Hello! From Oregon. Build questions.

[Saint1]

Hi Ya'll,

First and foremost - I wanted to thank you all for the immense amount of information on this site. I'm amidst building my simulator set up and have probably spent 40 hours or so on this site throughout the last few weeks. I've done a lot of reading but there are a few final points I can't decide on for myself- and was hoping to get some input on A.) enclosure size, b.) enclosure padding, and C.) launch monitor.

A. I built my enclosure out of 1" EMT and currently have it with dimensions of 10'W by 8'6"H by 3'6" depth. I plan on hitting from about 8'6". Now, I know that is not ideal for any aspect ratio but here was the reasoning behind my decision. I'm in somewhat of a limited space in my garage- I have 13 feet of width to swing but the stairs in my garage stick out towards my hitting area so I wanted to leave some room for a walkway. I built my enclosure to 8'6" because I'll have some very new golfers using the set up and figured adding a little more room for errant sky shots might be worth it, even if I sacrifice some aesthetic quality on my projector. Although, after more and more time looking at projectors I'm considering shaving my enclosure down to 8'. First question - is 8'H plenty of room for an enclosure when hitting from 8'6" or 9' and will the 6" of difference really make that much of a difference aesthetically?

B. I used the Gungho Golf plans that I've seen on this forum many times and wrapped my EMT with foam padding. From everything I've read, I know this won't really help much (or at all) with bounce back. My plan was to get gutter foam for the top, bottom, and back sides of my enclosure. I figured I could zip tie that to the EMT and then finish it off with velcro'd carpet padding around the edge to make it more clean. I'm not worried about this for the top and bottom pipes but worry about getting a sufficient covering on the sides. Are there any other ideas on how to safely protect the back side bars from bounce back?

C. When I started this build plan, I was all in on the BLP. With their new announcement of Golf package requirements to run GSPRO and the lack of ability to "unlock" the device, I'm having second thoughts. I plan to use this for a very long time and don't like the idea of having to pay $750 a year in perpetuity to run GSPRO. I talked with someone at Foresight and was offered a new GC3 with ball/club data for $6,250 shipped and delivered. Given they're offered CPO's of the GC3 for $6K at the moment, this seems like a fantastic deal. I plan to use this for practice as much as actual simulation, so having accurate club data is important to me and this feels like the way to go. Should I jump on this offer or wait to see if anything crazy comes out for Black Friday?

Thank you if you've taken the time to read through all of these questions and I appreciate any feedback.

[Simgolf503]

I'll comment on A&B.
A) You have to work within your restrictions and manage your expectations. As long as you can safely swing all clubs, it'll work. 6" won't make much of a difference and 4.3 will look great for sim golf but not TV.
B) Attached is my build and I did screen frame only in 1" EMT no sides, 8.5'x11.5' - 4.3 aspect. I bought the foam gutter wedges and used construction adhesive to apply black boat carpet to the front and 3" wide Velcro to the back and stapled the connecting Velcro to the 2x4 framing used for the EMT.
Looks clean but negative is when shots hit where the foam and screen meet, the ball goes under the foam and occasionally behind the screen.

[GullLakeMi]

A) Seems 2 concerns: (1) can you swing driver (longest club) from 8.6' back and clear top and side bars of cage? (2) If you hit highest lofted wedge, where does ball hit screen/ceiling? You may need to add a baffle on ceiling or some protection. I used trial and error to directly test my setup, which is similar dimensions but I hit from 11 feet back.

B) I used the gutter foam for side bar padding. Works fine for safety. As mentioned, ball can occasionally get behind, etc., but I consider it easy to resolve and didn't address further.

C) Regarding club data - I cut/pasted this from online: When club markers are applied, the GC3 can measure the following club data: club head speed, club path, smash factor (efficiency) angle of attack. Unlike the GCQuad, the GC3 does not measure face angle, loft & lie, impact location or closure rate, nor does it provide putting data. I have the Quad and love all the data. I wish I had that feedback while playing a real round! I'm out of touch on pricing, but would seem there will be deals. Prior to Foresight partnership with GSPro, that often seemed to include free courses on FSX2020 that were of no value to me. However, the more competitive LM market may yield pure price discounts. At end of day, it's technology in a fast changing market. Accept that it will likely devalue over time like a computer, but secondary market remains active so they seem to always have resale/trade-in value.

[jasonreg]

I built my enclosure out of 1" EMT and currently have it with dimensions of 10'W by 8'6"H by 3'6" depth. I plan on hitting from about 8'6". Now, I know that is not ideal for any aspect ratio but here was the reasoning behind my decision. I'm in somewhat of a limited space in my garage- I have 13 feet of width to swing but the stairs in my garage stick out towards my hitting area so I wanted to leave some room for a walkway. I built my enclosure to 8'6" because I'll have some very new golfers using the set up and figured adding a little more room for errant sky shots might be worth it, even if I sacrifice some aesthetic quality on my projector. Although, after more and more time looking at projectors I'm considering shaving my enclosure down to 8'. First question - is 8'H plenty of room for an enclosure when hitting from 8'6" or 9' and will the 6" of difference really make that much of a difference aesthetically?

Welcome to the forums! So you do not mention how high your garage is but I am assuming you have enough to swing the clubs you want to swing. From my point of view the enclosure height will not make a huge difference (typical even 60 degree wedge only has a launch angle of 36-38 degrees so from 9 feet you will impact the screen at about 7.5 feet (its just math)). That said, I would keep it at 8'6" unless there was an overriding reason to change. Folks sky shots - it happens...... Also, the extra height may actually give you more projector options (wrt mounting distance) and a small black space at the top of your enclosure will go unnoticed IMO.

If you are keen on changing anything, I might suggest making it a tad deeper if possible. Again, folks miss shots ........

[Saint1]

Thank you all for the replies.

Simgolf503 - that’s a great set up. Planning to do something similar as mentioned with the gutter foam and carpet padding. I know it won’t be perfect, but assuming only shanked balls really hit that area I don’t think it’ll be a big deal.

GullLakeMi I have a top built out to 3.5FT which will help with higher launched wedges. But agree that a skied driver could in theory launch a ball too high, but if that’s the case it feels like you would have to hit almost the top of the head and I sure hope that’s not happening too frequently. That’s a great point on the resale value. I would love to have face position as well but I know that’s more of a quad analytic (or GC2 + club data). Also, I feel like you can somewhat back your way in to face position by seeing path and ball flight so it seems like that’d give me plenty.


jasonreg - plenty of room to swing driver. 10ft ceilings but I do have my garage track that runs down to 9ft. 9ft feels plenty high to me but I’m also setting up on the garage track so the takeaway would have to be almost 100% vertical for this to ever come into play at all. My thought process was the same as yours- I knew I wasn’t going to have a perfect aspect ratio regardless so I figured having a little bit more space would be better. I purchased a Benq TH671ST at the recommendation of Carls and that’s what got me thinking about trimming it down. They’re telling me that with an 8.6” enclosure I’ll have 6.5inches of overflow on each side and with an 8’ enclosure I’ll only have 2.5” of overflow. I’m pretty green when it comes to projectors and don’t personally know if I’d be able to tweak the zoom/ distance to fill the screen entirely, but that was my primary reason for considering shortening it.

[jasonreg]

They’re telling me that with an 8.6” enclosure I’ll have 6.5inches of overflow on each side and with an 8’ enclosure I’ll only have 2.5” of overflow.

No need to have any overflow. A few good threads on the topic if you search - I would start here: Sticky: Make your Projected IMAGE SIZE match your MONITOR resolution! - Golf Simulator Forum