Fold up Garage Sim V3 - UK - Par2Pro Stealth / SportScreen

[p3eps]

p3eps Man, you should be setting these up for a living! V3 looks incredible... Nice work!

Thank you! Hopefully this is the last one I do

[Osubucks999]

Hi p3eps

Wonderful job here. My compliments!

I'm in the process of building a new home and am trying to come up with a combination sim room as well as a home theater.
So important to keep the look pretty stealthy and clean.


So a couple questions if you if you don’t mind.

1. Do you feel the screen is both durable enough as well as able to show a pretty high quality movie on? Understand it’s not exclusively a theater.

2. Do you feel I need the protection above? You mention the shorter irons hitting the ceiling. Reason I ask is that I can hide the screen in the ceiling...since it would be built into the house. But not sure how I’d hide that part of it.

Thanks so much !

[p3eps]

Hi p3eps

Wonderful job here. My compliments!

I'm in the process of building a new home and am trying to come up with a combination sim room as well as a home theater.
So important to keep the look pretty stealthy and clean.


So a couple questions if you if you don’t mind.

1. Do you feel the screen is both durable enough as well as able to show a pretty high quality movie on? Understand it’s not exclusively a theater.

2. Do you feel I need the protection above? You mention the shorter irons hitting the ceiling. Reason I ask is that I can hide the screen in the ceiling...since it would be built into the house. But not sure how I’d hide that part of it.

Thanks so much !

Thank you for the kind words!
In answer to your questions...

1. The quality of the screen material is definitely good enough to watch a movie on. The downside is that it’s only attached at the 2 bottom corners, and might not be perfectly flat after whacking balls at it.

Personally, if I wanted to use the same room / projector, I would have 2 roll down screens - one behind the other. One would be the SportScreen with an impact screen on top, and the other would be a specific projection screen. If you get a projector with a bit of zoom, you could quite easily make that work.

2. I regularly had balls bouncing off my ceiling when playing a round of golf. 8, 9, PW, 50, 54, 58... all bounced upwards for me. That’s over 1/3rd of my clubs... and probably ones you’re hitting most.
To me, the ceiling protection was 100% necessary.
There are better looking ways of doing it, and you could have it with white material to stop it being so obvious?
Speak to Cory @ Par2Pro for ideas, as he’s done setups in peoples homes that are permanently on display and have to look nice.
Mines a garage, so as long as it doesn’t look hideous, I’m not too fussed!

[Osubucks999]

Great advice.
I have an idea about doing a tray around the outside of the room.....but instead of using drywall, I’d use a white/soft ceiling tile.
If I can find something that would absorb the impact and drop down it may work.

Also.....good idea on separate screens.

[jc523]

Thanks for posting all of the great info and detail, p3eps!

Fantastic job. It has provided me with a lot of inspiration to get moving on my project.

A few questions:

What resolution is your projector running? your dimensions are about 16:10, so i would guess 1920x1200?

I'll only be able to go with a 10' wide screen, and am trying to figure out the best resolution/aspect ratio.

also, did you special order the impact screen with the velcro to attach the drapes?
and did you special order the drapes with the velcro?

thanks for any insight.

[p3eps]

Thanks for posting all of the great info and detail, p3eps!

Fantastic job. It has provided me with a lot of inspiration to get moving on my project.

A few questions:

What resolution is your projector running? your dimensions are about 16:10, so i would guess 1920x1200?

I'll only be able to go with a 10' wide screen, and am trying to figure out the best resolution/aspect ratio.

also, did you special order the impact screen with the velcro to attach the drapes?
and did you special order the drapes with the velcro?

thanks for any insight.

Thank you... glad it’s proved useful.

I’m running a standard 16:9 resolution. I guess 16:10 would fill that little gap at the top a bit better, but 16:10 projectors cost a bit more. I also have my ceiling protection hanging down, so I can’t see the top of the image anyway.
In Post 3 above, you can see the first picture shows the grid - and how far up the screen my 16:9 image goes.

My screen was specially made with Velcro on the sides.
My drapes were made by Par2Pro a few years back and stuck to the side of second (V2) build screen. I thought getting Velcro on the edges of the V3 screen would let me re-use them without having to find an alternative side protection. The drapes cost a lot of money, so it made sense to re-use them.

[jc523]

Thank you... glad it’s proved useful.

I’m running a standard 16:9 resolution. I guess 16:10 would fill that little gap at the top a bit better, but 16:10 projectors cost a bit more. I also have my ceiling protection hanging down, so I can’t see the top of the image anyway.
In Post 3 above, you can see the first picture shows the grid - and how far up the screen my 16:9 image goes.

My screen was specially made with Velcro on the sides.
My drapes were made by Par2Pro a few years back and stuck to the side of second (V2) build screen. I thought getting Velcro on the edges of the V3 screen would let me re-use them without having to find an alternative side protection. The drapes cost a lot of money, so it made sense to re-use them.

How much were the drapes? I don't see them listed for sale on the p2p site.

And what material is your ceiling protection?

[p3eps]

How much were the drapes? I don't see them listed for sale on the p2p site.

And what material is your ceiling protection?

You’d probably have to email them for a quote for the drapes. They did 2 versions... standard and HQ. I went with the HQ. They are really heavy duty, and have weights in the bottom to stop them moving. I think you could probably hit a ball full force at them, and they’d barely move! They cost $1235 plus $275 shipping back in July 2016.

Ceiling protection is a very fine net... and is also from Par2Pro.

[sintra]

Hi,

This is a great project, very detailed and helpful for many im sure !

Im looking to create a similar setup with the sportscreen in an outdoor setup. I wondered if the sportscreen and impact screen could be fixed in place at the sides in some guide rails, similar to how a roller shutter blind garage door works ? Effectively the screen would slide up and down in the rails.

[p3eps]

I’m sure you could do something like that, but you’d have to fix something onto the edges of the screen to give it some rigidity.
In doing that, it’s probably stop it rolling round the Sportscreen roller so well?

[p3eps]

I haven’t added anything to this for a while, but have a few changes. Hopefully the photo upload works!

As time has gone on, my rubber garage floor has worn a bit, and is not as smooth and shiny as it originally was. The fast spinning golf ball was getting a bit scuffed, and resulted in me having to swap the ball a few times a round to try and preserve the screen. Although it’s not a huge expense or hardship, I ordered a roll of turf to give the ball a nice soft landing. 4m x 1.5m was enough to cover most of the floor, and also small enough to roll away into a tube when not in use.

I bought the GC2 stand from Foresight, removed the feet, and screwed it into a base. Much the same as my previous one, but a lot neater. The GC2 stand wasn’t designed for use with an HMT, so I fitted a golf ball to my base to support the HMT. Seems to work well, other than the GC2 stand is a bit tricky to get the GC2 sitting on sometimes.

Apart from that, I’m running the latest FSX and TGC - and the rest is the same as it’s been for the last 2 years.

I’m really happy with this setup, and think given the constraints I’m working with (95% garage / 5% sim) it’s probably as good as I can do. The Par2Pro SQHQ screen is still in great condition, and sometimes I even use it for Zwift (virtual cycling).

[mgent]

p3eps - have you ever looked into automating the sport screens? I'll ultimately have a set-up similar to yours, and I'm currently waiting for my screens to be delivered... I have a Uneekor EyeXO, and will have it, the projector, some lighting, and a few others things set-up through Smartthings/Philips Hue to all turn on when I select/say 'Golf Simulator', but I haven't yet seen a way to control the sportscreen through one of those systems... It would be awesome to have the screen roll down automatically as well when everything else comes on...

[p3eps]

p3eps - have you ever looked into automating the sport screens? I'll ultimately have a set-up similar to yours, and I'm currently waiting for my screens to be delivered... I have a Uneekor EyeXO, and will have it, the projector, some lighting, and a few others things set-up through Smartthings/Philips Hue to all turn on when I select/say 'Golf Simulator', but I haven't yet seen a way to control the sportscreen through one of those systems... It would be awesome to have the screen roll down automatically as well when everything else comes on...

Not something I’ve looked at to be honest. I have the SportScreen remote clipped on the wall next to my PC and projector remote - so I just press them all within a few seconds.

Even if the screen was automated and rolled down itself, I’d still have to go over to it and attach the bungees... as well as unclipping the drapes from the wall and attaching them to the screen.

My overall setup time from empty garage to golf sim is somewhere around 5 mins - which includes getting the GC2 out of its case and setting it up.

[p3eps]

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed my PC was lagging a bit. Some stuttering when the ball is in flight.
I also use the garage for indoor cycling in winter, and was using the golf screen / PC / Projector to put Zwift on to give me an immersive indoor experience. It was stuttering a bit too.

Time for a new PC. As an ex PC engineer, I bought myself some new bits and put it all together. I had planned on £500 for this... but as per usual, it got out of control and cost way more than initially budgeted.

I ended up with...
Corsair Airflow 4000D case
MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus motherboard
Intel i7 3.8ghz 10700k processor
Noctua NH-D15S black cooler
Corsair 32gb DDR4 3200 memory

I stuck with my GTX1070, power supply and SSD hard drive... and I now have a PC capable of running anything at full settings (for now)!

[14MPH]

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed my PC was lagging a bit. Some stuttering when the ball is in flight.
I also use the garage for indoor cycling in winter, and was using the golf screen / PC / Projector to put Zwift on to give me an immersive indoor experience. It was stuttering a bit too.

Time for a new PC. As an ex PC engineer, I bought myself some new bits and put it all together. I had planned on £500 for this... but as per usual, it got out of control and cost way more than initially budgeted.

I ended up with...
Corsair Airflow 4000D case
MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus motherboard
Intel i7 3.8ghz 10700k processor
Noctua NH-D15S black cooler
Corsair 32gb DDR4 3200 memory

I stuck with my GTX1070, power supply and SSD hard drive... and I now have a PC capable of running anything at full settings (for now)!

p3eps I am keen to go down the custom pc build (when the right parts are back in inventory, hopefully in the coming few months). I am not PC savvy in terms of parts and brands (value for money) but have been researching this and would welcome your advice where you can. I am trying to spec a future proof build so it may be overkill for golf sim but in future if I want to playback 4K, add other gaming etc the I’m sort of safe with this! I have come up with the following through some googling and asking ad hoc advice around gaming pc’s (I have a budget in mind but that might not translate easily to GBP or USD as things here in Australia are not comparable in cost!)

1) Starting with GPU 3060Ti (though not sure what specific model and pros/cons of each model)

2) ATX form factor with Z series chipset/motherboard + 16gb RAM - no idea how to compare cases though I’m not phased by RGB aesthetics! And for motherboard I’m thinking maximise on number of USB 3 ports and 2 Ethernet ports (I’m modelling build on Uneekor eye xo so looking at dedicated wired network connections from LM to PC and PC to my internet connection). I will start with some USB cameras as discussed in some recent threads re: Spinel, ESP, etc.

3) i5 10700KF 4.1 GHz 6 cores 12 Threads or i7 2.9 GHz 8 cores 16 Threads (trade off on higher GHz lower cores/threads vs higher cost). Similar considerations for LGA1200 vs 1151 series, depending on which intel chip I go for.

4) Noctua 12US cooler - just plucked this as a middle of the park model!

5) 650-750W PSU - no idea about which model

6) SSD and hard drive - presuming any capacity I wish with brands like WD will suffice

What of the above should I trade off on e.g. a cheaper case to shift money to other items? Get a lower GPU model in 3060Ti and up the chip to more expensive i7? Etc. Trying to figure out how to prioritise specs and shift amounts within overall budget to different parts, but end up with a decent build that will last quite a while. I know a pc’s shelf life might not be that long as newer generation components keep rolling off but this would be a significant spend for me so want to ensure I can sweat the asset for quite a while!

Ive noticed you’ve gone through a few versions of your sim and pc builds over the years so was keen to understand how did you (or anyone else) approach the pc build, given your background here and around PCs.

Also, what kind of cabling should I be looking for re: HDMI, cat 6/5 etc (I’m in the planning stages of sim build so trying to plan for all this ahead of time).

Any pointers, brands/models, pros/cons etc you or anyone else can share their views based on experiences is appreciated - I am trying to absorb as much as I can, quickly, in putting all this together and looking forward to exciting times ahead. 2 weeks ago, LGA, ATX, PSU, etc were not in my vocabulary! 😂 Thanks