My DIY 80/20 Sim Rig

[lowside67]

Hi folks,

I had a few PMs/comments where people asked about my rig so I thought I'd post a few photos and sketches in case anybody wanted to use this as inspiration for their own.







I used 80/20 aluminum extrusion instead of steel for a few reasons:
1) Much lighter; I regularly slide this out of the way to allow me to work at my desk, so this helps
2) Infinitely adjustable; every segment can be slid and adjusted against all the others
3) Reuseable; if I ever don't need this, these pieces can easily be used for something else, or resold

I also used some 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood as part of my design:
1) Much cheaper than using 80/20 for everything
2) Easier to create stability across multiple directions without a ton of triangulating braces

My overall design philosophy was that I wanted this thing to be stiff and sturdy at the lowest possible cost and weight. There are a million 80/20 designs out there - there are some best practices and well reviewed cockpits that I emulated and also a great many designs that are either weaker or heavier (and more expensive) than needed. I designed this based on my gut feel, but now that I have built it, I am extremely pleased - it absolutely exhibits no noticeable flex or vibration in any direction.

-Mark

[lowside67]

Here are the drawings I used to build it:







I used the 1530 Ultralite profile from TNutz: https://www.tnutz.com/product/ex-1530ul-black/

Cut list:
2 @ 48" (main lengths)
2 @ 18" (cross beams)
2 @ 26" (wheeldeck uprights).

I had the cross beams machined to accept anchors at each end rather than using brackets - this is both cheaper and stronger per 80/20's own marketing materials.



I am short but if you are using a seat on a slider, I would suggest that 48" lengths will be fine to accommodate almost any height person. My seat is forward of the mount on its location, I would suspect up to about 6' to work fine with those lengths. Adding an extra 2" would probably ensure it would work almost any person under any circumstance.

A note on the uprights; as you'll see in my photos, I use this with a monitor mounted on my wall. Because the monitor is at a normal working height, I need to run my setup fairly high - therefore, I have spacers under my seat, the wheel deck fairly high, etc.

If you are using VR or have the flexibility to mount the monitor wherever you want, you could consider reducing the height of the wheel deck uprights to 24". It's also worth considering my wheel deck has a 15 degree upward angle, so if yours is horizontal, perhaps stick with the dimensions I have posted.

-Mark

[lowside67]

The plywood segment is a bit of a "choose your own adventure". I put a lot of effort into achieving the best product I could to make sure it was both super strong and cosmetically acceptable for my home office and own sense of OCD. I used dado slots in all the "upright" pieces to allow me to create stronger glued joints, and then pocket screwed them.



However, you could probably skip the dados and just pocket screw and glue the connections and not miss a beat; the cheapest Kreg jig is about $29 which I bought and have had fun playing with.



The pedal deck is an 18" wide (including the uprights), 15" deep, and 6" tall and I have drilled a few holes to give me some angle adjustment. The seat mount is 18" wide (again incl uprights, 15" deep, and 8" tall; I originally built this with only flat holes, since then I have added some angle as my seat is a bottom mount and does not allow for any angle adjustment.

The wheel deck is 21" wide (including the uprights), with the actual platform being 6" deep but the whole assembly being 9.25" deep, and 3" tall.

-Mark

[lowside67]

Since I am proud of this stuff and posting pictures anyways, here's how I built the plywood sections. Each of the sections was similar in approach - the seat box and the wheel deck each have a "stiffening rib" in the middle, the pedal box does not.

First, I would create the end plates - cut the rough shape, drill mounting holes, and router or cut the dado slot out.



Next, they are all glued together, with pocket screws to reinforce





In the case of the wheel deck, I chose to add a stiffening rib after the fact, so I glued it with one pocket screw into each of the edges and one in the center into the deck





After some sanding, the final product is what you see above!

-Mark

[Jnovak]

Extremely tidy!

[Daryl DeArman]

Not into the SIM thing, but I appreciate the fabrication/carpentry skills!

[-pru-]

Light, low cost, high quality; very nicely done Mark!