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Hello All,
Back prior to Thanksgiving some how or another I ended up on this forum. I am sure it had something to do with being on lockdown, and stuck at home looking for someway to survive! My wife and I are not avid golfers (yet!). In any case, after reading a few posts I said “I am going to build a golf simulator!”
Looking back now I realize that I had no idea how much work I had signed up for. I also underestimated how much time it was going to take. I also underestimated the complexity of the project, and because of that I didn’t apply the usual degree of seriousness that I do for my projects as an electrical and software engineer. My advice now is take the project serious and apply due diligence. I just wish I would have taken an additional hour or so to read a few more posts on this forum, and gain a better understanding PRIOR to setting out on the Build. I just have to laugh at myself. Sorry for the long introduction, but just trying to warn other new forum members. This forum and all of the helpful posts by members has been a valuable resource.
My build ended up in the garage, basically since my wife felt she “won” since I wasn’t going to build it in the house! I now know that essentially the design of most DIY simulators depend on many factors. Although I had a false start, I tried to adjust to my early mistakes, and continued to read the forum and make adjustments as best as I could… while waiting to make a decision on which launch monitor, and then while waiting for the chosen launch monitor. So enough chit chat, and here is a list of what I ended up with, how it ended up where it did, and why.
Build constraints:
- Still need to be able to park two cars, a motorcycle and a trike inside the garage, along with other traditional garage stored items.
- Taking sloping concrete floor into account I have ceiling height from 9’3” - 9’5’.
- Noisy environment. Garage has two heat pump systems with two furnaces inside garage, and two outdoor heat pump units outside one wall of the garage.
- A semi-permanent area of 14’ wide by 15’ in depth (plus 18” behind impact screen), with an additional area of approximately 9’ added to the depth by backing out a car.
- Usual financial and DIY labor time constraints. Still have a couple more years before retirement.
Build choices:
- Took advantage of a drive-through garage section with garage doors at each end that was built initially for when I had a boat and could pull in with boat and pull out the other end. This allowed building the simulator in the middle of that section and parking the trike on the backside with access to that door, and the motorcycle on the front section with access to that door.
- The above location did present a couple of challenges in that I would be hitting into the wall that on the other side had a heat pump unit with fan that could produce possible noise for a radar unit. Also a window with a lot of light was located directly behind the impact screen.
- Decided on a 13’ wide by 10’ tall impact screen on amazon.
- Backed up center of impact screen with a 10’ wide sports screen. (Initially was going to do a 10’ wide screen but changed mind midstream to a wider screen).
- Installed curtain rails to ceiling found on amazon in a “U” shape that surrounded 13’ x 14’ of hitting area.
- Installed blackout curtains found on amazon with grommets that were 108” in length and enough to cover the entire U shaped hitting area.
- Also installed black mesh tarp attached to the same hangers used for curtains to cover the entire U shaped hitting area.
- Found pretty heavy duty spring loaded curtain rods on amazon and used those at four corners of hitting area. Placed these OUTSIDE of final outside mesh tarp layer so the ball could not reach them, but still covered with pipe insulation. Used ball bungees with tarp clamps to provide impact screen tension via the curtain rods.
- Placed a header at top of screen of 1” of EVA foam backed by Tyvek house wrap (had it since building house 17 years ago) glued to it. The header provides cushion protection of sports screen mount, but also blacks out top border of screen projection.
- Placed 1” of EVA foam plus 2” of acoustic foam on ceiling from screen up to front of projector.
- Placed a baffle on ceiling 2 feet back from the screen that goes across the full width of screen.
- Placed another ceiling baffle that drapes from in front of projector to screen that is about 4 feet wide to help protect for ceiling bounce from high lofted lob shots. Both baffles made from leftover and scrounged material already had.
- Purchased three 12’ x 6’ x 0.75” thick foam backed turf sections on amazon for stance and landing area.
- Purchased a ProPutt putting strip 2’ x 12’.
- Purchased Fiberbuilt hitting strip 1’ x 3’.
- To place all turf at the same height as Fiberbuilt height of 1.75” I installed 1” Dricore under all of hitting area.
- Used black canvas tubes (filled with sand) along both sides of hitting area and zipped tied curtains to them so that balls could not go and hide behind the curtains.
- Decided on Optima 1080HDR projector. Mounted the projector to shallow mount and used two leftover sections of curtain rail to allow sliding projector position.
- Placed a basket for minor projector protection, but also used to wrap aluminum screen to get rid of projector fan radar interference.
- Also placed a leftover 1/8” particle board wrapped in screen behind the screen between outdoor heat pump unit for radar interference.
- By now you guessed it… I chose to use Mevo plus as a launch monitor, and BTW the two screen wrapped items above were needed, but most importantly did work.
I will add some build pictures in following post, as to not add to this already far too long initial post.
Thanks for all the help that so many of you provided!
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