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My sliding screen needs to be changed -- Lessons learned

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  • My sliding screen needs to be changed -- Lessons learned

    Well, I'm getting tired of sliding the screen out of the way all the time. Maybe because it's not as seamless as I thought. Might even give the fold up idea a try.

    My room is 4.5 M (15 feet wide) by 3.5M (11 feet) tall if I cover up the doorway. Right now I've got it on sliders, which kind of slid into a closer I made behind the house. Works decent but the SIM really takes up a lot of space in this non dedicated room.

    So I'm thinking of downsizing the screen to 3.5M wide (11 feet) by X where X can be as tall as I need.

    My questions,

    1) Will I loose a lot of the expericen going with a 11 foot by 6.5 foot (tall) screen? I have plenty of height but the width because of the door is a pain. Will the 6.5 foot height reduce gameplay experience?
    2) Maybe I can figure out a lightweight method to store the screen in the ceiling? Any other options lighter than EMT?

    I'm using a BENQ 1085ST and a new generation PC. We also watch movies up here.


  • #2
    I cant help with your questions, but have one of my own. What padding are you using on the pipes? I am currently building an EMT cage and havent found much for padding options.

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    • eezetee
      eezetee commented
      Editing a comment
      Got a local sew shop to make a velcro backed nylon (camping tent material) type pocket which I put some squishy/condensible fabrics inside. It works pretty good if you have a inner layer of foam.

  • #3
    I put pipe insulation around the 1" EMT pipe on my enclosure. It works pretty well but I don't hit them very often.

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    • #4
      My screen is only 8 feet wide due to room constraints and avoid hitting off center. It definitely takes away from the experience not have a floor to ceiling screen (I'm limited to 6 feet high with a 4:3). That being said, at 11 feet you can still have an 8.25 foot high screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio

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      • eezetee
        eezetee commented
        Editing a comment
        can you take a picture of the current 4:3 with the 6 foot ceiling

    • #5
      I'm trying to think of ideas to keep the 16:9 but the weight of the frame may be difficult to hold up in my ceiling. I just can't keep the door covered up like it is as it detracts from what the room is actually, which is my home office

      Here are some more pictures of the rolling frame in case it helps someone else.

      I'm thinking my choices are to resize the frame a bit, maybe taking a foot off the length and creating a fold up screen as i'd really like to keep the 16:9 and I can have the space for it.

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      • #6
        Here's a pic I took the other night right after I got the screen up. The screen surface edge to edge is roughly 8 x 9 so I have over 1.5 feet on both top and bottom in this pic. I hit a few balls and noticed right away that it felt different than hitting in simulators with floor to ceiling screens. Overall though, I love it.

        Just curious, what's your reason for being dead set on the 16:9? Movies? I have only used the Skytrak software and WGT so my experience is limited, but unless you are using this for movies, I would think floor to ceiling screen would be a higher priority than 16:9.
        Last edited by akoe19; 01-09-2018, 04:33 PM.

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        • #7
          I just reread your original post and noticed that you said you do use this for movies

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          • #8
            Yep. I do. Video games too

            I had read in other posts that the 16:9 view was much better if it can be accomodated. Then again based on projector central, I may be able to use my projector in the same spot and project a 4:3 image too so I may be able to try both!

            Here is what i'm looking at

            It 2.86M (9.4 feet) I can get an image of 3.8M (12.4 foot) wide by 2.1 (7 foot) at 16:9
            Or at 3.8M (12.4 feet) I can get an image of 3.8M (12.4 foot) wide by 2.9 (9.3 foot) at 4:3

            I'm trying to decide to go 16:9 or 4:3

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            • #9
              I'd do the first option for sure if you watch movies. 16:9 is a must for movies and I don't think 7 feet high is too much of a compromise on the golf sim. If the surface area of your screen is 9 ft high and you black out a foot on the top and bottom, I think it will look great.

              You could also project 4:3 from there but the height of the image won't change so there's really no point. If you mount it at 12.4 feet, you're stuck with the 4:3 because a 16:9 image would be too wide. First option would be my vote
              Last edited by akoe19; 01-10-2018, 04:32 PM.

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              • #10
                Is it really that big of a deal to slide the screen over 4 ft to get through the door? It seems like you put a lot of thought and time into this build and executed it quite well. Maybe it's just the original post or the pics, but I just don't understand what the problem is.

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                • eezetee
                  eezetee commented
                  Editing a comment
                  You are right, I did put a lot of work into it, design and execution.
                  However, it sits open half blocking the door as it is now, and given teh size of the screen, is really quite heavy.

                  I guess what I was originally thinking was more of a room with a golf sim, not a golf sim with some extra room for an office. The screen is quite possibly too big. What i'm looking to do is downsize and more appropriate detail/trim the edges and look to see if I can do a ceiling mount to get it out of the way. I'm contemplating putting some hooks on the wall to stuff the hitting matt behind when i'm not using it.

              • #11
                Originally posted by DFDubb View Post
                Is it really that big of a deal to slide the screen over 4 ft to get through the door? It seems like you put a lot of thought and time into this build and executed it quite well. Maybe it's just the original post or the pics, but I just don't understand what the problem is.
                BY sliders I am reading him to mean that its a cage with rollers on the bottoms that he wheels out to another place in the house.

                I have heard you can use this with an impact screen. I forget who showed me pics of their setup. I also forget how the impact screen attached but Pretty cool though.

                Comment


                • eezetee
                  eezetee commented
                  Editing a comment
                  The screen on wheels is heavy and i'm on the second floor. There is no wheeling anywhere else. It's doable to move 4-6 feet but it's fixed alongside the wall too.

                  The main issue i'm dealing with is the exposed pipe bounce back even with covering with sponge, towels, custom made padding (this works fairly well)

              • #12
                I'm going to give a test run today to see how a 4:3 over a 16:9 looks. I'm guessing based on the advice i've seen that 16:9 is the way to go so likely will make the current screen a little smaller and attempt a fold up design.

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