows, this may happen with the first commercial release and a higher definition panel. Basically, if I feel more immersed then I would give up a replica cocpit. This has the real potential to immerse you in flight. The obvious benefits are the lower powered pc required to drive a single high res panel. This will keep the FPS up. Obviously the $$ saved and the space saved. Something I have had on the back burner is a motion platform. As my ambitions get larger with cockpit building the requirements for a motion platform to carry my sim grow a lot. If I only needed to move a basic seat that carried nothing but the controls then a real 3dof or greater motion platform becomes a very achievable thing while taking up a small amount of space. Building stuff is a big part of my past time. I am a real workshop tinkerer but I have plenty of other projects around to consume my time :)

Good luck, you will be doing amazingly well if you can make quality panels with a 3d printer for $1k. I will keep an eye out.

Thats a strange thing with the crossfire. There has been a bit of discussion about it over the last couple of years and I have never seen anyone get any real FPS gain with it enabled let alone a big drop when it is disabled. Because DCS doesnt support it most people have seen a small increase in FPS with it disabled.

I bought RO2 when it came out. Good fun for I cant remember how long, maybe a couple weeks before the servers were empty and people had moved on. It was the biggest waste of game money in recent history as I like online. The game wasnt bad but it had an exceptionally short online lifespan. Oh, cliffs of dover was the worst waste. Never even got on MP with that.

yeah sorry, there is paper on both sides on cast. Was having a brain fade because I take off one side first and am so used to seeing it that way.

Cast acrylic will cut a lot nicer on the laser. The extruded acrylic melts more that cuts. If you cut something like a small gear wheel in both you would see the difference fairly clearly. Next time you pick some up see if you can get an offcut to try out. Where I get mine they give away small offcuts unless I want half a dozen of them then they usually get a few bucks for it.

In my part of the world cast acrylic comes with apaper backing on one side and extruded acrylic is covered both sides. Any chance you are using extruded acrylic? If so you would like cast acrylic a lot more.

What are you using for a table? Often when you cut on a solid table then the vapours will get trapped under the piece you cut and condense in to a sticky smelly mess. When you take the paper off then it will go with the paper. If you cut with the paper off then it will condense right on the acrylic. I am not sure if this is your issue? What do you lie the acrylic on when you cut? A knife edge table, honeycomb or a solid surface? If my parts are dirty then I clean them with isopropyl alchohol. I always rub my engravings with it because the dust settles around the engravings. I buy it in bulk rather than a small amount from the pharmacy.

Yes, we do get it good down here. All those objects are available to see. I have. 16" truss I built and a friend has a 20" he did. I have seen all the good stuff in both. Nice views :)

It would seem like ET is looking at me when I fly.

Personally, I have had enough of hearing about how cheap you guys can get projectors in the states! lol :)

I will give it a go too :) A tried a sample of endlighten a little while ago. It's an acrylic that has not pattern on it but it says it has some internal structure that bounces the light out the top. It was OK but if this works then that beats buying some special more expensive acrylic.

Gremlin, how small of an lcd is required for the RWR? I am not sure of the real size. I have bought a few from http://www.good-display.com that I used in my CDU. I put a few other people on to them and I believe Linden also bought one or two from there. They arrive and they seem to be OK. They come from china but I paid and they delivered the goods, no complaints, just like every other purcahse from china I have made. The only issue is that the small ones usually either have a VGA input or an svideo/composite input. They dont usually have DVI. That may set you back another $20 getting a VGA-> video converter. I use one and I do not notice any quality degredation being used for a CDU so I think you would be A OK for the RWR. Here is what my CDU screen looks like from them on a 4.1" screen, although the camera doesnt do the screen justice as it looks perfect on screen

Yeah Gremlin, that would be the ultimate way to do it with high FPS and eyecandy on but dcs doesnt support it unfortunately. Who knows if they ever will, not sure it is on their list or how possible it would be 3rd parties to get the information. On the surface I think there is a possibility to get it going in some for for single player but for multiplayer I think there would be issues like the slaved views not seeing other aircraft and object.

I am also jealous then :) My metalworking mill is manual, I have to turn knobs but I do have a DRO. The table is 1370x255. I can up you on my CNC router though :) 2500x1300 with a 6hp spindle. Before you say it - I saw your tornado frame damn you! :) I now do all my aluminium work on that as it turns things out so well. While I had my morning coffee I poured over a pamphlet sent out my a local machinery supplier with this months specials. It's magic having a coffee thinking about all that stuff you could have..... Just money getting in between us. Yeah, inside corners are a bit of a pain though for cutting out kits like y2kiahs. Back on topic.. Donbinator, the parts will have an odour for a bit but thats not as bad as all the fumes escaping inside from the cutting process. Your laser probably has a setting for the scan gap, not DPI. here is a chart giving approximations http://www.rabbitlaserusa.com/Manuals/Scan_Gap_to_DPI_25.pdf You started with about 250 dpi and with 0.05 you were at 500dpi. I use this for my panel engraving but it takes longer. For other things that dont matter as much I lower the resolution and it speeds things up. MDF can have a really nice smell of some exotic wood used when smoking food :)

Doh, I wasnt thinking. I was wondering why you guys were not cutting it on your laser! I guess I am spoilt with my 1500x1200mm table :) I have cut acrylics no problem on either a tablesaw or a bandsaw. For the bandsaw I would probably go more TPI than less.

Donbinator, there is general agreement across the net that you dont want to run the laser at 100% power as it will reduce the life of it a lot more quickly. See what speed to need to run at to cut with 80% to conserve your tube. The only time I have cut higher that 80% was on very thick acrylic and I needed to reduce the speed significantly so I went a little under 90%. Even cutting 5mm/sec is OK, it takes slightly longer but you are not doing lots of them.

I cant see the image as the ED forums have been slow as heck with a bunch of images never coming up. Even so the thumbnail looks good. With a bit of playing around you will get the best out of the laser so while I cant see how good it is, you will get it better :) If you are happy now, you will be happier :) HAve you done something about the fumes? If you have children about, babies etc you want to be careful with acrylic. If you start cutting wood it will be smokey! I bet you $5 you have already been on the net or thingyverse etc looking for all sorts of other stuf to do with the new toy :) The latest thing for us is making some model parts for an HO scale trainset. Today I played around with engraving bricks on to balsa wood for a building. It came out OK here https://www.dropbox.com/s/6tph3ifr68ls32v/bricks.jpg , I am sure you will get sidetracked too lol

Did I miss a party? Whats happening at 2:30? :)

Hi. As suggested a fairly high end graphics card will do the trick. I dont know where the nvidia stuff stacks up but I use a amd 7970 with four screens and good success. I would read about helios as well. If you are flying DCS products then the saitek stuff wont do much for you as they are not supported. The controllers are, i.e. stick, throttle, trim etc but the gauges will not work. I know you didnt say you were getting that stuff but I thought I would point it out anyway :) Helios would give you all of that on a touchscreen but it may not mount too well on that rig which seems to be built around things like the saitek gear. The only things I will point out about the Volair is that people usually complains about the monitor placement. Often they are further away that you would like and some of the better aspects of 3 screens are lost when they are not wrapping around you. I think it would be functional and fine if you didnt want to build something yourself though. The other stuff looks good, especially the warthog and TIR, you will love them both. Without building your own panels I think something like helios is the best peripheral addon other than your controls so look in to it and have a think if the Volair will cater well for a 4th monitor mounted between you and the 3 screens.