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Wife and I are planning our next house... the builder won't allow me to get 10' basements due to some grading issue, so I've pushed them to expand the garage by ten feet for a fourth stall. This fourth stall, as agreed with my wife (who is entirely fed up with me using the 3rd stall in our current garage), will be dedicated to my sim.
Current thoughts on the layout/specs on my sim:
LM: GC2a
Computer/software : TGC run on an Asus w/ a 1060 card (works great)
Projector : Thinking the BenQ 2150ST as everyone else touts this brand and model - questions: When I do the calculation on the projectorcentral.com for how far back it would need to be to get a 4:3 ratio on a 12x9 screen, it's 12 ft. However, issue I have is then it says the brightness is in the low range. I noted that if I upped the screen gain, it improved, but I can't find anything that tells me an impact screen has gain (I can understand if it wouldn't be reflective at all). Any thoughts on a 12' throw with this projector and it's brightness/picture quality?
Impact screen : thinking 12 ft wide by 9.5' tall / Dbgolf72 16ft ordered and I plan to use tarp clips rather than grommets (high ball speed player, so thinking i'll have to move impact zone often).
Netting: Plan on getting 12' of pr20 netting for the backside of the screen, plus 2' of netting for the three sides (left, right, top). I don't intend on doing a cage, just a simple screen with angle iron connect netting on the sides extending out two feet from the screen. This is one area maybe i'm underestimating, but I rarely launch balls greater than 40 deg. and by my 10th grade trig skills, pretty sure i'm not going to run into an issue popping into the ceiling from 9-10' unless I'm leaving a solid mark on the top of my driver. Perhaps to be safe i'll extend out the ceiling portion 4' from the screen (just looked at my old driver).
Overall sim area design: 12-14 ft wide by 20' long and 12' ceilings (had to beg for that height). Fourth stall plus some of the middle stall (we shall see how that plays out with wifey). I plan on removing the rails on the garage door as I have zero need to open it in the short run. I'll have to take down myself; go figure there is a code or something about it needing to be installed to get an occupancy certificate... ridiculous.
You'll notice in the attached snippet out of my work in sketchup the stub wall i'm adding to attach the angle iron to on the left side of the screen.
Plan on position the mat so i'm hitting in the center of the screen, but that does require I have the mat (tartan turf mat bought from GS) in the third stall... may have to be a little off center by pushing further into the fourth stall or buy a different, smaller stance mat that wouldn't be so big an potential get run over by a car tire.
One big question is, what do I do with the floor immediately in front of the screen to pad the ball impact when it falls down. I'm thinking just some basic rubberized matting like you see at gyms, but appreciate any thoughts.
One other thing I thought about but haven't seen on here, for those of us who have multiple hobbies in the garage, mine being woodworking (will be in the first stall along with other tools), how would y'all recommend protecting the screen from dust, dirt, etc.? I've been trying to find a solution where I could have a drop down stance mat on a hinge that would fold up when I'm not using the sim and would provide some level of protection to the screen.
Perhaps find a way to make it a dual folding solution so it could cover the full 10' tall screen, a 2x4 frame covered in padding/green turf that folds down once to have the area between the mat and the screen covered and then a 5 foot additional foldout to unfold the mat attached to 2x4 frame. Kind of like a murphy bed in the garage. Was thinking that would be a nice clean look too if I could put plywood on the backside and paint it the same color as the walls (yes, we like our garage painted/finished). May be hard to illustrate in words the picture I have in my head, but maybe someone else has done this before and just not posted.
I'll post anything else I've been thinking about over the next week, but we're still in a our late planning stages so any comments/structural ideas are welcome.
Current thoughts on the layout/specs on my sim:
LM: GC2a
Computer/software : TGC run on an Asus w/ a 1060 card (works great)
Projector : Thinking the BenQ 2150ST as everyone else touts this brand and model - questions: When I do the calculation on the projectorcentral.com for how far back it would need to be to get a 4:3 ratio on a 12x9 screen, it's 12 ft. However, issue I have is then it says the brightness is in the low range. I noted that if I upped the screen gain, it improved, but I can't find anything that tells me an impact screen has gain (I can understand if it wouldn't be reflective at all). Any thoughts on a 12' throw with this projector and it's brightness/picture quality?
Impact screen : thinking 12 ft wide by 9.5' tall / Dbgolf72 16ft ordered and I plan to use tarp clips rather than grommets (high ball speed player, so thinking i'll have to move impact zone often).
Netting: Plan on getting 12' of pr20 netting for the backside of the screen, plus 2' of netting for the three sides (left, right, top). I don't intend on doing a cage, just a simple screen with angle iron connect netting on the sides extending out two feet from the screen. This is one area maybe i'm underestimating, but I rarely launch balls greater than 40 deg. and by my 10th grade trig skills, pretty sure i'm not going to run into an issue popping into the ceiling from 9-10' unless I'm leaving a solid mark on the top of my driver. Perhaps to be safe i'll extend out the ceiling portion 4' from the screen (just looked at my old driver).
Overall sim area design: 12-14 ft wide by 20' long and 12' ceilings (had to beg for that height). Fourth stall plus some of the middle stall (we shall see how that plays out with wifey). I plan on removing the rails on the garage door as I have zero need to open it in the short run. I'll have to take down myself; go figure there is a code or something about it needing to be installed to get an occupancy certificate... ridiculous.
You'll notice in the attached snippet out of my work in sketchup the stub wall i'm adding to attach the angle iron to on the left side of the screen.
Plan on position the mat so i'm hitting in the center of the screen, but that does require I have the mat (tartan turf mat bought from GS) in the third stall... may have to be a little off center by pushing further into the fourth stall or buy a different, smaller stance mat that wouldn't be so big an potential get run over by a car tire.
One big question is, what do I do with the floor immediately in front of the screen to pad the ball impact when it falls down. I'm thinking just some basic rubberized matting like you see at gyms, but appreciate any thoughts.
One other thing I thought about but haven't seen on here, for those of us who have multiple hobbies in the garage, mine being woodworking (will be in the first stall along with other tools), how would y'all recommend protecting the screen from dust, dirt, etc.? I've been trying to find a solution where I could have a drop down stance mat on a hinge that would fold up when I'm not using the sim and would provide some level of protection to the screen.
Perhaps find a way to make it a dual folding solution so it could cover the full 10' tall screen, a 2x4 frame covered in padding/green turf that folds down once to have the area between the mat and the screen covered and then a 5 foot additional foldout to unfold the mat attached to 2x4 frame. Kind of like a murphy bed in the garage. Was thinking that would be a nice clean look too if I could put plywood on the backside and paint it the same color as the walls (yes, we like our garage painted/finished). May be hard to illustrate in words the picture I have in my head, but maybe someone else has done this before and just not posted.
I'll post anything else I've been thinking about over the next week, but we're still in a our late planning stages so any comments/structural ideas are welcome.
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