Garage Sportscreen Setup

[wbond]

Now onto my 4th iteration of a simulator setup. I had been looking for a way to go from the 4:3 setup I had to a 16:9 setup and when the sportscreen went on sale, I decided to jump on it. There were also a few issues with my current setup that I wanted to address, mainly access to attic, no left handed players and not fully using the width of my screen. Putting up the sportscreen had a few issues as well as some others I encountered.

-mounting the brackets, it's designed to attach to a flat horizontal or vertical surface. I attached them to a slanted roof and it ended up coming out from my wall more than I would have liked to get the desired height. Lost about 2.5' of depth

-attaching the impact screen, i used industrial strength stick on velcro. It attaches to the tube fine, but it did not attach to the fabric very well at all. Sewing one on would have been way better.

-I couldn't use the full the 16' width due to a door and I didn't want to block it, so i folded over the sportscreen and taped it in place to be 14'6" and this worked well. however, when folding over the impact screen, it wants to push out away from the sportscreen and doesn't stay flat. Still need to figure out a way to minimize this.

-Upon impact, the screen really moves inward since it is not fixed on the sides. I can fix it on one side, but not the other due to the room layout. I would have thought with the weight of the direct from mill screen, it wouldn't move as much. I have to figure out how to overcome this. I'm going to try to and put in a drop in an anchor on the floor and screw in an eyebolt when playing and attach it there. The bottom of the impact screen just brushes the ground and the sportscreen bottom sleeve is fully on the ground. I have not put anything into the sleeve yet but plan on doing the nylon sleeve filled with sand. Hopefully this combination helps.

-Still working on the roller tube protection. i want to make sure a ball can't strike it. I planned on running an elastic cord across the front to hold my ceiling protection below the roller tube, but it didn't work. As soon as I raised the ceiling protection, the cord went right up to the tube. I then had a leftover piece of pvc covered in foam from the supertex screen and ran the elastic cord through it. This allows it to hang below the rollertube, but I'm not fully convinced that it will be the final solution.

-The 16' width of the sportscreen sags a little in the middle. More annoying than anything else, but i really wonder what kind of weight it's rated for. The sportscreen itself is very light.

-For the side trim, there isn't really anything to attach to, so what i did was use a tarp clip and ball bungee with a 2.5lb weight attached to the end that hangs over the top of the tube on the back side. So far it seems to work fairly well.

-For right handed play, i'm offset about 1.5' from the center of the screen. This puts me at about 8' from the wall behind my back and it still feels a little cramped. I may move it over another 6 inches.

-I used the same projector mounting method that i had before, angle iron so the projector can slide fore and aft and side to side. For whatever reason, projector central was quite a bit off on the height of the lens to the ground. Luckily i used slotted angle iron, but i had to take it down and trim some off since it was casting a shadow.

-I use the direct from mill screen and intentionally ordered it wider so i can unroll some if the impact area gets worn. In doing so, it really left wrinkles in the screen where the clips were. Hopefully it goes away in time.

Version one was just a net and I could only swing up to about a 6 iron.

Version two i used half the garage, the width was about 10' by about 14' deep and I was really offset. Cheap projector and was originally hitting into a drop cloth and then the archery netting from west cost netting.

Version three was the 4:3 setup which was about 11'w by 9.5' tall. My image was off the ground a bit on this setup as well.

[SkeetShooter]

A few questions for you.
1. Did you go motorized?
2. How much was the Direct-from Mill screen material


Looks good. A suggestion about protecting the roller from balls. You could likely use some pool noodles and glue it to it, or cut pieces of closed cell insulation foam to it.

[wbond]

1-I did not do motorized. I don't see a need to hardly ever move it up and down and if i do, it only takes a minute or so with the hand crank. If i had to do it a lot, i would use a cordless drill with a hook, way cheaper then getting the motorized version.
2-I am looking into larger pool noodles and hopefully black in color since I'm using mesh tarp for the ceiling and it's see through.

[Captargo]

Would be very interested when you find a solution to protecting the roller bar at works for you. I am still struggling with this.

i currently have a "valance" made of memory foam that I drape over the roller but a) have to add it after the screen is rolled down and remove it before I roll the screen up and b) balls hitting the memory foam covered roller still come back quite fast. My ceiling netting is currently setup above the roller bar

one thought was to build and hang a wooden "valance" and hang it just in front of and at the same height as the roller bar. I would put some padding on the wood (memory foam likely) and hang the ceiling netting at the same height as the bottom of this new valance.

other thought was to do rig up some kind of "shot defender" type setup - hanging something loosely in front of the roller bar to deflect the ball away from the roller

[Burtgolf]

wbond for you roller protection .. from your pictures it looks like you have the ceiling tarp hanging in front of it with something inside of it already... could just be the way I am looking at it. But if not then if you were able to create a bit more of a loop in the ceiling protection at the roller area and then just get the "noodles" (I used pipe insulation) and throw a few of them in there that should provide enough weight to stop any direct shots into it... at least that is working for me so far.

My impact screen is Velcro direct to the SportScreen across the back top of the impact screen and is holding up and rolling up with no issues. I originally had put Velcro along the sides and quickly found that was a bad idea when rolling it up and for ball bounce back. So now it is just the back top of the impact screen on the SportScreen and nothing else and the bounce back is greatly reduced. I do not notice how much the screen is actually moving until I look at a recording of the shot and both sides and bottom are free flowing but the weight of the screen returns it back to normal by the time I am looking up to "watch" the ball flight.

For the bottom.... I used 2 of the 3 metal tubes that come with the SportScreen and centered them in the bottom pocket. Then when I lower the SportScreen I let those just hit the garage floor and bring it up just a fraction, this allows the SportScreen to move back a bit with each hit which seems to also help the impact screen absorb the impact of the ball. I am not seeing any issue with the image as it gets moved slightly backwards .. not sure if this will solve your issue but figured it was worth a mention.

Think this version is the best looking one so far! Thanks for the pics!

[wbond]

Burtgolf Thanks for the input. Yes, there is a 10' piece of pvc covered in pipe insulation sitting inside the ceiling protection. I am going to play with that a little to see if i can get it positioned correctly to prevent any shot from hitting the rollerbar. The sportscreen is about 9'6" if I remember correctly and my impact screen was 10'. Trying to get those to match up at ground level was nearly impossible and i gave up. I'm going to first try and use the fiberglass/plastic rods and fold up the sportscreen bottom up so it just brushes the ground as well and see if it helps.

[xfactor989]

Hope its OK to resurrect an old thread.

I should be receiving my sportscreen today and trying to maximize the ball flight for the Mevo+.

How close to the garage wall can I safely mount the Sportscreen? I am planning on putting a memory foam topper we already have behind it. Is this overkill?

I plan on putting a used Supertex screen on the sportscreen with velcro.

wbond Did you do the loops like Burtgolf recommended? Did it also work out well for you? This is what I am leaning towards.

Thanks for all input

[SkeetShooter]

I'm sitting at roughly 16" but I think you could go maybe to 12" I think the Memory foam topper is not required, unless its purely for sound mitigation.

[Burtgolf]

xfactor989
Mine is 12 inches from the wall with nothing but the Carls impact screen attached to the "SportScreen" with double sided Velcro... This ended up being a PITA when the garage got super hot in summer the adhesive melted and smeared everywhere as the impact screen went sliding down to the garage flooring .. I ended up using small zip ties through the Carls screen grommets and the sportscreen mesh and this has worked stellar since except the actual sportscreen mesh material is in shreds where the ball impact is occurring!!! Which is fine for me as I plan on attaching the Direct From the Mill screen over the top of the Carls and remove the sportscreen mesh material completely when I make my next improvements to it. Also, in addition to the loop full of padding for the roller protection I ended up getting some 4x12 inch foam and attached it to the ceiling right in front of the roller (with the screen rolled up) so now it also stops any balls from shooting up the screen and impacting the ceiling I also added the larger pool noodles in the loop.

[SkeetShooter]

Your's shredded too huh? Interesting... I told Sportscreen about this, and they were like, "Oh we haven't heard of that happening before" On another note... Be careful with hanging your screen... my buddy slipped when we were installing it and it hit the ground on the idler end and broke the plastic... It's a $50 replacement each time... So if anyone knows a source to get a metal idler end... Holla at yo boy!

[xfactor989]

Burtgolf, SkeetShooter, Thank your for the input

I was thinking of going 6 or 8" from the wall, but will keep at 12" distance and skip the memory foam for unless I find it is too loud and add later.

I'm in Michigan so don't the heat and wife will be sewing Velcro on, so dont have to worry about the adhesive.

I have a bunch of extra moving blankets, so plan on putting that in the loops.

Unfortunately it looks like I was too late to the party for @dbgolf direct from mill screen. Emailed him shortly before it was closed, I ended up with a great deal on a used good enough screen.

What type of 4" x 12" foam did you use?

I will make sure I have a couple of helpers when hanging the sportscreen.

[Burtgolf]

xfactor989 Not a clue what type of foam it is. It was some extra the wife had acquired probably from hobby lobby but it was a large piece and feels very spongy. It was probably closer to 4" x 24" x 48" to begin with the scrap I had left was 4x18x33 and I just cut the 18 inch side down to 12 and tried to center it at the top of my impact area as I normally hit to the same spot or within inches of it. I chose 12 inches as measured from the ceiling to the bottom of the roller is about 6" and my "loop" is about 12" from ceiling so it hides the foam from view unless your looking straight up at it.

SkeetShooter It shred so bad it does not exist behind the impact area except for a few strands still fighting to hold on. It reminds me of the old outdoor furniture when the nylon loses its ability to stay together and every strand is a single piece flapping away not able to have any resistance .. that would be best I could describe it. Maybe I should take a picture of it and send them one so they know what their mesh screen looks like after a year of golf balls hitting an impact screen in front of it does to it.. HAHA

[SkeetShooter]

Does it look like that? This is when I had an off-center setup.

[leibjuwp]

xfactor989
This ended up being a PITA when the garage got super hot in summer the adhesive melted and smeared everywhere as the impact screen went sliding down to the garage flooring

Similar thing just happened to me. xfactor989 how has the Velcro held up? Did you need to reinforce the sportscreen before sewing the Velcro?

[xfactor989]

My impact screen is still attached to the sportscreen. My wife did sew the velcro to the impact and sportscreen though. If you have it sewed on, make sure you by the velcro meant for sewing, she tried with sticky stuff I initially bought till Burtgolf mentioned the velcro sliding off in the heat. I also always have atleast one wrap of the impact screen around the sportscreen.

My complaint is I purchased the 16 ft sportscreen and it definetly bows in the middle.