DIY Chairmount (on a budget)

[Brother_Leb]

Hi fellow sim aviators!

First off, I want to say that I'm inspired by everyone that builds sim cockpits in this community. What you guys do is incredible, and frankly, I'm jealous.

BUT this post is for those who want a halfway option between having a HOTAS just sitting on your desk and having a full sim pit or even purchasing available mounting products (e.g. MonsterTech, etc.), which were out of my price range.

I saved up and bought a WinWing Orion 2 to upgrade from my previous TM16000, but that left me with a limited budget for any mounting solutions or simpit setups. So my simple DIY build needed to meet these criteria for what I personally wanted:

1. elbow height throttle positioning
2. center mounted joystick attached to chair rather than desk (my desk has beveled edges which makes standard desk clamps tricky)
3. minimal construction or fabrication (I have no workshop and limited tools)
4. Removable (I work from home frequently, so I cannot have my sim gear set up all the time. My wife also thinks it's an eyesore, haha!). This also meant no permanent modifications to either desk or chair.
5. Inexpensive (the HOTAS itself was major expense at our current income, so I couldn't spend much more on the setup)

I'm pretty happy with what I came up with and thought others who are on a budget might appreciate the ideas. I should also mention I did A LOT of scouring the internet and learning from other people. It would be impossible to credit all of them, but I learned a lot from other budget builds and they are easy to find on reddit and YouTube, if you want more inspiration.

Throttle Stand:

This is great because it's simple. I bought a single 24" stereo speaker stand off of amazon ($54.99 USD, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076HX81WZ). It's rated for up to 100lbs and is plenty sturdy. My Orion 2 throttle sits on top nicely and the friction pads that came with the stand prevent it from sliding. If I wanted even more "hold" I'd get some 3M wall hanging velcro strips and attach them to the stand top and throttle bottom and voila!

Joystick Center Chair Mount:

Lots of guys like side mounted joysticks, but I'm a Hornet and Tomcat driver and I wanted mine in the middle. I also wanted it on my chair. I looked into making my own DIY Monstertech from extrusion T-rail but that got expensive quick. Luckily I found this cheap deskmount on amazon ($59.99 USD https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KJCC4Q7) which is EXTREMELY modular. They just give you a bunch of bags of parts. It's great! (One caveat with this mount, many of the reviewers on amazon felt that it was not sturdy enough for the lateral force of X-axis joystick moves. My rearrangement mitigates a lot of that, but standard desk mount buyers beware!) Looking at the pieces of the mount, I was confident I could invert the standard design to clamp to my chair (see below):

All I needed was a sturdy flat surface underneath the front of my chair to attach it to. At my local hardware store I bought 2X 12" polished zinc mending plates (roughly $5 USD/per) a piece of sanded 2 by 1/2" board (the piece I got was about 6' long, but it was scrap that I bought for $1 USD in their scrap wood bin). I also bought a package of L-brackets (roughly $4 USD) and the appropriate screws (I used a bolt with a wing nut that passed easily through one of the pre-cut holes in the mending plate and the L-bracket). After careful measuring, I cut the board at the length I needed, attached the hardware and then slid the ends of the mending plates between the chair seat and where the arms attach to the seat and tightened the chairs arms back on. (This is specific to my desk chair, a Secret Labs TITAN XL, and actually one of the reasons other DIY mounts I'd researched wouldn't have worked for me, because my chair was different than theirs). I added some foam corner covers (found in the plumbing and piping section of the hardware store) to protect myself from the pointy corners and screws. Now I had the solid mounting surface I could attach the clamp to!

The additional clamps in this picture were purchased later to add more stability...which hasn't been a problem, but I wanted a solution ready to go if it was. These clamps only kinda achieve their intended goal (partly because they don't clamp flush with the board because of how they are hooking to the underside of the chair), and from my observations so far they are probably not necessary. They were $18.99 USD for a pack of 2 on amazon.

I've been using the whole set up for about month now and it's working great! I occasionally have to tighten the screws on the mount I bought from amazon and adjust the tension of the clamp, but other than that, I just set my throttle next to my chair, pop the joystick on and fly! One obvious and easy adjustment I could see others making to this build would be to use a hacksaw to saw off the extra length of rail (sticking forward in the picture above) on the mount because they do get in the way a bit. I've chosen not to because I want to be able to reconfigure the mount in the future potentially (a benefit of this mount).

When I'm not using it, I just move the speaker stand off to the side and clamp the joystick to the windowsill next to my desk. You could also clamp it to the side of the desk (again, damn those beveled edges on mine) or to a nearby shelf. Easy to set up, easy to put away.

Anyhow, I hope that is helpful for folks on a budget. You can build a decent setup without breaking the bank. My total cost (HOTAS not included) was a little under $150 USD.

Happy flying!

Edited June 1, 2022 by Brother_Leb

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

Great work sir!!

[corbu1]

Hello, nice build
 

I have 3 of these light desktopmounts for different sticks and TM MFD‘s.

I like them much and they fit very well for my needs. 

Edited June 1, 2022 by corbu1

[Brother_Leb]

6 Month Update: Just figured I'd update this post after I've been using it a whlle.

Overall: I'm still VERY happy with my setup, and short of a full simpit, can't see changing it anytime soon. Would highly recommend.

Pros:

• easy set-up/tear down and storage
• Very stable. Both chair mount and speaker stand are very stable and I have had no issues.
• Close-ish to 1-to-1 for Hornet and Tomcat (I picked up a VR headset on sale last month and had a cool/weird moment when I wiggled my real fingers and was surprised when the fingers of the pilot model didn't wiggle. The throttle and hand position were right where I expected them to be, based on what I was "seeing" in the sim!)
• Cheap (the above mentioned VR headset would never have happened if I hadn't been able to save $$ making this setup)
• No quality issues, part-failures, or unexpected problems with either the throttle stand or chair mount.

Cons:

• I have to retighten the bolts on the reconfigured chair mount about once every 2-3 weeks. NOTE: There have been a few times when, under high load (e.g. during a dogfight) a screw has slipped drastically changing the orientation of the stick (usually one of the two bolts which attach the stick to the mount and allow for finer rotational adjustments is the culprit). This is rare and it's never fallen off.
• There is just slightly more "give" to the stick because the mounting plates bend ever so slightly under high load (particular during full forward deflection, i.e. during inverted maneuvers).
• The throttle sometimes slips on the high-friction rubber pads on the top of the speaker stand. It's never effected my flying, but I notice it once I'm finished and putting things away
• The adhesive on the sticky rubber pad that comes with the reconfigured desk mount is slowly wearing out and so I'll probably have to buy a replacement of some sort eventually.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Brother_Leb

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

it´s great reading you are having a fantastic time!!
One suggestion, depending on the usage of your chair, I would consider adding a USB powered HUB hidden at the bottom of the chair, so you plug many things there and just one single usb wire to the computer case.
For throttle, you may add an aluminium sheet to the top of the speake mount, and bolt the throttle with the 4 external holes the base has. However this could be unconvenient if you happen to have several throttle units like myself.
And finally, keep having fun