Buri's Rig

[Michal Burisin]

Hi,

last month I bought my first wheel Thrustmaster T-GT and got hooked up in no time , then I figured I would need a rig, so I started with Next Level Racing GTUltimate V2. Despite good reviews, I haven’t liked it, the seat had a lot of flex and weird shape for me, so I returned it. Ever since I’m reading through the forums figuring out how to improve my setup, which is desk and wooden chair right now .

I have just ordered rseat N1 and HPP 3P-PRX-SE pedals as T-GT pedals were lacking, now I have some time meanwhile the orders arrives, so I’m figuring what to do next and tactile seems to be next best upgrade, so driving doesn’t feel so “dead”, although even without tactile this is most fun I had on PC ever .

As for the plans, I will be keeping T-GT steering wheel for now. Currently I’m building DYI handbrake, I have some parts ordered, so when I have some progress, I will put some photos up, maybe with little step by step tutorial if it will be interesting for anyone (I’m total beginner so I will be figuring everything out as I go). It will be simple load cell handbrake.

So far I ordered Handbrake, Load Cell, Controller Board, I hope it all fits together. I will solve mechanical part when I get my hands on the handbrake. I was thinking about hydraulics, but it seems lot more complicated and expensive. Especially when for example HE are using also just load cells in their top of the line pedals, so I figured it must be good enough for DYI handbrake as well .

For now I’m running laptop with CORE I7 and Geforce 1060 6GB and 24’’ monitor. This will be my next goal after tactile, but I will probably wait until summer or later when new graphic cards arrive and TVs with HDMI 2.1 with VRR (variable refresh rate) and possibly VR, this will be long wait, but I will at least have some time to gather some finances .

Then I would like to get DD wheel and in more distant future I would like to get seat mover, probably Next Level Racing Motion Platform V3 as it integrates with rseat N1 quite nicely. My inspiration is Diablo2112 rig, it looks absolutely fantastic!

I will be eternally grateful for any help / advice anyone can give. Many thanks!

 

[Michal Burisin]

Thats a lot to cover Michal.
Some below more to follow:

Dont overthink the effects at this stage and really having better effects make all the difference.
In the testing I have done, applying more body contact zones simply brings more immersion as we have more tissue/nerves/bone conduction happening and often in sensitive areas. It can enable us to have an effect feel more distinctive. This can be engine in the spine, or feet combined.

Effects Distribution
For example, in my full build I could have lateral G in action on a long left hand bend.
Rather than feel this in the pedals and my sides with a typical installation on pedals and seat.

Pedals: Front Right Channel
Right foot, calves and lower leg region

Seat: Rear Right Channel
The underside of right knee, leg sides/thighs buttocks and back right shoulder

Both front and rear channels are active together with the effect.
Rather than relying on vibes go through the seat as they will, I will channel tubing from the tactile primary installation point to each region. This gives direct input to that body region as well as what normally happens in the spreading of the tactile within the seat materials or pedal platform. So we are upgrading the tactile installation placement/material to have more than one contact point, now applying direct routing to body regions as well. Now the tactile units energy is not being driven by one path.

The sensation and perception is greatly increased for the effect.
To me, it doesn't feel odd at all, now my whole right side feels the force better, it brings more efficiency for the detection of the effect. To the point for the senses it is amplified without actually being too highly amplified in one placement or impact region.

I find this works better than the alternative of amplifying/cranking a unit highly with volume (as many do) and only have one point of contact that may even have limited or poor isolation and makes much less point of contact to the body.

We could say one is like a hose sprayed on a body region or two at high force and the other is like lying submerged in a bath.

I think too many look too hard into "real life" scenario and things we just can't mimic, this is simulation and with simulation we need stimulation to the senses to connect them together and convince or trick the brain.


Moving paddles or a rig moving a few degrees is not producing g-forces yet what it does is greatly work with and combining with other senses to bring more complete or convincing immersion. Just take away audio on its own and you feel the lack of what it brings. Its like removing a primary instrument from a musical score or band.

Engine 6 Channel Vs 2
I personally want to separate engine/gear from the main units and place these as mono in nature on central channels for both seat and pedals. We can have engine, for example, going out over all 6 tactile but as it is a constant effect it can diminish the felt sensation of others. Also its not really needed or I feel the best approach. We want to feel the cars handling to use it as a tool to immerse us but also to combine with what we see, or are doing regards control or steering inputs. So I would place engine less valuable or less important but still high as an entertaining factor.

I have the BK Concert planned for engine role and combined with a TST unit for the seat. These will produce plenty of low end energy and detail for this main role. Although we can have other effects also use these units and work with the others if desired on an "effect" level.

I would test the Concert & TST in a specifically designed pedal section. A Section I also have to install dual TST and BK LFE. Yet I have plans and done early testing and belive a good working solution is possible. I will, likely will end up with the same in the pedals to match the tactile placed in the seat.

My own rig is moving at slow pace but I have new bits and components arriving every week or so. Some ebay purchases popped up that will be used in the rig but these delay then purchasing of materials needed to start the actual build. I now have most of my audio hardware (mixers / duplicator etc), want to experiment with iPad and audio-tactile along the way too. Very curious in what I can do to exploit and control better the low Hz in "Game Audio Tactile" to bring the best engine sensations. Again I have done experiments and testing already via EQ so know what is possible. iPad and the touchscreen/apps it has available seem ideal and bring powerful options with easy loading of presets.

I currently have but not all installed on my part dismantled test rig:
4x BK LFE (Front/Rear Stereo)
1x BK Concert (Sub Channel / Seat)
4x TST 429 (Dual Role)
1x TST 329 (Sub Channel Dual Role / Seat)

I want/need (potentially for final build)
1x BK Concert (Pedals)
1x TST 239 (Pedals)
1x iNuke DSP 3000
1x Inuke DSP 1000

The Pedal section is not the main focus, so I am seeking to start the new build and isolation.
I have at present 4x Inuke DSP amps that can be used to play around with different test configurations.

GS4 Body Regions
SSW brings you the ability to replicate a GS4 but with powerful and multiple tactile that can I believe exceed the felt motion of its servo paddles (depending on the level of tactile used). With tactile also we are not limited to just a seat area or fixed way to install or such operates.

We can cleverly apply custom effects that generate very satisfying sensation to the front/back axis for acceleration and deceleration g-force loads. Yet with a GS4 it is using the base of the seat as front and back of the seat as rear. Some effects may use individual paddles othes using all paddles to push forward into the body.

Under Heavy Braking Example:
GS4 Seat all 4 paddles pushing into the body to create a sense of force.

My own planned rig:
Let's look only at the low Hz high energy possibilities and incorporating multiple body zones discussed above. We can apply within Audacity how we want the effect to operate on the channels. Lets for this example place energy of the low frequency .wav used for 60% force ratio in pedals and 40% ratio in seat. Yet we can also have the CEN/SUB channels use slightly different .wav for additional sensation to the operation of the front and back stereo pairs when braking is applied. Some experimention is needed but we have lots of potential.


Now consider the felt sensation over the body with
2x BK LFE & 1 BK Concert operating altogether.

These outputting very high level of energy yet controlled and being applied to the pedal base section going into my feet, calves and lower legs. This level of energy easily travels right up the legs and into the lower torso.

Yet for me this is not enough, I want the same again with the pre-arranged 40% energy displacement also applied simultaneously to the seat, via my knees, buttocks, thighs, spine etc. Now I have combined energy and it is delivered into the body from different placements.

Which do you think may feel more eyebrow-raising?
The felt motion in the paddles pressing my body or this level of bass/tactie energy placed into specific body regions?

Nobody is taking tactile to this level, I don't expect few every will, yet it is where I am going and while some may see it as crazy. I know from on/off tests the direction and possibilities it may bring in a specially built rig.

If people rave about the GS4 product in the immersion it brings why is it not possible for us to use high end tactile with SSW effects (that work using the same telemetry and principles)? I believe with experimentation and creativity I can achieve some immersion advantages with tactile that cant be delivered with motion. Yet I prefer tactile to being constantly moved around and have a comfortable seat. As most are telling you, with motion, it only needs enough to fool the senses but my view is multibody zone tactile won't move the body but it will let the body detect and feel greater immersion than traditional tactile installations offer. It potentially can deliver greater detailing and have advantageous over say a 2dof motion will. Really though each will be different and some may prefer one to the other just as you find much to debate in different motion solutions.

You question whether to get a BK LFE or BK Concert, I need to do more testing to give a better response to how I feel each varies. They both can go crazy low but based on two other owners reports I have and what BK themselves say, I think the Concert is better suited to give more detail over a wider Hz range. Yet I believe the BK Advance will be better in the 60/70Hz up region than even the BK Concert. Yet of course, the BK Advance falls quite short of the biggest units abilities below 20Hz. So potentially BK Advance brings a good all-round performance and is a great step up from the Mini models.

BK LFE with the current testing I am doing in SSW effects creation. It loses a great deal of detail compared to say a TST with the higher Hz. It really is showing how we need specific Hz used in effects for specific units as different units have their own characters and performance differences.
I cant run with the same "V" and "ABCDE" options for each unit. Both the "volume/gain" and "Hz" being used with the effects .wav signature is crucial to getting the best feeling or sensation out of each model.

So a BK LFE brings a great low end, perhaps the best but it needs in my view something to help with the mid/upper bass Hz. That is why 6 years ago I decided on duplicating and using a "Dual Role" unit idea. Any single unit option brings its own advantages or disadvantages. No single unit brings the best potential. The BK Advance seems very balanced in doing both quite well yet I will personally always prefer a TST for mid/high bass detail and speed even though it needs its own tuning and control.

With effects creation and say a Dual Role installation we can use iNuke DSP to ensure each unit performs well. We can use the crossover features to limit the BK to lower the output or not output higher Hz *over 50Hz" and use the TST to limit its lower Hz output to approx 40Hz. Really the principle is the same as a sat/sub speaker combination but in tactile.

This idea of using tubing to deliver tactile to specific spots seems very interesting, I'm looking forward to results and execution of the idea. Now I understand your goal for this, as you say you are trying to use tactile to simulate g-forces as well to a major degree, this is really interesting and I will try to experiment with it in future, once I have some bigger buttkicker units.

In the end it's what you find / feel is "realistic" and many people will have different view on this. For example I have never driven sports car, so I don't know what should I be aiming for in the first place, I have just some idea how it might feel based on experience with regular road cars.

Engine 6 Channel Vs 2

I will also separate engine & gear effects to separate tactile units, the effect is more clear and the operation of other units is more clear as they have not to manage several effects at once.

Good to hear you are progressing steadily, the setup you describe has crazy amount of power, be careful not to melt your brain Do you have some capacitor in place in order not to overload your power supply with sudden power bursts?

Especially dual role for each wheel sounds really great.

Overall it sounds like it should handle anything you can throw at it.

GS4 Body Regions

Once I have some more powerful unit and how it feels to simulate g-force pressure with constant tone. However I feel this would get above my noise / vibration limits very fast when applied to the degree you are describing.

"Which do you think may feel more eyebrow-raising?
The felt motion in the paddles pressing my body or this level of bass/tactie energy placed into specific body regions?"

I have no idea, as I haven't tried any option before, but tactile way sounds more crazy to me , but it must have its merits when you are pursuing it so I'm really interested to see your build in action.

One thing that also discourages me from GS-4 is that it's essentially totally flat bench with no ergonomics / side railing. I hope GS-5 will be based on actual car seat design but let's see.

With regards to motion I haven't tried motion rig before, but I think being thrown around is part of the experience - at least to some degree - you should fight this throwing around by using tight seat with seat belt on.

I would imagine something like this could be something to have as goal, this seems too much It's not fair comparison, as the second one is trying to simulate formula. Maybe with proper seat, seatbelt and some limited motion for head and it could be all right, but when I look at it, I think I wouldn't like to be thrown around so much I suppose in real world they have seatbelts really tight, I have yet to do proper research in real world racing.

BK LFE vs Concert

Thanks for response, I will get Concert then. I hope I wont need that high frequency for bumps - up to 50 Hz should be ok and if I need higher frequencies, I would redirect it to seat and pedals TST units. This higher frequencies would be just for road texture which gets mostly spread uniformly across the chassis anyway.

It's no doubt dual operation would be better also for bumps, but I'm not ready to add this much complexity to my setup at the moment. Thanks for this dual role idea, it really works great!

 

[Michal Burisin]

Piston Pang is excessive gain/amplitude/volume from specific low Hz.
We can control this with Parametric EQ to reduce or slice the energy of specific culprit Hz on the output of the unit. iNuke DSP is a method we use on the relevant amps.

BK Advance will have issues under 20Hz
BK Mini seems to have issues under 35Hz

BK LFE can also bottom but we can get a rather crazy level of energy/volume and avoid it happening.
Again some tuning or tweaking via PEQ is possible.

I recommend buying one LFE or Concert unit to form your own tests to the BK Advance. This will help you determine what to go for regards the rig configuration. Its possible to use a single larger unit combined with stereo units to bring additional low- end bump emphasis, engine etc like a subwoofer. We just place .wav in the effects we want the bigger unit to also operate with.

Stereo brings much more cost and installation headaches.
You could combine a TST/BKA/LFE to operate on the seat and have LFE operate from underneath the base of the seat also to make contact with extensions to under the knees. If you fancy playing around with that.

Pedals, I think just test some ideas like you are considering.
Having the main TST energy go into the pedals as the primary point of contact worked well for me.
The BK Advance will easily have its energy go all through the pedal platform and into the pedals too.
I would try the BK more in below the foot region, however.

DSP can bring more control for the output and control of each unit.
This you can experiment with or ask about. It should let you help tune out or reduce the pinging/ringing in pedal stems. Although I would try some of the materials you have to see if a small cutting applied kills this without ruining the felt vibration

As you describe it, it seems I have hit performance limit of BK Advance. I will see if I hit this problem in real world, as it's caused at high volume in the seat which I probably won't need as high in the end. Limiting it is no problem, DSP have various options to do this, I think I'm starting to get hang of it .

Wow, triple role is way to much for me right now

In the pedals on this rig however I cannot go directly below the pedal plate with BK, so I would need to have it on same level as pedal plate.

Maybe I could move it more to the back like this or perhaps even more if it won't be in the pedal travel trajectory.

The ringing in stems I experienced is due to stems moving side to side, I have solution for it coming, so I hope it will make the problem go away completely.

Thanks for ideas!

 

[Michal Burisin]

So here is some initial tactile test, sorry I couldn't show any meanigful driving / shifting as I have just one hand at the moment I hoped, low frequencies would be visible even from distance, but it's too small movement. On the end, there's detail on the isolator and also some nasty BK Advance banging which has really quick onset - I suppose it's difference between piston hitting or not hitting some stop on it's travel.

So far this test has only seat working. So far I'm very happy with the results The BK Advance bang won't be issue I think, as I won't want it set that high anyway.

 

[Michal Burisin]

So after some more testing, I found out, I have most vibrations to floor solved. However audible element is becoming major problem, at least for frequencies over 90 Hz, and one specific frequency around 50 Hz - it's a pretty narrow band.

In some places in the room, it sounds very quiet, but when I walked around, I found out, there's massive difference. On some spots it's quiet, on some places it's louder, and in corners, there's most trouble. Especially in one particular corner, it's just horrendous. In these problematic spots it's a deep bass sound, depending on frequency and it gets a lot louder than in other places in room - the position that makes all the difference can be just 50 cm apart. Same goes for other rooms in apartment. In room across the hall, in the centre, it's ok, but around the walls and again especially in corners it's quite bad. So these frequencies can travel a lot of distance, even through door & walls.

In the main room, where I have a rig, I tried to stuff the problematic corner with pillows etc., but it did virtually nothing when I put my head close to it, it was basically the same.

I was trying fixed frequencies which might be worse. When driving the frequencies will change all the time, maybe the resonance wouldn't be so easily created in those spots then.

This is looking, this will be most challenging to solve. For the time being, I will adjust volume down

If I wanted to do proper isolation of the room, the price would be ridiculous as the room is around 24 m2. I'm not sure, if just bass traps would help - something like this. Maybe it would help, but it would probably have to be used in majority of the corners to make any meaningful difference which would look ridiculous and also the price is quite big.

Only other option that comes to my mind right now is to make separate compartment in the room (basically big box) and isolate that which is even more ridiculous, but at least the price would be much lower. I'm starting to think, that maybe going for motion would have been miles easier

Any ideas?

 

[Mr Latte]

TST units are quite audible, they can blend in with speaker audio but should not be heard over say small speakers like a monitor or slim tv have. if you want to control them for this purpose of tactile then use the iNuke Crossover to limit their usage and harmonics.

Try a crossover for now set from 20Hz - 150
You can alter the slope but have 100Hz still at 0dB

For tuning any specific Hz you can do this with the PEQ
Eg 60Hz and then adjust the gain in this case making it lower and also adjust the Q factor to address the surrounding frequencies this drop will include. You can see it all visually with the software.

Pushed for time now but can cover this more better at later time

 

[Emery]

In the main room, where I have a rig, I tried to stuff the problematic corner with pillows etc., but it did virtually nothing when I put my head close to it, it was basically the same.

Rather than trying to change the room acoustics, how about surrounding the "speakers" with foam? It's not like you want to hear the shakers at all, so absorbing the backside energy could go a long ways towards solving this problem. Obviously you need to leave room for air circulation per manufacturer's recommendations...

Might not work if the sound energy is coming from the body-side of the chair, but at least it's a cheap easy thing to test.

 

[Michal Burisin]

TST units are quite audible, they can blend in with speaker audio but should not be heard over say small speakers like a monitor or slim tv have. if you want to control them for this purpose of tactile then use the iNuke Crossover to limit their usage and harmonics.

Try a crossover for now set from 20Hz - 150
You can alter the slope but have 100Hz still at 0dB

For tuning any specific Hz you can do this with the PEQ
Eg 60Hz and then adjust the gain in this case making it lower and also adjust the Q factor to address the surrounding frequencies this drop will include. You can see it all visually with the software.

Pushed for time now but can cover this more better at later time

Thanks, I will look into this. However I want to limit the audible sound, I also want to keep the tactile, as it's getting weaker with rising frequency, I'm not sure if that's possible, at least to some degree.

I have finally managed to get pedal units working. It seems, that front TST is not causing this deep bass in corners of the room effect.

I think, that with my design of seat area, I have created perfect bass box for the TST and the sound is getting stronger in there (I was trying to counter this with the insulation inside, but it's usefulness is probably marginal at best).



I will probably try to move TST outside the box instead of buttkicker and move the buttkicker to the front bridge between the side plates.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Rather than trying to change the room acoustics, how about surrounding the "speakers" with foam? It's not like you want to hear the shakers at all, so absorbing the backside energy could go a long ways towards solving this problem. Obviously you need to leave room for air circulation per manufacturer's recommendations...

Might not work if the sound energy is coming from the body-side of the chair, but at least it's a cheap easy thing to test.

I have tried that little bit, see image in post above. I'm afraid the compartment is too small. I'll try to move the transducer outside and see if it helps. One other thing to try would be use metal instead of wood for the bridges between sideplates, so that energy transfer is more effective and I could possibly run the transducers on lower volume while retaining same power output.

 

[Mr Latte]

Over 90Hz has very minimal felt tactile, you gain very little with going to say 130Hz or higher. The more you increase the more it becomes audio than felt vibration.
If you want to do a test, connect your tactile to the primary audio output, play music, or any full range audio source/material.

Now goto iNuke Crossover
Set the Crossover to start from 90Hz (Use Butterworth 48dB filter) have the crossover go up to 150Hz and again apply the same filter. You will now only get the 60Hz range (between 90-150Hz) being amplified and output to the TST units.

You will discover you do not feel much from this and can then determine how worthwhile it is to use over say 100Hz. No point giving the tactile more work (increased heat) than is worth having.



By now you should of gathered you can do this type of to test for any Hz range and only feel what is active in the set range. Want to feel your TST from eg 60-80Hz then do the same but just alter to the desired Hz.

TST Noise Test
This time have the TST tactile use 20Hz-100Hz now listen to the same music or source material.
If you have peak frequencies then you can either have their energy drop via crossover slop or use specific EQ to exact frequencies.

You should be able to tame the noise without much difficulty.
Play around with the iNuke, then save a setting in a memory slot. Keep in mind however the amp loads up with the last used settings.

Here is an example, I just activated filter 5/6 and set these to reduce some specific Hz

So here we are trimming/reducing the dB for 60Hz and 70Hz energy levels (lets assume you found these to be a bit too high). Notice the "Quality" is set to 10 to have limited "surrounding frequencies" also included in the minus dB drop. See what happens if you set the "Q" to 5 or 1.
You will quickly grasp what this does regards what are called the "surrounding frequencies" to these 60Hz and 70Hz "center values" by keeping an eye on the visual graphics.





As for the BK Advance installation, you might get some improved response in the seat if it was bolted to where the TST is. (within the "H") as it would then have more contact with front/back horizontal wood sections connecting to the seat supports. It depends if you want to try or can be bothered...

I forget if its possible if you can remove the cover or padding from the "R Seat" but if its possible I would bolt the TST directly to the back/spine region of the seat. I did this with 2 seats in the past, one with standard bolt/washer/nut the other by bolting the TST's metal pedestal to the seat.

This was the only image I could find from past ideas on previous seat I had several years ago.
Ignore the BK Mini just sitting on the back. Focus more on the side and rear mounted TST, these worked well on that Cobra Sebring seat.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Over 90Hz has very minimal felt tactile, you gain very little with going to say 130Hz or higher. The more you increase the more it becomes audio than felt vibration.
If you want to do a test, connect your tactile to the primary audio output, play music, or any full range audio source/material.

Now goto iNuke Crossover
Set the Crossover to start from 90Hz (Use Butterworth 48dB filter) have the crossover go up to 150Hz and again apply the same filter. You will now only get the 60Hz range (between 90-150Hz) being amplified and output to the TST units.

You will discover you do not feel much from this and can then determine how worthwhile it is to use over say 100Hz. No point giving the tactile more work (increased heat) than is worth having.



By now you should of gathered you can do this type of to test for any Hz range and only feel what is active in the set range. Want to feel your TST from eg 60-80Hz then do the same but just alter to the desired Hz.

TST Noise Test
This time have the TST tactile use 20Hz-100Hz now listen to the same music or source material.
If you have peak frequencies then you can either have their energy drop via crossover slop or use specific EQ to exact frequencies.

You should be able to tame the noise without much difficulty.
Play around with the iNuke, then save a setting in a memory slot. Keep in mind however the amp loads up with the last used settings.

Here is an example, I just activated filter 5/6 and set these to reduce some specific Hz

So here we are trimming/reducing the dB for 60Hz and 70Hz energy levels (lets assume you found these to be a bit too high). Notice the "Quality" is set to 10 to have limited "surrounding frequencies" also included in the minus dB drop. See what happens if you set the "Q" to 5 or 1.
You will quickly grasp what this does regards what are called the "surrounding frequencies" to these 60Hz and 70Hz "center values" by keeping an eye on the visual graphics.





As for the BK Advance installation, you might get some improved response in the seat if it was bolted to where the TST is. (within the "H") as it would then have more contact with front/back horizontal wood sections connecting to the seat supports. It depends if you want to try or can be bothered...

I forget if its possible if you can remove the cover or padding from the "R Seat" but if its possible I would bolt the TST directly to the back/spine region of the seat. I did this with 2 seats in the past, one with standard bolt/washer/nut the other by bolting the TST's metal pedestal to the seat.

This was the only image I could find from past ideas on previous seat I had several years ago.
Ignore the BK Mini just sitting on the back. Focus more on the side and rear mounted TST, these worked well on that Cobra Sebring seat.

Thanks, I think I understand these iNuke setting now - I have been using these settings intuitively and now you confirmed that. The thing is, I quite like the developing of Hz even up to 140 Hz, the response is getting weaker, but it's still there and it closely matches the audio component of engine effect.

I will have to do testing for example for 1000 RPM to 8500 RPM engine. How it would feel, if I would use artificial mapping for example let's say just 16.66 Hz to 100 Hz, instead of 16.66 Hz to 141.66 Hz what it should be when matched to real RPM - Hz conversion rate. I will then have better idea if I need that higher frequency or I can get by with lower, less audible frequencies.

As I wrote, the problem must probably be in attachment of the TST and it's current position, as the TST on pedals isn't causing this problem.

I will definitely try the BK directly under seat, but I'm woried, that this cramped up space will again act as bass box and amplify the audible component of the BK operation.

It will take me some time before I can experiment with it, as I will be probably unable to do it probably for next month or two.

Thanks for the image with the bucket seat.

It's easy to get under padding, as it is at lower back section attached via velcro. The TST on your image, it's mounted just to thin, probably acrylic shell? When I tap mine, it makes really hollow sound, won't it cause some serious resonance within the bucket when TST would be directly attached to it?

I would probably need to use some bigger metal base plate or at least big washers on the other side of the seat, in order to prevent the screws breaking the acrylic under load which would be caused by TST weight acting as lever. But maybe acrylic is tough, that it won't be such big problem. Then I will have to use some thin nuts, so it won't be felt through the padding, but it should be all possible to solve.

I almost disregarded this solution, but now it might be worth the try when original solution has problems.

Another thing that bothers me with the N1 seat, is that it's made of Alcantra, it feels nice, but it causes crazy amount of static electricity. Always when I rub my ass against it when standing up, the speakers are making lot of static noise, and when I touch something metal, it causes metal discharge. I'm starting to get worried about this, as there's lot of electric devices that it could hurt.

Should I be worried or it's no problem as long as I don't touch bare circuits? Is there some solution? Maybe some grounding cable?

 

[Ceolmor]

I forget if its possible if you can remove the cover or padding from the "R Seat" but if its possible I would bolt the TST directly to the back/spine region of the seat. I did this with 2 seats in the past, one with standard bolt/washer/nut the other by bolting the TST's metal pedestal to the seat.

This was the only image I could find from past ideas on previous seat I had several years ago.
Ignore the BK Mini just sitting on the back. Focus more on the side and rear mounted TST, these worked well on that Cobra Sebring seat.

Can a TST239 work attached vertically to the seat back? I recall some debate on this previously. TST installation guide says:

If it does work, does it work good, with the vibrations going back and forth instead of up and down?

 

[Michal Burisin]

Can a TST239 work attached vertically to the seat back? I recall some debate on this previously. TST installation guide says:

If it does work, does it work good, with the vibrations going back and forth instead of up and down?

Once I try it, I'll let you know. One thing that might be problem in my eyes is that in real life, the first contact point for vibrations is your thighs and butt from the bottom and then it travels upward through your body. In this installation, it would travel from your lower back down to the legs, but it might not be an issue at all, I think we won't know once we try it, but as it was suggested by @Mr Latte, I think it should work well as he already tried it.

 

[Ceolmor]

Once I try it, I'll let you know.
.

Sounds like a plan. Thanks.

 

[Mr Latte]

Sounds like a plan. Thanks.

I think, or should I say thought, we had clarified the TST installation issue with @signman

It seems that the currently available units from PartsExpress.com for the TST 239 (not T209) are now suitable for vertical mounting. They offer new amended instructions that confirm it is okay.

What needs to be taken into account is that someone could buy an older version from ebay etc that may not support it. The original instructions differ from the new ones and thus the confusion/debate at the time.

The metal stand component has upto six holes that can be drilled to secure to the back of a seat. Using the two bigger holes is also sufficient. Place washers on the inside of the seat, rubber then metal could be used I suppose. What I did was sandwich a T100 isolator between the TST and this stand to help support th unit (if it got knocked). That may of toned down the tactile a bit IM not certain but I had no major issues with the "Cobra Sebring" and reverb. Yes If I cranked them high it may of been an issue and the seat became kinda audible.

If reverb was an issue, I suppose you could try a small cutting of the anti-vibe materials you have to deaden it on the seat. See what it does?

As for static, you can get sprays for upholstery for this, though again Id check what are suitable for your seats specific material and check with R Seat prior to using. Also ground loop isolators but maybe you need to discover what is causing it?

I have helped several people place TST units onto seats (sides/spine) and not had anyone mention disaster issues with reverb etc. Once again may I highlight that you have the power and tools with iNuke DSP to find a limited Hz range that may cause reverb in the seat (materials differ) and then reduce this (like shown with 60-70Hz) earlier.

Once you have a unit in your spine and tuned you likely won't want to run the tactile without it.
However, it needs to be set at a comfortable level for a sensitive body region and blend with other units.

 

[Michal Burisin]

I think, or should I say thought, we had clarified the TST installation issue with @signman

It seems that the currently available units from PartsExpress.com for the TST 239 (not T209) are now suitable for vertical mounting. They offer new amended instructions that confirm it is okay.

What needs to be taken into account is that someone could buy an older version from ebay etc that may not support it. The original instructions differ from the new ones and thus the confusion/debate at the time.

The metal stand component has upto six holes that can be drilled to secure to the back of a seat. Using the two bigger holes is also sufficient. Place washers on the inside of the seat, rubber then metal could be used I suppose. What I did was sandwich a T100 isolator between the TST and this stand to help support th unit (if it got knocked). That may of toned down the tactile a bit IM not certain but I had no major issues with the "Cobra Sebring" and reverb. Yes If I cranked them high it may of been an issue and the seat became kinda audible.

If reverb was an issue, I suppose you could try a small cutting of the anti-vibe materials you have to deaden it on the seat. See what it does?

As for static, you can get sprays for upholstery for this, though again Id check what are suitable for your seats specific material and check with R Seat prior to using. Also ground loop isolators but maybe you need to discover what is causing it?

I have helped several people place TST units onto seats (sides/spine) and not had anyone mention disaster issues with reverb etc. Once again may I highlight that you have the power and tools with iNuke DSP to find a limited Hz range that may cause reverb in the seat (materials differ) and then reduce this (like shown with 60-70Hz) earlier.

Once you have a unit in your spine and tuned you likely won't want to run the tactile without it.
However, it needs to be set at a comfortable level for a sensitive body region and blend with other units.

Great! I will try to move the TST, it seems it will be much better option to place in the seat.

I hope it won't matter it is not strictly vertical, relative to the ground, it will be inclined like 10 degrees. They have images in manual showing only horizontal & vertical placement, but in the note above, they write

,so I think, it won't be problem.

Thanks for ideas about static. I think it's that Alcantara material on the seat and maybe also because the seat and pedals are completely isolated from the ground on rubber mounts. I'll have to read more about theory on static to understand it little bit better. Another reason might be that it stands on carpet and also I push it into position couple of meters which might make things worse initially.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Sounds like a plan. Thanks.

So, I drilled holes to the back of the bucket seat, mounted TST, but the problem with that deep bass sounds amplified in room corners as I described before just got much worse.

I think the small space, the TST is in, is not problem after all, I believe the problem is the bucket of the seat itself, as it gets vibration and its material is prone to getting lot of movement over large surface, that it probably becomes one big bass speaker.

I also didn't like that the first contact of the vibrations in on my lower back and then it can barely reach bottom of the legs, especially the front.

So for me, it was better to move it back to the original position. I also limited higher frequencies for engine down to 110 Hz instead of 140 Hz and it got much better noise wise. I liked the higher frequencies better, regarding the feeling, but the noise the seat was generating was unbearable.

Maybe covering the bucket with bitumen plates might help, but it would also probably kill the vibrations, so I didn't go for it.

I think the best solution would be some seat based on aluminium frame, but I will leave this option for later, as I don't want to invest into this right now.

 

[Mr Latte]

Just checking as above you don't give details of what volume you are using, how your amp is set up and if using digital wattage limiter for it.

I get a feeling your suffering from the same issue motion sim users go through in that at first they use settings much higher than needed. The seat will reverb, how, this depends on the materials of the seat what frequencies do this more but also what volume you are putting through them.

You have full contol of the Hz with the iNuke DSP if you need to create a profile for the amp and this unit on its own channel. It should not be that hard to do, to find the Hz causing the main issues of reverb and lower their gain via EQ. Why not try the unit by setting 30Hz steps to see how it responds with each band.

For example, set a crossover to start from and to:

20Hz - 50Hz
30Hz - 60Hz
40Hz - 70Hz
50Hz - 80Hz
60Hz - 90Hz
70Hz - 100Hz

Within these, you should find what band is causing the most issues your having.
But I query the volume you're using as well.

Take note that the amps controls or the seat based TST should not really need to be any higher than 12pm on a DSP 1000 and that's with the amp set to use a digital wattage limit for its output to 100W @ 4ohms.

Additionally, you can go into your soundcard settings "Mixer" with the Asus DGX and lower the volume output from the soundcard for this channel the TST is on if desired.

 

[Michal Burisin]

Just checking as above you don't give details of what volume you are using, how your amp is set up and if using digital wattage limiter for it.

I get a feeling your suffering from the same issue motion sim users go through in that at first they use settings much higher than needed. The seat will reverb, how, this depends on the materials of the seat what frequencies do this more but also what volume you are putting through them.

You have full contol of the Hz with the iNuke DSP if you need to create a profile for the amp and this unit on its own channel. It should not be that hard to do, to find the Hz causing the main issues of reverb and lower their gain via EQ. Why not try the unit by setting 30Hz steps to see how it responds with each band.

For example, set a crossover to start from and to:

20Hz - 50Hz
30Hz - 60Hz
40Hz - 70Hz
50Hz - 80Hz
60Hz - 90Hz
70Hz - 100Hz

Within these, you should find what band is causing the most issues your having.
But I query the volume you're using as well.

Take note that the amps controls or the seat based TST should not really need to be any higher than 12pm on a DSP 1000 and that's with the amp set to use a digital wattage limit for its output to 100W @ 4ohms.

Additionally, you can go into your soundcard settings "Mixer" with the Asus DGX and lower the volume output from the soundcard for this channel the TST is on if desired.

I played with it little bit and the problem is caused by frequencies over 110 Hz, it onsets around 95 Hz, but up to 110 Hz it's quite ok.

The amp is set like this:

I played with this quite a bit, with these settings, I can get nice and continuous tactile feeling over whole range of the frequencies.

Reducing gain on these problematic frequencies over 110 Hz would be no problem to reduce noise via DSP functions, but then the tactile response would go away completely.

To have some tactile feeling from TST at around 140 Hz I have to set the volume on the DSP3000 to 2 PM position and I don't have the wattage limiter set.

For me, the noise it makes is disturbing mainly with constant continuous high RPM engine effect, so it was easiest to limit frequency range directly in this effect, which was causing most issues. And I still have the option to use these higher frequencies, that still retains tactile feel because I didn't limit it via DSP, with effects, that doesn't cause that much trouble as they are just quick bursts - for example traction loss.

I have also put some stuffing in the most problematic corner of the room and I found out, that these low frequencies are mostly crawling near the floor, so I have put additional mattress I had under bed and it also helped quite a bit.

I think this solution quite works for me. As I said it's no problem to kill the offending frequencies via DSP as you recommended, but it would also totally kill the tactile feel from them which I want to avoid.

I think the aluminium seat would resolve the issue completely - somehing like this or this.

I think it wouldn't be problem to attach TST directly to this and maybe even BK.

 

[Mr Latte]

Bass Frequencies


Questions:

You dont say what source you are using or if its SSW, Simvibe or audio tactile.
That is causing this main problem? I assume the engine reference is with Simvibe

TST have issues with Simvibe "Textures" and I wonder if you are also using these with any effects?
It would help, if you explain better what you are doing/using.

Confused:
The image you posted for iNuke, appears that channel 1 and channel 2 are I presume the BKA (1) and TST (2). What you have done here is akin to a bandstop or notch type filter by eliminating a whole frequency segment. If you do that is it any wonder you dont feel certain frequencies?

So your RPM is going to have a whole chunk of Hz missing...
Why would you do that with the engine which by its very nature is progressive and creating its own harmonics as the frequencies rise with the RPM value?


Try having the TST operate from 35Hz
Its the unit that will have finer detail and improved speed but is likely to have its strongest Hz in the 40Hz region.

I have often found and shared that TST seem to have quite a peak in the 60-80Hz region.
However, you can better control these in reducing them via PEQ (Parametric EQ) rather than completely cutting them out. Likewise if you want to reduce 100-140Hz dB you can but still have some sensation. Every 3dB is 2x the energy, people relate 6db-10db being a doubling of volume (volume is subjective to different people).

Also in the screenshot, you posted you have upto about 160Hz operating at -5 dB.
Keep in mind Simvibe "Tones" are "center values" so if you set an effect to use say upto 130Hz then that is the "center value" it will have additional higher Hz being active. WIth that crossover chances are you are feeling upto approx the 150Hz-160Hz and again these frequencies are causing audio output from the TST.

Strongly recommend you set a 4ohm 100 wattage limit for the TST.
If you don't you can easily damage them.

 

[Michal Burisin]

So handbrake is done, here is the result:







I forgot to take pictures when it was still not mounted, now it's not easy to take proper picture as it is hidden behind shifter.

I used:

1) Handbrake

2) Micro load cell

3) Bodnar load cell interface

4) Table stool leg

5) Spare spring I got from pedals

6) Various nuts and bolts to put it all together

Works good, I'm pretty happy with the result