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I've never posted on this forum, but since I relied upon it for a ton of information, I feel I should pay it forward, post some photos of my simulator build, and describe the process I went through and some of the areas where I am happy I made a decision or regret the decision made. I probably won't post often, so don't expect much in the way of responses.
As the title suggests, I faced a somewhat unique issue in making my build: I had a gabled attic to work with, which meant something like 18 feet at the highest point, but you quickly lose height once you leave the center of the room. Also, the attic was already finished, so I was banned by the fiance from anything that couldn't be folded away so that it just looked like a movie screen when not in use.
The only wall available for use had about 9 feet of width, but only about 8 feet of height for the screen (again, due to the gabling, the room goes much higher, but not in a useful way). It also had this strange feature in that the wall is flat at 10 feet before suddenly opening up to the full height. Unfortunately, this was right in front of where I wanted to put my screen, making a side enclosure difficult. At 14 handicap, I shank often enough that some kind of side protection is necessary!
All said, I decided to encase an EMT (1" conduit) frame, using grommets to connect the screen to the frame like most builds. I then enclosed the EMT with a wood frame. The wood frame is supposed to look nice, but also hides retractible curtains. To make the curtains retractible, I created a hinge mechansim curtain rod. Basically, the first foot of the rod (the portion enclosed inside the wood frame at all times is always horizontal, but the remaining 90% is on a hinge so that when not in use, it hangs vertically and can be closed inside a wood door. To do this, I used leftover EMT, cut it to a foot, and then on the last inch of it cut the bottom half off. I then was able to fit a 3/4" pipe inside of the 1" EMT and screw through both the EMT and the 3/4" pipe to create the hinge. To cover high shots (which is a problem with an 8 foot height screen), I bought a retractable roller sunshade that just happened to fit my width. That way, I crank the roller back and forth when I want to pull out or put away the setup. I'll need to redo the hinge someday since it was sort of poorly done, but the concept works. To get the rod to lie fully horizontal when in use, I have a hook on each side of the wall. Because I had a weird setup where I had about a 5 foot gap of 18 foot ceiling before i reached my 10 foot ceiling, i had to do run a chain up to the ceiling. Not the prettiest, but it works.
Since I had the height, I hung the projector. To eliminate cords, I bought a wireless HDMI transmitter. Someday, I'll fix the hanging electrical cord but i barely notice it anymore. The SkyTrak is centered on the screen and attached by velcro to a small lazy susan that I drilled two screws into. The screws stop the skytrak at 180 degrees so that it rotates from lefty to righty. I got the PC on eBay - it's okay, but will likely need upgrade for TGC 2019. The mats came from eBay (a generic version of the CC Real Feel mats). Like the Real Feel mats, they are pretty unforgiving on flat shots, but otherwise work fine. I found some cheap mat strips and useful tees from Wittek.com. The tees are technically tee holders, but I just use them without the tee.
In retrospect, I wish I had done a few things differently.
1. I probably should've gone on here to get feed back on how to create that hinge. Mine has worked for a year now, but that first foot of horizontal pipe needs to hold the weight of the entire curtain when not in use and its starting to sag.
2. The sunshade rolls out great, but it's pretty thin and I'm not terribly confident in it (although it has worked before).
3. I wish I looked into the screen quality of the hitting screens a bit more. I got remnants from Carl's of their intermediate brand, and while it's great for catching balls, its a bit hard to use it as a PC (small font is neraly illegible). It still works for movies. Also, mine was a remnant because it wasn't a perfect rectangle, so I always have ripples on the bottom.
5. I put the projector on a track, thinking I would want to move it forward and back from 4:3 to 16:9 for Movies. The track works perfectly, but I've never once used it. I just leave it in 4:3 and the full-screen mode on most movies fixes the rest. I don't notice the resolution hit too much.
6. Used powertools. I used a handsaw to cut everything, which resulted in slightly uneven gaps. I should've just bought the miter saw and table saw back then, but I was frankly scared of them.
I attached some photos of the setup out in golf mode and "movie mode". Its not fully in movie mode I suppose since I left the mats out.
I've seen better builds on this site for sure, but none dealing with odd dimension roofs or one trying to masquerade as furniture when not in use (albeit IKEA quality furniture at best).
On a quasi-related note, if you flip the feet on the skytrak upside down, they work great as a mechanism to fine tune the bubble to make it even.
-Dave
As the title suggests, I faced a somewhat unique issue in making my build: I had a gabled attic to work with, which meant something like 18 feet at the highest point, but you quickly lose height once you leave the center of the room. Also, the attic was already finished, so I was banned by the fiance from anything that couldn't be folded away so that it just looked like a movie screen when not in use.
The only wall available for use had about 9 feet of width, but only about 8 feet of height for the screen (again, due to the gabling, the room goes much higher, but not in a useful way). It also had this strange feature in that the wall is flat at 10 feet before suddenly opening up to the full height. Unfortunately, this was right in front of where I wanted to put my screen, making a side enclosure difficult. At 14 handicap, I shank often enough that some kind of side protection is necessary!
All said, I decided to encase an EMT (1" conduit) frame, using grommets to connect the screen to the frame like most builds. I then enclosed the EMT with a wood frame. The wood frame is supposed to look nice, but also hides retractible curtains. To make the curtains retractible, I created a hinge mechansim curtain rod. Basically, the first foot of the rod (the portion enclosed inside the wood frame at all times is always horizontal, but the remaining 90% is on a hinge so that when not in use, it hangs vertically and can be closed inside a wood door. To do this, I used leftover EMT, cut it to a foot, and then on the last inch of it cut the bottom half off. I then was able to fit a 3/4" pipe inside of the 1" EMT and screw through both the EMT and the 3/4" pipe to create the hinge. To cover high shots (which is a problem with an 8 foot height screen), I bought a retractable roller sunshade that just happened to fit my width. That way, I crank the roller back and forth when I want to pull out or put away the setup. I'll need to redo the hinge someday since it was sort of poorly done, but the concept works. To get the rod to lie fully horizontal when in use, I have a hook on each side of the wall. Because I had a weird setup where I had about a 5 foot gap of 18 foot ceiling before i reached my 10 foot ceiling, i had to do run a chain up to the ceiling. Not the prettiest, but it works.
Since I had the height, I hung the projector. To eliminate cords, I bought a wireless HDMI transmitter. Someday, I'll fix the hanging electrical cord but i barely notice it anymore. The SkyTrak is centered on the screen and attached by velcro to a small lazy susan that I drilled two screws into. The screws stop the skytrak at 180 degrees so that it rotates from lefty to righty. I got the PC on eBay - it's okay, but will likely need upgrade for TGC 2019. The mats came from eBay (a generic version of the CC Real Feel mats). Like the Real Feel mats, they are pretty unforgiving on flat shots, but otherwise work fine. I found some cheap mat strips and useful tees from Wittek.com. The tees are technically tee holders, but I just use them without the tee.
In retrospect, I wish I had done a few things differently.
1. I probably should've gone on here to get feed back on how to create that hinge. Mine has worked for a year now, but that first foot of horizontal pipe needs to hold the weight of the entire curtain when not in use and its starting to sag.
2. The sunshade rolls out great, but it's pretty thin and I'm not terribly confident in it (although it has worked before).
3. I wish I looked into the screen quality of the hitting screens a bit more. I got remnants from Carl's of their intermediate brand, and while it's great for catching balls, its a bit hard to use it as a PC (small font is neraly illegible). It still works for movies. Also, mine was a remnant because it wasn't a perfect rectangle, so I always have ripples on the bottom.
5. I put the projector on a track, thinking I would want to move it forward and back from 4:3 to 16:9 for Movies. The track works perfectly, but I've never once used it. I just leave it in 4:3 and the full-screen mode on most movies fixes the rest. I don't notice the resolution hit too much.
6. Used powertools. I used a handsaw to cut everything, which resulted in slightly uneven gaps. I should've just bought the miter saw and table saw back then, but I was frankly scared of them.
I attached some photos of the setup out in golf mode and "movie mode". Its not fully in movie mode I suppose since I left the mats out.
I've seen better builds on this site for sure, but none dealing with odd dimension roofs or one trying to masquerade as furniture when not in use (albeit IKEA quality furniture at best).
On a quasi-related note, if you flip the feet on the skytrak upside down, they work great as a mechanism to fine tune the bubble to make it even.
-Dave
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