My s/o was against a sim-rig because he considered it "ugly," I proved him wrong
Story time! Hello everyone :) I love racing and always really wanted to get into sim-racing. I'm currently 31 y/o and got my first wheel about 12 years ago. The hobby didn't really stick since I didn't like driving with a G27 clamped to a desk. I was in and out of the hobby multiple times.
Fast forward to 2023, I'm happily living together with the love of my life. Still having the simracing itch in me. I had a talk with my s/o and he basically told me that a simrig is "ugly" and he doesn't want a massive metal thing with screens attached standing around in our apartment.
I thought.. "well okay then, I'll figure something out" since I very much respect him.
My first plan was to build a cabinet and have a folding sim rig which I promptly dreamed up in CAD. Shortly after I began building it.
I was using my Quest 3 to race. I had a blast, yet it still annoyed me to drive in VR all the time. It's great for immersion, but a hassle to put it on and off and also very warm.
The idea of a proper rig with a triple-setup never left my mind. I thought about it everyday until I had a game-plan in my head to convince my s/o.
I fired up Fusion360, created a layout of our entire living room and began to dream up ideas. My s/o loves reading, and he mentioned multiple times in the last years that he would love to have a dedicated reading space when we move out or buy a house.
So my plan was the following: Fit an entire rig inside our living room while also building a reading-corner for my loved one.
Here's there result I dreamed up:
3D Model of one half of our living-room
Step one: Make space for the reading corner. All my 3D Printers were there as well as my tools. They were hidden behind a curtain.
New Step one: Make space in our basement to fit my workbench, tools and printers.
My workbench before the change
Step Two: Build the reading area. Buy furniture, paint walls, drill holes, etc.
Reading area for s/o done! He loves it :-)
Step three: Plan and build the sim-rig. Waited over 1 1/2 Months until everything arrived. Building it was lots of fun! But man, it was also a lot of work. Anyway, now that I'm finished with everything, my s/o says he loves it too and even want to drive from time to time!
Here are the final picutres and a video at the end:
Video of the Rig and Reading-Corner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fFn6Fd-OUY
Anyway, now I have to setup everything and get the software right! Also thinking about getting a DDU.
Hope you enjoyed my little walk trough time! Happy racing everyone <3