help me plan my garage sim please!

[morrisad]

Thanks to all for the great info on this site, I've only been reading for a few days and have already learned so much. We recently built a new house and unfortunately I did not manage to work room for a sim on the inside. That said, we have a 3.5 stall garage and only 2 cars, so I'm thinking I can use the 1/2 stall for a sim area to get me through the long Minnesota winters. The area is 14' x 16' with one side open to the rest of the garage, and 10' ceilings. The 14' wall is the end of the peninsula and has a door to the backyard and the main circuit breaker box, so it obviously can not be permanently covered. Originally I was thinking of having the screen on that side and coming up with a way to retract it to the ceiling, but now am considering going the other direction, so the screen could potentially be fixed. I'm not sure the 14' depth is enough though. So, good things are that I have high ceilings, there's already power outlets on the ceiling for the garage door openers, and the wireless router is close and reception should be good. One bad thing is that my son is left-handed, so I need a two-way setup.

At the moment I'm planning on going with a SkyTrak / TGC system. My main PC is in the small resource center adjacent the garage and that's also where my wireless router is, so I'm hoping I can use Miracast and a BenQ projector with the wireless kit and do an all wireless setup. If that doesn't work I can always run wires or get another PC or laptop for the garage. The attached drawing isn't to scale obviously. If I need more depth from hitting area to screen I could move the screen to the end wall, but then I would need to devise something that folds up to the ceiling like PunchoutPro did. I'd like to be able to move the stance mat and putting strip while not in use so it doesn't get too dirty or beat up.

So what say you experts? Good plan / bad plan? Suggestions? I'm all ears!

[morrisad]

Here's an update for you guys. I finally had some time this weekend to get my space cleaned out, and it ended up being 13.5' wide and about 18' deep before the garage door rails start to impede a driver back swing. It's just a smidge narrower than Protee recommends for a righty / lefty setup but I put the hitting mat down centered and had plenty of room on all sides to swing driver. My 6 year old son is the only lefty that will be using it so I can probably offset the whole thing to give more room to the righty if necessary. I bought a used Protee setup from a member on here (thanks Ryan), so I have that ready to go. I'm working with a couple of vendors to get a screen, frame, side / top netting, an H cam, a stance mat, and the TGC software purchased. My options for the screen would be 12' x 9' on a 4:3 aspect ratio or 12' x 7.5' on a 16:10 aspect ratio. I feel like 12' x 9' would fill the space very nicely and leave enough space to set up a system to raise the screen to the ceiling for the summer time. I won't have to raise and lower it often, maybe a couple of times a year, so it's okay if it's a bit of a process.

I'll need to devise a system for lifting the screen assembly up to the ceiling, and a track for the halogen lights and H-cam. I'm going to try and tap into my main computer which is just on the other side of the wall inside the house, the only issue there might be the graphics card which is a GTX 960 I believe and it might struggle with TGC. I can always spend the $300 to upgrade the card rather than buy a whole new machine. I'm not sure whether to do a short throw projector or not. Short throw would need to be mounted around 10-11' away from the screen which is right where the halogen lights and H-cam go. I could mount it to the side and use keystone correction but I'm not sure if that will be too much stuff in too small of an area on the ceiling. A normal throw would be about 17-18' feet back from the screen, but one vendor thinks I'll have issues with image quality degradation and shadows at that distance. Any suggestions on screen size and short throw versus regular throw projector? Attached is a more detailed schematic of the setup that's I've been working on, should be pretty close to scale.

[p3eps]

http://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum/build-your-own/enclosures/75415-my-fold-up-golf-sim-build-v2-uk

There's how I pull my screen to the ceiling.

[morrisad]

Photobucket is blocked at work unfortunately but I'll have a closer look at your thread tonight. Thanks p3eps.

[wbond]

The optoma GT1080 for 12' wide image would have a throw of 8' so it would be in front of your lights. Not sure if that interferes with anything. Putting a projector behind lights that shine straight down may wash out the image.

[morrisad]

According to the Protee diagram, the putting sensor halogen should be 7' from the screen though. Hitting sensor halogen is at 11.25', and H cam is just in front of that. It does seem logical that if it's behind the lights there could an issue, I'm just wondering how others have dealt with this issue. I just can't figure out where the ideal spot for the projector is.