Hello all,

I started on my simpit last night by building the seat. I will have pictures on Monday (I am not home this weekend).

The seat is made of 3/4 plywood (cabinet grade) inspired by an Adriondack chair. The padding is memory foam covered with fake leather (from the fabric store).

This simpit will be a 3/4 enclosure as I am using a projector system rather than LCD's. I decided on a generic pit as I prefer combat games such as Rise of Flight, IL-2, etc. I am not a fan of Heli's or Jet's (although I am very impressed by those pits based on the genre).

I am making the controlls, throttle quadrent, stick, etc. I do have the x52 but do not plan on using in the pit. A Saitek Aviator has provided 5 axis' and 18 buttons but I am also going to pick up a rotery controller from Desktop Aviator for more axis', buttons, and toggles.

The gauges will all be fake (just for show) for now, but will be backlit.

This is my first build, comments are welcome and I will post pictures as I go (got that shiny new Sony DSLR for some reason, might as well use it)

I own a cabinet shop but would still appreceate advice on the best way to build the carcus. I plan on making it modular, this way I can build it in the shop, then transport it to my upstairs "man cave"....and of course move it into the walk-in closet when we need more than to spare bedrooms (we have a HUGE house). The room is 14x16 so I should be able to get a large projection. I have been inspired by Simpit.net

Can't wait to see it.

PS. Nice custom computer!
PSS. Nice Battletech collection!!

Thanks Viper, that cabinet is three levels deep....too bad it is so hard to find players these days

PropNut,

Based in your wooden PC case, I imagine a fine cockpit!
BTW - Show us pic of your Baloo Rudder Pedal.

Sokol1

Pictures pictures pictures, here are some pictures.

I will start with the control stick, I wanted something that looked a bit more real than the x52 that I use now. I decided to hack a Logitech USB joystick for the mechanical pivot and pots, the electronics had a glitch in it so I am feeding it to a second joystick that I have hacked (Saitek Aviator). The Aviator also runs the rudder pedals. I have 4 buttons in the handle for the guns (all airplanes should have guns!). The bungies are temporary until I can figure out something better (like the spring on the X52) for self centering. (Or I might leave it as is) I hacked an old typewriter for parts, the stick is 3/4" PVC pipe, and the handle is 3/4 cabinet grade plywood.
I flew a couple of mission on IL-2 with it today, it works pretty good!





On to the rudder pedals, I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I should not take pictures of a black object against a black background...bad PropNut!





I wanted a seat that was confortable for me (I am 6'4 300lb) so I wound up with a throne more than a pilots seat. The rear fuse will be contoured like the seat, and I made sure there was a confy headrest for those long autopilot naps!






Next up will be the structure, I want to have that done so I can design the throttles etc.

I built the two side boxes for the cockpit, 39x24 (the reach of my fingers). They will house the trackball (on the right), the throttles, prop pitch lever, flap lever, trims, etc. on the left. They are built of 1x1 pine (frame) covered with 1/4" plywood (luaan). There are removable inner access hatches and the curved ribs of the outer shell will attach to the outer frame. I will have pictures on Friday of the carcus. Hopefully I will have the ribs finished and attached by that time also.

In addition, I have the rear bulkhead completed. The CPU case will attach to this area and the controls will feed back via USB cables under the pedestal (which will be 4" high)

Everything is designed to break down and be portable (maybe I will bring this to the Dayton Dawn Patrol!)

How about some comments and suggestions, I would be happy to incorporate good ideas into this build. I am pretty much designing it as I go along. Any help would be appreceated.


A note on the control stick, I was inspired by the stick in an I-15 WWII fighter such as this one:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Polikarpov-I-15bis-(replica)/1544905/&sid=ef85b1dac8e20b5bf04578539b0a5bbd


David

PropNut, do you mind if I borrow your seat design? I was going to install some kind of car seat in my personal Series One cockpit, but after seeing your seat I'm reconsidering. I'd be happy to post drawings online for others so they can build one as well.

ttyl!

g.

You are more than welcome, consider this build freeware

Since you are clearly going for gold and have the skills to get there, how about placing a small (13" or less) LCD screen in your control panel, rather than fake backlit instruments? As I'm sure you know, some sims allow you to have a seperate screen with instuments that interact with the sim. For those that don't you could turn it off or just display a static image of the controls.

If you went touchscreen you could even get it to control the sim using TouchBuddy.

Pakfront, excellent suggestion. My main interest in flight sims is quick dogfights etc in prop aircraft (no later than WWII or Fantasy WWII+...with the exception of future Mechwarrior releases). I did not feel that higher end gadgets were neccecary for this build. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I am, however, going to make sure there is plenty of room for future upgrades to my pit. I may decide in the future to do servo driven instruments, and MFD or two, etc. At that time I can easily remove the current instrument panel and make a new one. The major drawback that I see to those (really neat) toys is that the software is usually specific to one program and I am not at all loyal to a particular game. I really wish there were a standard for all games, but that would not appeal to the majority of the buying public.

Simple, um yeah... I wish I had the skills to build stuff that simple! Good luck and keep us updated - looks like a great project.

But it is simple! Course, it helps to own a cabinet shop and access to lots of extra supplies.
I appreceate your comments though, thanks for following along.

Ok, more pictures:

The parts coming together, you can see the nose and one of the sides sitting next to the seat.



The entire thing sitting together, they are just sitting together, nothing has been bolted, finish sanded, etc. It is very rough.





The entire thing sitting on the pedestal, note that the pedestal slopes in to simulate a more rounded fuselage. This is roughly patterned after the SE5a of WWI.



More pictures as I get parts ready.

Looks fantastic!

g.

I'm with Gene. This is looking great, thanks for posting pics of the progress.
With all the folks playing Rise Of Flight and flying the wood and canvas crates, I was sure we would have seen a simpit covered with painted canvas by now.
Regards,
MP

aahhhh, you gave the surprise away MudPuppy

Thanks everyone, it has been an obsession.

PropNut, looking great. A couple questions, if you don't mind:
What are the dimensions, roughly?
What thickness and type of ply are you using to cover it?
What tool do you use to do the large radius curve cuts?
If you are planning on surfacing it with fabric, is there a safe(er) dope to use these days?

Hi Pakfront,

It is 44" wide by 60" long and 39" tall.

I am using 1/8" door skin plywood. This perticular product is baltic birch and is 5 ply, most is 3 ply but that would work perfectly also. I just happened to have several sheets laying around the shop.

I laid out the radius with a string and then cut it with a jigsaw. I then cleaned up the radius with a 80" edge sander (side belt sander on a pedestal).

The fabric that I was thinking of is Polyester Dress lining from Joanne Fabrics (about 1.00 a yard) and I would use clear contact cement to adhere it. You can use several products but the best might be a water based contact cement from a company called Weldwood (easy to find at most hardware stores and they have water based adhesive) you can paint it on the wood, let dry and then iron the fabric to it (I use a commercial type contact cement that is chemical based). As far as dopeing the fabric, I had not planned on doing so, just paint. Polyester shrinks when you heat it. If you want to dope the fabric you can purchase several products that are 'safe' from Aircraft Spruce and other such companies.

I love the concept of it being an SE5, perfect

The stick is looking good too, very in keeping with the SE5 spade grip.

Well done PropNut, looking forward to further updates

Thanks Brigstock,

This is not really patterned after any one aircraft, it just looks simular to an SE5a fuse. The grip is modeled after an I-15 russian WWII fighter that I found on airliner.net.

I really just wanted a quick shell that I could use, I am really looking forward to making the rest of the controls.

I set up the projector last night in one of the spare bedrooms, it is awesome! It fills an entire 12' wall floor to ceiling.

I have all the parts for the computer;
EVGA 680i A2 MotherBoard (SLI)
Intel Q6600 Quad core CPU (B2 stepping)
4 gigs Corsair DDR2 memory (800)
WesternDigital IDE 160gb HD
ASUS Nvidia 9600GSO 3D card (96 pipes)
Cooler Power 480W PSU

These will be mounted in the nose of the cockpit under the dual hoods. I need to make some "t" nuts to hold the hoods down, right now I am using hex bolts but the "t" nuts would look better.

Big change in the design:
I decided to have the seat slide out the back for egress instead of a suicide door on the left. I have two sets of 24" full extention slides left over from a custom build (customers) and I bolted them together to give me 50" (1" over travel each), I mounted a wheel on the bottom rear of the seat to take the weight of the pilot (in my case a very strong wheel, lol) and the slides are just to keep everything in line over the travel. This way you can sit and slide into place. I can also make it so the seat has several ajustment settings for legroom if anyone else every uses it (which I honestly doubt, I have no sim buddies around here).

Pictures later today. I have it disassembled so I could paint the insides of the components.

The computer components are mounted and working great. I need to get a long VGA cable to reach the projector and clean up the wires, etc. Hopefully I will get some pictures posted tommorrow night.

David

Time for an update:

Things are really rough right now, the room the pit is in is not actually the room that it will be housed perminantly. We are clearing out a walk-in closet in yet another guest room (so we can still use the beds). The walk-in closet is 12'x7' so there is plenty of room for the pit.

The PC is mounted down but the PSU and drive tower is not yet bolted down. PC controls are mounted in the instrument panel, two vandal switches for power and reset and a LCD for the harddrive light. There will be USB outlets in the walls of the side units when this is done. There are, right now, wires everywhere but this will be loomed and hidden in time. The Simpit if fully functional right now (I chased a Fokker DVII around the sky a little while ago).

The Projector is an Infocus X1, the screen is a white bedsheet stretched onto a frame (pine) and painted with Behr "SilverScreen" paint. It gives and excellent picture about 6'x5'.




Here is a view of the chair slid out of egress, the trackball will eventually be buried with just the ball showing and two pressure plates to push the buttons.



The bass unit of the speaker system (creative 5.1) is under the seat when it slides up into place. The throttle quadrant is (obviously) homemade. I used some flat aluminium on pivots and hooked the pots via radio control airplane servo arms to the aluminium linkages. The knobs are cut off a wooden staircase handrail (oak). There are four pots, two throttles, flaps, and prop pitch.



The gauges are fake, simply built up to give them depth (face dial faces help) with plexi and printed gauges pasted onto the backs. There are 50 spaces for switches, right now I have 14 switches from a Saitek Aviator and 5 axis for the controls. Everything is working excellent. The PC controls can be seen on the lower left, and of course the CD/DVD face is mounted in the panel for ease of access. The keyboard drawer is pull out, you need to be able to "chat" in game so I wanted it accessable. The webcam (for headtracking via Freetrack) will be housed in a fake reflector site (leaning toward making a Spitfire unit)



Under the hood, it looks like a snarled mess right now but I will have it tamed soon. Once I have everything arranged I will strip everything out, paint up the pit before it is moved into its new home. The 9600GSO is an impressive card (especially for 39.99 on sale at newegg) it plays Rise of Flight smooth and looks awesome.




Thanks all for watching....

Youtube video of the first flight, sorry it is so poor. This is also my first attempt at making a video for youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OproQ57VL-0

Amazing, love the quadrant... Field trip to PropNut's house!

Looking good Propnut.
a +1 on the quadrant, looks very cool.
Got any close ups of that?

Pak, thanks, you all would be more than welcome to come over and test it out.

Brigstock, I do not have closeups but I can get some. I still need to finish the top and put some stops on them.

That is just so friggin cool! Really good job and I love that you're integrating the computer into the engine compartment, very appropriate.

Awesome stuff!

Thanks Redhornet, I hope to have it painted and moved into its new home this weekend. More pictures when I have that done. I also want to redo the control stick. I purchased hall effect IC's, rare earth magnets, and a Leo Bodnar control unit. I need to pick up a car driveshaft for the gimbal (U-joint assembly). I will keep the head but the moving parts are going to be changed.

See that is just the point - if you have an LCD or better, a touchscreen, you get to create/build whatever profile you want to show up on the screen, and you can have as many different ones as you like for whichever sim you are flying. I am using one touchscreen now and thinking about building in another one. Understand you aren't planning to go that route right away, but might keep it in mind for future iterations -- go to the touchbuddy sight and take a look at the IL-2 profiles they have other there. Pretty good.

Ripcord

My Bodnar unit arrived today!!! Friday I will have time to start wiring it in (I hope)

Other news: I have moved the pit to its new and ( again I hope) perminant home. It is a 7x12 walk-in closet of one of the spare bedrooms, which has been gutted of shelves, etc. The pit has been painted (nothing fancy) and everything seems to be functioning properly. I will get some pictures posted on Friday. I should have 46 useable swtiches (momentary switches, or less if I use the rotory switch feature of the Bodnar unit) using both the Bodnar controller and the Siatek Aviator hack.

Until Friday mates!

David

I have the Bodnar joystick controller installed (X version) and I must say that it seems amazing. I thought my control issued where with the cheap pots that I am using (not the hacked Saitek Aviator) but I was wrong, with the Bodnar unit everything is smooooooth! I like it! Very easy to hook up and calibrate, it works out of the box. Here is to Leo on this one! (Cheers)

No pictures yet, I have been busy strafing AA sites, running pesky P51's off of my airfields and chasing tommy around the western front!

More later!

No comments? Well...ok. I will post more pictures anyhow

I have it moved and painted (mostly). I have reworked the instrument panel but have no new pictures of it as yet.

Home Sweet Home. This is a walk-in closet in an unused bedroom.



Under the hood again, black paint to highlight the PC parts. In the background you can see the Leo Bodnar BU0836X, it is well worth purchasing the quick connect version. Oh boy did this make a difference in controls. I was going to redo my pots with hall effect but I think I will leave it alone, it works increadibly well.



You can see the wiring mess (temporary I hope) from the buttons. I have a rotary switch and a several momentary toggles on thier way.



A view of the projector mount. It needs to be properly mounted and the wires routed but I plan on removing it to paint the walls. I have not yet decided on black or dark blue. I am leaning toward a medium blue though (so we do not have to repaint when we sell this monsterous house)



A couple showing the cockpit itself. I have the rudders set at the perfect distance (for me) and the joystick is mounted on a pedestal. I used a piece of that rubber roofing with a hole in the middle to make the stick self centering.



Hanging on the left combing you can see the headset I made to hold the Freetrack 3-point clip and my microphone. (that stick with a handle is so I can turn the lights off, lol.)



There it is so far. I need to finish the throttle quadrent (oh boy does that work nice) and build some other 'extras', like perminently mount the USB port near my shoulder (for the FreeTrack head clip), a port for my mic, a set of pots for trims, some push pull pots on the dash for magneto and radiator. I will need another Leo Bodnar unit for the extra pots (Oh darn! Excellent quality units, did I mention that?)

It does look cool, indeed! I like the canvas skin you put on the outside of the 'pit and the leather trim is icing on the cake.
Is that an optical drive that you have mounted on your control panel, so you can access a disc from the pilots seat?
What ideas have you had about your sound? I saw a pair of headphones in one shot, but are you planning on any small speakers around the cockpit?
Excellent update pics...but now that its all together, well it have to stay in that room forever? That door is not that wide!

Regards,
Derek

I really have to say PropNut that you have done a superb job on that simpit. I love that you based it on a SE5a, I don't think I ever seen a pit done in the likeness of a WW1 plane, very cool. The sliding seat is a simple, elegant and extremely practical solution to getting in and out, genius. It's well thought/planned out, the craftsmanship looks excellent and the fact you put the computer where the engine would be makes soooooo much sense and really tidys up your pit and man cave. Once you have finished all the cord/wire wrangling it will be that much more awesome. Lastly the leather is just such a neat touch, really does make the pit look like a WW1 scout fuselage.

Quite inspiring to me to get mine done!

Derek, the canvas is actually just plywood skin painted using a gradually darker grey...I like how it turned out.

The leather trim looks pretty good but I still need to finish the combing above the instrument panel (when that is done anyway).

Yes, that is the DVD drive in the panel, just below that you can see the on/off (PC) switch, reset switch and HD light, all the PC controls are in the panel.

As far as sound goes...I am using an older Creative 5.1 sound system. There is a bass unit under the front of the pit (in front of the rudder pedals) for that shake (I am going to do transducer (sp?) units someday for the real shake effects) and left/right speakers by the pilots shoulders (just inside the pit next to the seat) for stereo effects. It sounds really good. The speaker controls are located just in front of the trackball on the right.

I built this simpit to be modular and transportable. Everything plugs in (Stick, pedals, throttles, etc), the two sides are bolted in and fit together with dowels, the front unit sits on the base pedestal and screws down. The seat is on quick disconnect drawer slides (two 24" slides bolted together for 48" (+ 2" over-travel) so it is easy to remove. So yes, it will fit through the door easily. Each peice is actually very light as they are ribbed and built of 1/8" plywood.

Thanks for the encouragement Derek!

Redhornet, thanks man, it is fun to build this and post to see the reaction I get (so far all is positive). Contrary to what you think, it is not at all well thought out, lol. I pretty much make it up as I go along. There are many things I would do different if I were making these in a production shop. I appreceate the kind comments none the less. I was looking at my cord/wiring mess earlier today and scratching my head...so many tangled wires!!!

David

Impressive!


You need a Clapper(tm)!

BTW, I'm not that impressed with transducers. It's not so much that they don't work well, it;s that they take all bass and convert it into vibration - not just the bass you want.So you get equal shake from distant arty rumbles as from bullet impacts on your ship and motor noise. I don't find that convincing.

If you could set up a sim so it only output bass to the transducer that was relevant (maybe through a seperate sound card) then it would be worth it. Otherwise, the shake from your subwoofer is about as good as it gets.

Good news about the Bodnar unit - I was considering getting an Aviator to strip down but it seems like the Bodnar is the way to go.

Pak,
I understand what you say about the transducers, I think the vibration would be heavier for the bass inside your plane than it would be for those sources outside. (unless you are like me and crash right next to a German "88" emplacement, lol.) I may or may not fiddle with those but it will be much later...so many other nifty things to try out right now.

The Clapper!! Why didnt I think of that?!

I was using a hacked Aviator joystick (the guts) and I can tell you that the Bodnar unit is WAY better (much more precise). I am going to pick up another for more axis ( I find I need/want around 14 total)

I am certainly no expert on the electronics of sound cards or transducers but i have managed to retain a little bit of info from more learned folks here about such things.
pak, with an out of the box tarnsducer, or shaker, like the "Buttkicker" I do beliebe it takes the bass output and rruns it through its own amplifier before sending it to the shaker attached to your chair. This way you can still have your sub pushing some air on those low frequency sounds while the buttkicker is shaking your behind.

Mike Powell is the expert on this, especially since it was his design, but the book "Building Recreational Flight Simulators" has a design for a DIY transducer amp. I haven't read that chapter completely but I do believe it would give you the same end result. Meaning I think it would give you control of the transducer amp, seperate from your other speakers.

With the bass output from your sound card, if you split it to a powered subwoofer AND a transducer amp it would seem to give you the kind of control y'all are talking about.
What i would really like to find is an affordable mini-amp solution for the outputs from my sound card to the R/L, front & rear channel speakers.
Derek

Thanks MudPuppy, I have a transducer and it does work as you describe. What I was was whinging about was the fact that there is no way to control which sounds it reacts to. There is a built-in low-pass filter, but this only filters sound by how high or low pitched they are.

The transducer treats all high amplitude, low frequency sounds as equal. It would be more convincing if sims supported a seperate audio channel just for transducer effects. So you'd get the vibration of the engine and weapons, but not the music's bass or the rumble of distant artillery.
I suspect that if one had another soundcard, one could write a plugin that accomplished this for those games that support plugins.

Apologies for the thread hijack.

Feel free, I am learning stuff. I agree it would be nice to have a threaded audio track, where you could assign sounds sources.

(Notes to self)....must double check my spelling before hitting the submit button...pull out Mike Powell's book and read that chapter on sound in a simpit...try to stay on topic and not hijack someone else's thread....


Now back to PropNut and his cool looking simpit. This will give me time to grab another Shiner Bock.
D

I had no problem at all with the discussion on transducers, I found it helpful.

As a matter of fact, if anyone wants to discuss simpit related issues here I would be happy, as they often help me decide on how to do my own pit.

Nothing really to update yet, the new button layout on the dash is working very well. I used plexi as button panels with printed labels (white text with a black background)behind, and cutouts in the plywood to mount the panels. I then mounted blue cathode light bars under the hood. The blue ligh shines through the white text extremely well, giving my gauges and button panels excellent backlighting. I did, however, screw up a bit and had to redrill my holes a bit bigger, this resulted in blowouts in the plexi in several places (this is why there are no pictures yet) but I made several spares (just in case) and will, hopefully, have them replaced this weekend. I will then post pictures (when they are all purdied up);) I am also waiting on my extra toggles (momentary) and green buttons to arrive (and a Rotary switch!!...er....no idea what I am going to use this for but I wanted one, lol).

David

Updates updates updates:

The new instrument panel looks pretty good so far, with that in mind, in a few months I am going to trash it. Yep, trash it. As soon as I know what buttons I use often in Il-2 (which should coorespond with pretty much any WWII sim) I am going to redo the button layout for a more ergonomic layout. I really like the backlit panels while I am flying (I can see what I am pushing!! lol)

Here are a couple of views of the backlighting in action;





As you can see, the pit still needs a lot of work, side panels to complete (One will be filled with the landing gear controls, tail hook, wing fold, etc) the other will be for comms (eventually). You might notice many empty holes...yep...40 buttons was not enough I need another BU836X...I also want to add three trims, a pushpull engine mixture assemble and another pushpull for a radiator control..thats...let me see....carry the one, subtract 9, put it in a bag and shake it up....5 more axis!!! And me with only one left clear on the BU836X that I have now

On to more good stuff!

The Gunsight
I wanted something to hide the webcam that I use with FreeTrack so I built a fake reflector sight. What do you think?



The round window in the front allows the webcam a view of my pretty head (my wife says it is pretty!) I thought about putting an LED inside that shines up through another peice of plexi that has a bullseye painted on it (so it would reflect off the upper plexi) but I got to thinking that it would be awefully annoying after a while (not to mention giving me headaches).

Here is a picture of a real one to compare...yep, mine looks fake..but that was the point



Also, you might have noticed that the hood is installed, this is so the bright blue lights mounted in the engine compartment for the backlighting doesnt interupt my view (I am delicate).

Well, that is all for now, stay tuned to this same Bat Channel at the same Bat Time for further episodes of BatShine!

David

Thats a bad@ss idea with the camera you came up with there. Might have to imitate that one in my build. My TrackIR camera is mounted on a big pc. of square tubing thats clamped to my mini pit. Sticks up and blocks my projector screen, but not that big a deal!

Thanks HHF, your thread on hacking the Saitek Aviator helped alot with my simpit build. You might use plastic rain gutter parts to build a housing for the TrackIR. I just ordered the TrackIR bundled with Arma2 (I thought, for 109.99 why not get the TrackIR 5?, Track IR 5 and Arma2 159.99 at gogamer.com. I was going to purchase Arma2 for 50.00 anyway).

PropNut, awesome simpit. I am learning a lot from your build and I want to thank you for taking us on this journey. Please continue posting because class is in session.(I'm in the front row). I am putting together a FW190 and I need every tidbit of info I can get my hands on. BTW great job in hiding the webcam. You said you used Plexi for your instrument panel. What thickness did you use?

Hi Propman, thanks for the...er...props

I used 1/6th plexi, most switches are made for thin panel installation so 1/6th works very well.

PropNut, if you want to solve your light switch problem, you can always install an X-10 module at the switch and then use a remote control to turn it off.

What's with the new "WH_" prefix on your nick?

g.

The Simpit is looking great and an extra "hoot-n-holler" for the inventive idea of hiding your webcam in the gunsight construct! Now with colder weather making its way towards Michigan, you may be spending some more time in the pilots seat, eh?

I'm hoping for an a heavy frost soon so i can stop the outside work and get back to the fun stuff inside the house.
Have a good weekend and thanks for the update.
Derek

Gene, I was going for a low-tech solution
By the way, I found a great group of guys to fly/fight with. War-Hawks.net, they have scheduled campaign based coop missions in Rise of Flight, Il-2 (not so often), DCS-Blackshark, and Arma2. Heavy use of Teamspeak is the norm (which means we sit around shooting the breeze more often than playing, but it is fun none the less). Great bunch of guys and fun to talk to.


Derek, as always, thanks for participating. I am pretty happy with the reflector sight solution to the camera issue. The only downside is that the plexi 'sight' is a bit annoying when I have to actually look through it during manouvers, lol. I cannot move it down as it would then be in the way of a gauge.

As far as in-doors v. out-doors...I have been obsessing so much on the pit that I have not been doing any outdoor activities so I missed the wonderful fall that we had (gone now with cold, wet weather). Oh well, that is what spring is for

Update: I purchased TrackIR5 because it was bundled with Arma2 (which I was going to pay 50.00 for anyway)for 159.99 from GoGamer.com. I can now say without reservations; that if it was not for the fact that Arma2 (and a couple of other high end sims) only supports TrackIR for headtracking, TrackIR would NOT be worth the money compared to Freetrack (which I also use). This is such a huge dissapointment, I just played several rounds of Rise of Flight and Il-2, and in both I could see little to no difference (I actually think my Freetrack system is slightly better than TrackIR in Rise of Flight but that might be due to the tweaking that I have done to Freetrack). Freetrack will stay in my simpit unless future games absolutely will not support it, and the TrackIR will be on my desktop for Arma2. What a waste of money....sheesh.

Ok, rant over.

Hey Propnut sorry to hear that you're not happy with TrackIR5. I have been wondering about purchasing one but now I'm not so sure. I take it you're satisfied with Freetrack? What is all involved with Freetrack?

Hi Propman,

I did not say that I was unhappy with TrackIR (hardware or software, they are both very nice) but rather with the amount of money spent on a product that, to my admittedly untrained eye, no improvement in gameplay. I do believe, however, that the future of headtracking will see more and more companies excluding Freetracks from use...so it might be best to join the masses and buy TrackIR if you can afford it.

Otherwise PM me and I will walk you through building a Freetrack system.