My Small Room Practice Setup with Carl's Screen and Impact Pad

[Michael303]

I finally jammed a screen and projector into my small practice room so I thought I'd post a couple pictures for others to reference. My room is about 7'10" tall and about 12' wide. Not sure how deep.

My screen is a custom size 10' x 7' mid-grade Prefered from Carl's. They were great to deal with. Highly recommended.

My hitting mat is a double thick plywood board with a 1' x 2' hole that I can put different hitting surfaces in. Currently, I'm hitting off a CCE mat that I like quite a bit. I like the feedback it provides compared to some other options.

My projector is a refurbished BenQ TH671ST that I picked up on sale for $480. Really happy with it too.

I made an impact pad to increase the longevity of my screen because we want to use it to watch movies in the back yard this summer too. It has worked quite well so far. It's just some white canvas sewn into a pouch with some rivets and a 1" foam pad inside. It's hung up with some shock cord. It blends in well enough with the projector on.

I need to control the light coming in a little more and I might try tightening up the screen now that I have the impact pad. I might also try a 2" foam pad to see if it makes it quieter.

On to the pictures.

[Ironstrokes]

Nicely done! Looks great. I like the idea of setting up an impact pad. May try that myself once I hang up my next screen. Have busted too many holes in screens in short amounts of time for my liking and will be nice to save the screen for movie watching as well like you said.

I still have saved all my old screens I busted through too just encase I wanted to try something using the material. Think this is gonna be my first use of it. Thanks for the idea!

[Michael303]

The canvas I used works well enough but some screen material would be better if you've got some. Might have to see if I can snag some myself.

[Michael303]

I just noticed the images don't seem to be displaying properly on Taptalk so here's a link to the album. Hopefully that works. https://imgur.com/a/SOr6onu

[a4chet]

Awesome! I'm also in the middle of a sim build using Skytrak, Carl's Preferred, Benq 671ST, CCE 4x5 mat and connectors from tarps.com

I am currently setup to have about 2" between the frame and the impact screen on the top/left/right sides. I plan to use 6" bungees to secure the screen to the frame. I guess I'm a little paranoid with the screen. I'm planning on having a safety net directly behind the screen, and then I've got a 2" Queen Foam mattress topper sandwiched between 2 moving blankets sealed with grommets behind that.

I'm super happy this worked out for you, and gives me hope that my build will come out OK! I have a wife-factor to contend with - so I have to hang curtains on the sides and also have a cornice board across the top, but to get a sim build out of the wife I'll do almost anything!

I notice you get some light bleed through from the window behind your screen - How does the projector look at night? Do you get a lot of light bleed & reflection from your wall behind the screen? I'm thinking Carl's Preferred might need some blackout cloth behind the screen.

[Michael303]

Sorry for the late reply. In my experience, if you're using the 6" bungees with a 2" gap your screen will be pretty tight.

My frame is just slightly taller than the screen but I have about a 2" gap on either side. I started with 6" bungees all the way around but it was tight enough that I was concerned that the ball impact would cause an unnecessary amount of wear and bounce back. I took off all the side and most of the bottom bungees leaving the top completely attached and just 3 bungees each on the left and right ends of the bottom edge. I might try some 9" bungees on the sides to take up some slack but it's good enough for how I use it. It's good to start with a big frame and reduce the size or bungees as needed.

If there's any reflection at night it's not apparent and the only way of find out is by putting up a black tarp out something similar. At this point it's good enough for me that I don't feel the need to spend the time or money to find out. I just use it for practice and not golf sim.