DYI G-Seat

[Michal Burisin]

So I finally got to the point, where I can start working on the G-Seat.

Here is my latest progress with the rig in general.

What's important for G-Seat part of the project is tactile installation on the seat, which consists of 3 BK Concert + 1 TST 239, so it's pretty powerful tactile, so I must make sure nothing rattles, this will be challenge as there will be many moving parts.

I'm using Kirkey Aluminium Seat, link is here.

I have 17'' version and it fits me like a glove I'm 168 cm, around 66 kg, quite thin with broader shoulders and it's so so, especially with the G-Seat paddles. I'm striving to take around 2,5 cm of space from the internal volume with paddles.

Here is the parts overview:

A) Bottom paddles - with big space between them - I don't want to simulate heave, maybe just a little, but it's intended mainly as pressure from the sides.

B) Main back paddles - narrower gap between to allow for some pressure during acceleration.

C) Additional back paddles for sides - just for thin guys, I made them removable to allow someone with bigger butt to fit in there

I spent day and half measuring etc., here are some images of progress:

Now when I printed it on A3:

And with additional paddle from the side:

I'm really happy it worked so well! I just have to correct 2 lines where the plate would be bent and that's it! I don't need to tweak the shape any more, it fits perfectly!

I will be probably using 4x ASME-04A servos for 4 paddles and 2 for seat belt tensioner.

The servos for bottom paddles will be located on red profiles like pictured below, on these profiles will be also servos for seatbelt fastener.

Servos for back paddles will be mounted to the seat.

The servos axles are goint to be extended by this connection - 8 mm to 12 mm, for 12 mm shafts I use aluminium hollow shaft with 2 mm thick wall.

The shaft will be like 0,5 m long, so at the end, it will be fixed in ball bearing with housing connected to the seat to prevent shaft bending.

Along the way there are going to be 2 points on each shaft with fixed clamp.

 

[Michal Burisin]

At each clamp, there will be 2 connecting rods, these are just M4 so I want to be on the safe side.

Yes, I went with gold, will be nice addition to BK Concert gold stickers and Fanatec DD clamp

I still need to figure out servo arms, if I won't find anything, I will either 3D print or will make it from aluminium.

I will need to cut holes to the seat to allow for movement of the rods, but I hope it shouldnt be necessary for the holes to be big. I don't want to connect main attachment profiles between each other to keep L / R tactile separation as clear as possible. I hope I won't break the seat in two pieces with additional holes cut out

I'm planning to use same approach for back paddles.

I have ordered couple of things. Now I'm waiting for a precise protractor to measure the angles for bending and then I will put it to manufacturing. In the meantime I will order rest of the stuff. I already have 2 servos, so I'll test their strength / speed on seat belt tensioner.

For that, I will be using bowden approach.

For guiding seatbelts, I will be using linear prismatic rails and carts.

It wasn't cheap and it sure isn't light but it's totally tactile proof .

These rails will be between vibration mounts already mounted as you can see here:

I didn't like metal sound with carts moving that was transferring to the seat, I got some vibration mounts leftovers so I used them here

So this it, sorry for links for parts to my local distributors, shouldn't be hard to find internationally though I gotta get back to it

 

[Michal Burisin]

I made the paddles close to size of the orignal ones, so it should be possible to fit the cover over the top of the seat, but the side compartments of the seat cover should fit over the paddles nicely, so it will look nice and there won't be no need for some ugly cover I think it will work perfectly

I need now to find some tailor to make the holes bigger for the seatbelt fastener, but I hope it shouldn't be problem

I will use SimTools for running the servos, I will need to do some custom coding for this G-Seat project, as I haven't found anything suitable, this will be also big challange, but I hope it won't be such problem in the end

 

[Craig Dunkley]

Please keep us updated ..loved reading your post and looking at the pics ..superb work my friend

 

[Michal Burisin]

For mounting paddles to the seat I recommend these.
Super sturdy and no wobble at all, it's tactile proof

 

[Mascot]

Wow, what an incredible DIY project - I'm in awe!
Brilliant stuff, please keep us updated.

 

[Michal Burisin]

I have been busy today with seat attachment profiles.

I made new inward side profiles to bear servos for G-Seat - these are on the right side of the photo with 4 holes. I tried to make servo brackets, but it would be awful work. I will 3D print them.

Anyone have suggestion for 3D printer? I have been looking at Prusa i3 MK3 which looks quite good. I have no experience with 3D printing, but I hope it won't be rocket science

These are side support profiles.

Here's the result.

The side supporting profiles are going to bear side paddles. It will have another bridging profile like this.

On this bridging profile, there will be hinge like this (red) with paddle (green).

With design like this, this G-Seat will be basically completely in contact with body and not just some limited regions.

These side paddles will be responding just to lateral forces, whereas back and bottom paddles will respond to mix of acceleration and lateral forces.

I will firstly do just bottom and back paddles and then I will see if it's worth the trouble adding additional paddles for sides, but I think it could work very well, let's see

The side supports also stiffen the seat. When I was lifting myself from the seat with full force, it was bending, so this is another reason why I did it.

 

[Michal Burisin]

I have done little bit of tweaking to the shape and I also corrected lines along which paddles will be bent:

On the right side, there is overlay before / after. With side paddles I can push the size very close to the limits, as I can move it as necessary. On the main paddles, I'm leaving some margin for error.

Tomorrow I will do another print to verify it and I will have protractor so I will measure all the angles.

I would have question for current G-Seat users,

Should I extend the back paddle more down to the butt? All g-seat projects I have seen has paddles above the butt it seems. Does it have a reason and should I do the same or it could beneficial to have the paddles all the way down.

Only reason I figured, it could be because the butt wouldn't move, and it would overstress the servos and limited the felt effect, any ideas?

Only user of GS-4 I know here is @HoiHman, possible some others?

Thanks.

 

[HoiHman]

Awesome project Michal

I think if you make the panel all the way down there will be too much stress on your lower back.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Awesome project Michal

I think if you make the panel all the way down there will be too much stress on your lower back.

Thanks, I will leave it as it is then If it would give me trouble even like this, I can always cut more from the bottom myself.

I have finalized data and sent query for manufacturing. I hope I measured everything correctly, I triple checked

I asked for 4 mm aluminium material in order to be sturdy enough to handle the tactile without resonance. Maybe 3 mm would be enough, but I'd rather be careful here.

 

[Michal Burisin]

I got price offering from manufacturing. It will be around 200 EUR for all the pieces.

I'm still deciding whether to take 3 mm or 4 mm material. They can do it from dural, which is stronger than standard aluminium.

Red points are likely the attachments, so from the outer edge to the last attachment, there is lever of 180 mm. I think there might be some 20 - 25 kg maximum pressure on the paddle, I'm not sure it it will sturdy enough with 3 mm material. I asked them, so hopefully, they will be able to make some educated recommendation.

Lead time is 3 weeks, so it's gonna be pretty long wait.

 

[asteroulis]

Why don't you first try it with some plywood?

 

[Michal Burisin]

Why don't you first try it with some plywood?

Can't bend plywood, it's quite complex shape Also I don't have any workshop / garage, so I have to do everything in apparment. I guess it would be possible to do it, but with quite substantial time investment and also some costs of materials. I think this design will work, so I'll rather push it straight to manufacturing and rather invest time which I would have spent on building plywood prototype towards job / hobbies.

I have spent lot of time on DYI this year and some parts of it starts to be tiresome for me (building prototypes), so I'll rather focus on parts I enjoy more .

 

[asteroulis]

You've spend time beyond logic this year Michal! And built an always expanding amazing rig with passion, ingenuity and cost wise.
My suggestion was in order to reduce cost. But time sometimes is more valuable indeed!

I'm following with interest your journey . I use a gecko gs105 but with the sfx100 that will eventually come, I think a cost effective replacement like your seat is a more ideal solution.

Enjoy your builds!

 

[Michal Burisin]

You've spend time beyond logic this year Michal! And built an always expanding amazing rig with passion, ingenuity and cost wise.
My suggestion was in order to reduce cost. But time sometimes is more valuable indeed!

I'm following with interest your journey . I use a gecko gs105 but with the sfx100 that will eventually come, I think a cost effective replacement like your seat is a more ideal solution.

Enjoy your builds!

This year is basically my first one, so I'm still figuring everything out and it takes a lot of time. It began with choice of rSeat N1 which is great, but the time and money I have put into it is quite crazy. Especially when I now see thread like this, where you can get everything up and running in an afternoon and mounting tactile, customization etc. would take a fraction of time I had to mess with N1. However back then I didn't know about 80/20, I just watched review of N1 on ISRTV, where the review conclusion was that it's the best rig you can get, so I went for it. Just couple of months after getting N1 I came to RaceDepartment where 80/20 solution gets much more attention.

I love the N1, especially the looks, but it's customization hell and everything I do on it has to be basically custom made. Not like 80/20 where you can bolt anything anywhere I would be very interested to make the comparison of N1 to 80/20 regarding tactile etc., as the tactile with all the vibration control I have put into this is awesome. However I think the same could probably be achieved on 8020 without all the effort.

Well maybe if I find N1 and it's weight is not suitable for SFX100 I might get rid of it and build something more streamlined like HoiHman. I have most important parts ready and separated from frame, I could just take the seat, pedal platform and bolt it to 4 profiles of 80/20 and be ready to go Maybe that these 400 - 500 hours and lot of money would go to waste, but that's the learning process

Anyway I'm still focusing on building so far, as I have crappy PC with small screen. It's pretty fun, but the flat screen doesn't give me immersion I'm looking for. I'm waiting for VR - Pimax headsets should be for preorder today, so hopefully next year they will be able to deliver.

I have looked on that Gecko gs105 and according to their videos the motion looks really great. It's not much of a racing seat ergonomically, but it seems it gets the job done.

I hope with this G-Seat project I will get to ~1500 EUR tops.

Just rough estimates:

500 EUR Kirkey seat to Europe with shipping & customs & taxes
420 EUR 6x servo
200 EUR paddles
100 EUR seatbelt
150 EUR linear rails & carts
150 EUR filament for 3D printing and miscelleanous
---
1520 EUR TOTAL

Not cheap, but still much less then GS-5 I guess.

 

[HugoB]

Following this thread with much appreciation and interest!

I just ordered all the parts for SFX100, and have already received my P1, so this project fits like a glove to my budget and DIY spirit!

Oh, I so hope this project succeeds and rocks like it looks like! Good luck my man and thanks for sharing with us your insights!

 

[GEEDOGG]

Nice work Michal I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product up and running. I guess I don't have to tell you to keep us updated on the project lol. Thanks for sharing your progress.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Nice work Michal I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product up and running. I guess I don't have to tell you to keep us updated on the project lol. Thanks for sharing your progress.

I have confirmed the order of the paddles yesterday, I decided to take the 4 mm material. To be precise, it would be composite ENAW5083 (dural), should take up to 3 weeks, but I hope they will manage faster.

Also waiting for Prusa MK3, to print some parts and that should be here in 2 weeks. So it might be quiet here for some time

If it turns out success, I'm planning to put together shopping list and some more detailed instructions in one place, so if anybody wanted to build something similar wouldn't have to go through long thread with scattered info.

 

[BenKay]

Fantastic project that I'm looking at with great interest as a potential future addition to my D-Box set-up.

If the paddles are going to be Dural, are they heat-bending the required angles...or chopping and glueing?

I've also been thinking about doing this type of project on a "traditional" bucket seat, rather than a Kirkey. If the cloth and padding was stripped off a GRP seat, a layer of barrier coat could be put down, and then essentially a full shell moulded inside the original seat to perfect dimensions...This could then be chopped up to create the paddles......but I'll probably never get around to it!

 

[Michal Burisin]

Fantastic project that I'm looking at with great interest as a potential future addition to my D-Box set-up.

If the paddles are going to be Dural, are they heat-bending the required angles...or chopping and glueing?

I've also been thinking about doing this type of project on a "traditional" bucket seat, rather than a Kirkey. If the cloth and padding was stripped off a GRP seat, a layer of barrier coat could be put down, and then essentially a full shell moulded inside the original seat to perfect dimensions...This could then be chopped up to create the paddles......but I'll probably never get around to it!

Good news, the called me that they have it done and shipped it today Really excited / anxious if I got all the measurements right

Not sure I will get it tomorrow, but it will be Monday at latest I suppose.

I haven't asked for specific technique they will use for bending, but I saw on their web pages, they have bending machines, so I suppose they will use these. They haven't mentioned anything about cutting or glueing and I didn't ask, as I didn't know these are even options

About using bucket seat, I haven't considered it seriously, because it's so much trouble. Maybe it would be possible as you suggest, but it would be really hard to do. I cannot imagine getting back the padding and cloth by DYI while looking profesionally, maybe someone could pull it off, but not me

Also I love the Kirkey seat, as it's perfect for tactile. All the tactile sensations got so drowned in bucket seat, also mine created deep bass humm going around whole appartment, even through multiple doors. It basically served as huge subwoofer membrane at higher frequencies (TST239), low frequencies were fine. All these problems went away with Kirkey. It's not as comfy as previous bucket seat, but not by much. I'll pad it little bit more, so this will get better.

The cloth also felt better, more "car like", on bucket seat. But I got used to this synthetic material. Big plus is that the cloth will be easy to take away for washing / cleaning.

Minor update to the seat, I got aluminium plates for peripherals, I will mount them on the weekend. I probably should have gone for some irregular shape to make it look cooler and not so boxy though It's 8 mm aluminium. It will be easy to do flush mount attachment so it won't interfere with anything.

I have made the plates quite big to accommodate handbrake, H-shifter and possibly HOTAS set in the future and I will probably put headphones volume control there as well.

I also got plates under buttkickers.