Comments on my proposed build?

[hhk27]

Hello everyone and thanks for adding me to the forum.

I have done a ton of research but would love to get some feedback before I start building. I'm lucky that I have an existing room in my house with a 12' 9" ceiling. It's 10' 8" wide and 19' 2" long. Unfortunately, the floor is at two levels with one level being 7" higher than the other. But, I think I can work around this. I'm going with a Flightscope Mevo+.

I'm going to order a 12x10 (H x W) screen so that it basically covers one entire wall. Then I will pad the left wall and have a curtain on the right one. The reason for the curtain is that I have my entry door in that location. I've attached my floorplan and a perspective rendering below. BTW, the ceiling fan and hanging lights will be removed. Good thing is I can use one of those locations for my projector.

I have two specific questions:

1. When building the frame out of EMT, is it best to make it four sided and secure all four sides with bungees? Or, should the bottom be loose and weighted down? My concern is that if it's bungeed on all four sides, it will have a trampoline effect.

2. I'd like to get the screen as close to the wall as possible. Vendor is recommending 1 foot. I was thinking of mounting memory foam mattress toppers to the wall to absorb shots and reducing the distance to 4-6". Bad or good idea?

Thanks and any and all comments welcome.

[3on3putt]

1. Don't fasten the bottom of the screen. Let it hang free with some weight in it.

2. There's a lot of discussions about this. I think some people manage to pull it off. I won't weigh in there since I did not go that route.

A big thing to keep in mind is that the Mevo+ is going to need a level floor surface for putting so you may want to put down a subfloor or something to address that difference in floor height.

[hhk27]

I'm not that concerned about putting since I can reliably three-putt all greens already ;-) Seriously though, I'm not looking to build a sim, per se. I'm more interesting in grooving in my golf swing and making improvements over the long winter. As well, I've never been impressed with the putting aspect of simulators.

[Dax]

Given your room dimensions, could you not attach to the wall with angle iron? If you do go with EMT, the I would say not to attach it at the floor. Some weigh theirs down, but I don’t think it is needed. I would suggest ordering your screen a little longer but that is just my preference. You will need to do something at the bottom as well to protect against worm burners.

I would say six inches is tight. I had for mine at one point down to 8 and that seemed fine. I backed my screen up with archery netting and it worked great. There is some comments here on others using other things and so would suggest reading on what they have done. There have been at least two or three threads on this in the last 9 months.

good luck with the build.

[hhk27]

I could go with angle iron but then what do I do at the top? My worry is trying to wrestle with a 10 foot section of angle iron while standing on a ladder. With EMT, I can build it on the floor and then just lift it in place.

With the 8" spacing, are you using anything behind for dampening.

Yup, I did read a few threads and it sounds like memory foam is the way to go.

[Dax]

You could put an EMT across the top attached to the wall.

When I was at 8 inches I was impact screen and then behind that was archery netting. I still have the archery netting g behind my screen as back up for when screen fails.

[GullLakeMi]

Since your likely using 4:3 screen ratio, consider ordering a square screen. That would allow you to turn it 4 times to spread wear. I did this for mine. I have an EMT frame with 10' width. I attached screen on sides and top using grommets and bungees. Mine (Carl's premium) is fairly tight as I don't like wrinkles in the image and bounce back is not an issue unless ball hits EMT. I leave the bottom of screen unattached and roll the excess. It catches the ball sometimes and needs to be re-rolled occasionally, but works for me. I've played 30 rounds and already turned it once mainly because I took it down for another adjustment.

If your golfers are right-handed, you'll want the side curtain very functional. Given the narrow width and assuming you are hitting square to the room the contact area will be offset and close to that side. Doesn't take much of a miss-hit for a shot to hit the side curtain, which in your case is near a door that opens towards the hitter. You'll likely need at least 8" on the side as well to prevent curtain flexing to wall.

You might consider netting instead of curtain since it is in a room where you can control the lighting. I used CUSTOM NETTING Golf High Impact Hitting Net. Nylon #30 Golf Driving Net from Amazon. Easy to stretch and attach to EMT. Strong. Only watch out I've had some black on the netting transfer to ball, which can transfer to screen. It will wipe off ball if you stay on top of it (better yet, don't hit the net!).

Some of this is trial and error.

[hhk27]

So instead of 10x12, order 10x10 and I can rotate it around to even out wear? That's a great idea I never would have thought of. Since the hitting area will be offset to the right (two righties and one lefty in my family), that area is going to get a lot of wear.

I'll look into the netting thanks.

[GullLakeMi]

My width is ~10’ and height ~9’. I ordered 9.5’ square and adjusted custom EMT frame to fit width. Screen covers full height with excess on floor. Your case might be different with height > width. You’ll want to have a plan for fastening at least sides and top. Maybe 12’ and fold sides?

[jpotas]

The ceiling fan at 9'6' will probably have to be raised. It will be close when swinging your driver.

[Lucas MacEwan]

I have my screen secured at the bottom. Topped shots usually get trapped. I can adjust the tension of the screen by adding/removing bunjees on the sides. That being said, out of 40 possible bunjees I'm only using about half. Maybe 8 on each side 8 on the bottom 8 on the top. I'm guessing you could have the screen 10 inches from the wall. The screen will develop an indent where you hit most of your shots, so over time the ball will get slightly closer to the back wall.

[mdprince]

I haven't hung my screen yet, but I did get a suggestion to use high strength zip ties. That gives much more flexibility on the screen placement within the frame and allows you to tension to the exact level needed to remove any wrinkles. Combined with a weighted bottom screen, it should give a nice clean look and potentially allow you to move a little closer to the back wall as well.

On a side note....how did you build out the 3D room model?

[hhk27]

Thanks for the ziptie idea. I'll order some. I can use them for other purposes anyways. The rendering was done using Rhino 3D rendering software.