Tactile with different seat types

[cnhoff]

Hi,

i am driving in a Recaro Ergomed, which is a comfortable, mildly sporty seat, but have thought today about what impact a more stiff, less cushioned seat might have on how you experience tactile. I do not necessarily mean being able to fit more gear like exciters, but more the transmission through the seat into the body.

So what is your experience? Is tactile better with a bucket seat?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[stigs2cousin]

If the Ergomed is built along similar principles as my Sportster CS tactile transducers can be fitted quite easyly.
The seat cushion is held by a "plastic pan" which is hung into the seat frame with a swivel bushing in front and two springs in the back. So it´s alrady isolated from the seat frame.
I have an Aurasound AST2-B-4 bolted to the seat pan for road information and a Dayton Audio TT25 mini (Puck) in the styrofoam of the lumbar support for engine vibration which I plan to exchange with something bigger.

These two are felt completely separate because they are fixed to parts of the seat separated from the steel frame.
If you want more exciters (eg for wheelslip et al.) they could be mounted into the "wings" under the side bolsters.

But you´d have to dismantle your seat yourself to check how much room there is.
It´s not difficult to take a Recaro apart ( and get it together right again ) these things are highly modular,
there are "HowTo´s " on Youtube.

MFG Carsten

 

[RCHeliguy]

I had a car seat out of a wrecked VS Passat and the main seat support under your butt was supported by a metal section under the cushion that was not part of the seat frame. It was sprung and I bolted a transducer to it. The results were very good. Basically it was already isolated.

Once I got a fiberglass shell seat, the seat needs to be isolated from the frame somehow.

 

[cnhoff]

Thanks for your replies, Stig and Heliguy.

I have a more “traditional” tactile assembly with Aluminium seat and pedal plates that the seat with sliders and pedals are directly mounted on. The plates themselves are isolated from the main rig. The plates house a LFE and soon a TST each.
I like the setup quite a lot, also enjoying the seat’s comfort, but was wondering, whether a “stiffer” bucket seat would transfer the energy better into the body than a cushioned street car seat. And yes, it looks better

 

[stigs2cousin]

If you want more or more direct transmission of the vibes try to mount the shaker directly to the seat pan.
The Recaros are quite well isolated against road vibrations, that will swallow some feedback.
Also the height adjustment ( and maybe sliders) are in the transmission path.

On the other hand I´m not sure if the plastic seatpan will be strong enough for LFE and TST.
You could try to find a mounting solution for the aluminium plate with the shakers to the plastic pan directly to circumvent the hinges and springs that connect it to the frame. "Direct mount" works quite well for an single Aura, I´m not so shure about the combo you are planning.
Problematic would be the curved shape of the seatpan, maybe you could laminate some studs on it to bolt on the shaker carrier??


MFG Carsten

 

[cnhoff]

Thank Carsten!

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have a BK-CT and TST-329 on my foot plate and a BK-CT and TST-429 on my seat. My pedal deck is somewhat isolated with Sorbothane and my seat is on an NLRv3 pivot so right now the transducers are basically cantilevered and shaking my seat around that pivot point.

The BK's and TST's can put out a lot of power. I had an Aura mounted directly to the bottom of my old VW seat and it worked well enough for what it was. The BK's are much more powerful. If you bolt them directly to your seat, make sure to reinforce the area and through bolt some metal.

 

[cnhoff]

Update to give an unambiguous answer to my own question as I have upgraded from a sporty carseat to a bucket

The answer is yes, your tactile experience improves a lot as the effects get more powerful and much more direct. Also the higher frequency range above 130Hz can be felt now. Definitively worth it.

 

[blekenbleu]

I suppose that bucket has less mass as well as less isolation,
hence more energy to sense.

 

[cnhoff]

My Initial question was not "will it improve" but rather "by how much"

Just wanted to share the answer to the latter one based on my experience.

Less mass, less isolation and seat sliders removed helped, as expected.

 

[paladin21]

what kind of bolts (length/diameter) did you use to mount the shakers on the fiberglass?

 

[cnhoff]

I have just used some M6 bolts with large washers to mount Mini LFEs to the back of my Sparco EVO. Length depends on your seat and shakers, but they were probably M6x35mm ones in my case.

 

[paladin21]

thank you very much..was it easy to make the hole on the seat with the bolt? or did you do a guide hole first? any cracking around the drilling area? I will be drilling my seat on tuesday and your thread came right on time

 

[cnhoff]

I drilled with a 3mm first, but in general fiberglass is easy to drill. If there was any issues I had some with the fabric that is glued to the inside of the seat. It got entangled in the drill and does not look as nice as before, but that is a minor issue that can probably be mitigated by taking more care when punching through on the other side. Large washers over those areas anyway.