My kind of noobish cockpit build

[Eugel]

Morning.

 

Short background story: Before I dove deep into DCS, I was part of an online racing community. That´s why my rig is a Raceroom racing rig. When I bought that, I thought it would be easy to attach the Warthog to the sides of the base. But it turned out that the base of the seat was made of thin metal sheets that were at some weird angles.

So for several months now I made up plans how to turn this into a proper flight sim rig, but I mostly came to the conclusion that I had to replace the whole thing, which I didn´t want. So for the longest time I used this improvised solution:

As you can see, this was less than ideal. There was always some movement in the box/book combo and it really is quite ugly...

Now the other day I looked around in my room and noticed that the upper part of my IKEA "Billy" shelf is this separate attachment that might be just the right size to replace these boxes. I took it off my shelf and tried if it would fit, and it´s almost perfect. So I drove off to IKEA and bought two of those (they are 80x28x35 cm in size).

I am very happy with the result:
 

I also added the carpet so that the shelves wouldn´t move around and also for aesthetic reasons (and yes, I also cleaned up the corner a bit).

I am yet unsure if I will pimp the whole thing further, but I have a few ideas: I plan to add USB Hubs to the inside of the Billys to manage the cables better and to add a proper mouse and mousepad behind the stick (I use the touchpad of the keyboard on the left, which isn´t ideal)

The wooden board holding the MFDs is also somewhat improvised and not pretty, but it gets the job done. And I fly mostly in VR so I don´t see it anyway

I also got cheap storage boxes from Ikea that fit nicely underneath the shelves where I store my Reverb in so it doesn´t collect dust.

 

I think this could be a good basis for other stuff though. One could easily build side panels onto the shelves, or I even thought about joining the two together with a reversed U-shaped plate that would work as a front panel where I could mount the MFDs.

 

So if anyone is looking for cheap and easy mounting solution this might work for you (the "Billy" attachments are 20 Euro each)

Edited January 4, 2022 by Eugel

[rapid]

Yeah looks much better

[Viper1970]

 

I have a very similar layout. Works really good

 

But your seat is much better as mine. I have a bucket seat and so it's hard to reach functions in the back parts of the side consoles.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Viper1970

[Eugel]

OK, it´s been a while and I decided to move on to mark 3
As I wrote, I want to get rid of the ugly wooden plate. So here is the plan (as a very rough cardboard mockup):

I plan to cut this shape out of wood, probably about 5 mm thick (I´m still undecided if I want to try to imitate the shape of the A-10 cockpit or keep it more generic)
The MFDs of course go on the marked spots. Does anyone know how far they are apart in the real A-10 ? 
I also ordered the Virpil Control Panel #2, which has to go on/in the lower left part (I´ll figure out how to mount it when it arrives)

How to attach the whole thing ?
Currently, the board with the MFDs is mounted on the original Raceroom mounting plate for steering wheels, which you can slide into the frame here:

My idea is to attach a metal piece on the backside of the new front panel that I can slide in there as well (or a 3D printed part if it´s stable enough). That way, I can easily switch between flight setup and steering wheel. And maybe in addition some kind of clamps on the lower left and right sides.

Last but not least, I will attach LED backlight on the panel, because I can

Now, why all the work when I fly in VR ? 
Good question...
- aesthetic reasons. I want the cockpit to look cool when I´m not flying
- I can secure all the cabels clean and easy on the backside of that panel
- just out of fun for building stuff

I´m not sure how fast I will be able to finish this, that also depends on when I get my delivery from Virpil.
It will probably be my project for the christmas holiday.

Any comments, ideas or tips are most welcome, especially about what kind of wood is best suited, or whether 5 mm thick is enough or not.

[Eugel]

OK, here are some updates on my "mark 3" build. (I also changed the title of the thread as this isn´t really about the Ikea shelves anymore)

I cut out my cardoard draft from wooden board. Turned out that 5 mm was too thin, so I wanted to use 10 mm, but my local store didn´t have anything fitting on stock, so I bought a 16 mm thick board (the panel is 110x50 cm). It´s a bit too thick (and heavy) for my taste, but it works:

Next, I drilled holes for the MFDs and the Virpil Control Panel:


I 3D printed simple L-shaped holders for the control panel:

I used rests of the wooden board and wanted to build a holder for the whole panel to attach it to the Raceroom Rig:

But unfortunately, the board is a bit too small and the whole thing wiggles up and down a bit. So right now, I´m also 3d printing a larger version of that thing that will hopefully hold the panel in place tightly. Takes about 14 hours because I used a lot of infill so it will be stable enough.

As soon as I know that everything fits, I will paint the board black (or dark grey, haven´t decided yet) and then attach the USB hubs to the back with double-sided tape and do some cable management. Of course, the MFD cables will also go to the backside.

[molevitch]

Double sided tape will let you down. 3d print some holding brackets for your USB hubs.

[Eugel]

On 1/5/2022 at 8:42 AM, molevitch said:

Double sided tape will let you down. 3d print some holding brackets for your USB hubs.

That was a good tip, thanks. Turned out the screws I attached the MFDs with, were a bit too long, so as you suggested, I printed simple holding brackets which I actually could attach to the MFD screws on the backside.

Another "fun fact": It was not intentional, but my small wireless keyboard fits rather nicely between the two MFDs (it´s not attached in any way, just pushed in):

Not very ergonomic to type on, but as I fly mostly in VR, it´s in a nice position to lift the headset and well ... hit the space bar when I have to or something like that.
As you can see, I also attached the LED strips to the back.
I didn´t feel like painting the whole thing yet, I first wanted to make sure everything works as I want it to. And now I´m too lazy to disassemble for painting.
I just noticed the monitors power supply in the picture to the left of the pedals. Those I have to hide, other than that, most of the cables are out of sight (the one on the right is from the Reverb G2)

Out of fun, I also took a picture in the dark

Well, for now it stays like this. Now I actually want to fly a bit, haven´t even used the Virpil stuff yet.

[molevitch]

Looking good!

[Eugel]

Another small update: I decided against painting the thing. Although I sanded the surface a bit so color would stick better, a friend of mine commented that because the wood was varnished, I would have to do a lot more sanding. And I agreed with him.

So I found an alternative on Amazon in self-adhesive film for furniture. The stuff isn´t overly expensive (20 euro) and there were 5 meters on the roll. So if I messed up, I`d have enough left for another go.
For my first try, I´m quite happy with the result. There are no air bubbles in it (at least not at the front, the bumps in the center are from the screws behind it)

It was a bit fiddly to get the Virpil control panel back in because it was already a very tight fit, so the film is a bit crumpeled in one of the corners, but it´s barely  visible.
Another thing I noticed is that the film is not very scratch-resistant. There is already a scratch from a slight contact with a USB cable. Probably in a couple of months it won´t look as smooth ...

But anyway, here is the final result:

[Viper1970]

Hi Eugel,

great work!

Your sim-pit is very similar to the one I just built. I also use a race rig for my universal pit and have made very equal "consoles".

Keep us informed of further improvements. Maybe we can interchange some ideas at our projects.

 

[Eugel]

Well ... although I hadn´t planned any further updates...
I have to say, the weakest link in my setup gave up: The Thrustmater TFRP pedals...
I never planned to invest a small fortune in rudder pedals, as I always thought those were good enough to taxi the A-10 around. Two things happened: 1. the pedals started to freak out.
I basically had to recalibrate them before every flight and after a while, the left pedal would only go to 80% of the movement. That was OK for the A-10, but already with the Harrier driving around on the Tarawa became a bit risky.

Then I purchased the Gazelle. And that thing really needs a good rudder to fly properly.  
So I decided to get new pedals. But the weird Raceroom frame made it difficult to fit anything in there. I finally settled for the Thrustmaster TPR:


Well that´s a huge difference in the Gazelle now. And thanks to the pendular style, the pedals don´t hit the frame or the wall...

And as it happens when you browse aircraft related stuff on Amazon, they go like "Hey, I see you like airplanes... how about a nice picture to hang on your wall ?"
And I was like "Hell yeah, you got an A-10 ?"
Amazon said "I sure do !"

So here it is, my current, probably not final, cockpit thingy: