Making a LIFE SIZE GAMING SIMULATOR

hey Siri enter gaming mode [Music] [Music] a few months ago I made this virtual window to anywhere using three huge TVs the concept was cool but it was pretty Limited in what it could do now it's time to teach it some new tricks foreign so by far the biggest flaw in the design of my TV window was that it was all run on three separate USB sticks and the TVs didn't even communicate with each other but thanks to the magic of the internet I got thousands of comments telling me how to fix this issue so I just went on Facebook Marketplace and picked up this couple year old gaming computer for about fifteen hundred dollars Canadian I plugged each one of the screens into the computer's graphics card using some HDMI to display port adapters and fired up the TVs [Music] so right now the computer is recognizing each TV as its own monitor so after adjusting the settings to have everything in portrait mode I can go ahead with setting it up to have the whole thing interact as one screen instead of three separate monitors as it is right now foreign all three of these screens together is this Nvidia graphics card I really never even knew this was a thing because I've never really been a PC Gamer but this is a super vital thing in PC gaming as most people use multiple monitors so using this graphics card I can merge all three of my TV screens to interact as if there were only one large screen [Music] so I'm going to be using a feature called surround in the Nvidia control panel here I can adjust all my settings to have my screens in the right order and the resolution I want as well as set the bezel to account for that Gap that I have between the screens [Music] after enabling surround the computer now thinks I only have one screen with a resolution of 6760 by 3840. with those 140 pixel dead areas on the two gaps between the screens for the core purpose of the first video which was to have a window to anywhere this is a million times more practical because now I can just go on YouTube or search up one of my own video files hit full screen and it automatically spans across all three screens foreign [Music] now it's time to make the setup look a little nicer so using my oscillating tool I notched out some of the drywall underneath the trim so that I can run the HDMI cords to the computer without having them visible foreign [Music] ER in a completely separate room where you wouldn't even see it but it looks so pretty I decided to have it out in plain sight [Music] so I also had to take out a couple of the TVs and then cut away a little bit of the back part of this cabinet so that I could get in behind and access all the cords foreign [Music] so I fed through the three HDMI cables plus one optical audio cable and an ethernet cable then I 3D printed this little washer grommet thing so that I could cut a hole through the wall and then have the cables fed back through the trim and then come up out through the wall instead of having to cut it through the trim [Music] I'm an idiot [Music] I should point out these are all low voltage data cables you shouldn't run any 120 volt electrical cables through the wall like this [Music] with that cleaned up I'm going to install this outdoor 4K security camera so that I have a live view to outside or basically just a live window on my TV window [Music] so I used a three-quarter inch masonry bit to drill through the brick and the wood behind it [Music] and then I fed through the 75-foot outdoor ethernet cable [Music] then I fed that ethernet cable through the ceiling across pretty much the entire house over to our internet router then I connected the cable into this power over ethernet switch that I have connected into our main router this Poe switch provides power to the camera using just the Ethernet cable so I don't have to run a separate DC cable with it then I plugged in the camera and after it initialized I just scanned the QR code on the back of it to add it to my Rio Link account which took about 30 seconds I picked this camera because it's 4K and also because you can move the actual gimbal on the camera so I can give myself a different view on the TV window so that's all set up and connected to my phone and we'll get this connected into the computer once I have everything back together [Music] so I don't want the computer to just be sitting on the floor so I'm going to build up a pretty simple but nice looking shelf to house it [Music] [Applause] in the first video I made this workbench and I said maybe one day I'll make a video that goes into a little more detail and I guess that day is today I'm not making a workbench in this but the concept of what I'm doing here is the exact same you just change the dimensions so I started off with some normal 2x6 framing Lumber and I just plain down both faces about a eighth of an inch or so you could definitely do this without a planer you just have to spend a little more time sanding but hey I have a planer so I might as well use it oh and plans for everything I build in this video will be on my website for free once the video is released [Music] so with my first board cut to length I just stripped off about a quarter inch off the one side so I have a nice straight edge to start with foreign track saw jig that I use all the time I cut a couple boards at about two and a quarter inches a table saw would also save you quite a bit of time here if you're into that because we're gonna have to cut at least seven or eight at this width but I really don't mind using the track saw for most cuts next I cut five pieces at 11 inches [Music] and then with all the material for half the Shelf cut I went ahead and started drilling some pocket holes with this Kreg pocket hole jig [Applause] [Music] foreign two holes on both ends of all five of the 11 inch pieces [Music] [Applause] and then I used a half inch forstner bit to countersink another couple holes that's going to be used for some screws later [Music] then I gave every board a good finished sanding with some 120 Grit [Music] and then I marked out the Shelf spacing on both of the vertical boards [Music] and I screwed in each cross member with two inch and a quarter pocket hole screws [Music] foreign [Music] all the steps for the second side of the Shelf [Music] for the actual shelves themselves I'm using some three-quarter inch Maple plywood and I cut four shelves at 28 inches by 11 inches [Music] foreign then after giving them a quick sand around the edges I'm going to apply some Edge banding [Music] Edge Banning has been around forever but it's something I just started using and man does it make plywood projects look a million times better it's basically just a thin strip of wood with some hot glue on the back and all you do is line it up with the edge of your board and use a standard iron to heat up the start of it and then I just use a block to really make sure that adhered nicely and then you work your way along the rest of the band with the iron I do about one or two foot chunks at a time and then rub it in with the block to make sure everything adhered nicely once I get to a corner I just cut it off with a little bit of overhang with some scissors and then butt up to that edge with the next strip I cut the ends flush with a fresh razor blade and then I use this Edge trimming tool to trim down the overhang then I give everything a final sand with some 120 Grit and these shelves are ready for finishing [Music] foreign [Music] so I gave the shelves some stain and I'm going to paint the frame with some satin black interior paint and a couple coats with a foam roller should do it foreign but if you just take your time and do two or three really thin coats you get a really nice professional look in the end to finish off these shelves I'm going to use a product I use a lot called Rubio monocoat so basically you just strip a little onto the shelf and then I work it in with a white applicator pad and then after letting it sit for a couple minutes I come along with a fresh Terry towel and wipe off as much as I possibly can this gives pretty much a perfect finish every time and looks a million times better than polyurethane finish in my opinion it's also pretty foolproof and you can touch it as soon as it's finished you don't have to worry about any dry times or anything to assemble I just have to put four screws into each shelf through those countersunk holes we drilled earlier foreign and that's a pretty good looking shelf for about a hundred dollars of actual materials used and about a day of work [Music] now with the computer ready to go and Typical Gamer fashion I'm gonna play around with a bunch of LED lighting before I close this TV wall back up so this video is not at all sponsored by Govi I've never even talked to them but after doing a bunch of research I found that they were the most adaptable and had the most options to customize and communicate with each other between products which is what I'm going to need for what I'm about to do so I really wanted something that would read the colors of the three TVs and then spit it out to the lights around the room where everything would be communicating with each other but apparently Govi does not make a specific product for people that connect three TVs together that are the size of a wall can you believe these buttholes but they do make this T2 backlight system usually you run these led strips around the back of your TV and then you set up this camera which reads the colors that span across the edges of the TV and this little box on the back spits that data out to the LED lights and then kind of extends the color off the TV onto the wall behind roughly it's actually really cool so I just need to figure out how to make this into something that works with my TV wall luckily Govi has a feature called dream View and that's where it uses one of these cameras and instead of just sending the data to the LED strips on the TV it sends it to any Govi device you want that you've connected into the dream view system [Music] so my plan is I'm going to use two of these 16 foot strips to span around both sides and the bottom of the TV wall [Music] so I used two different strips because of the amount of zones you can program into each product in the dream view system you can only set 8 different zones of color control no matter the product so if I did a 32 foot strip around the whole thing I'd only have eight zones of individual color control but if I do two 16 foot strips then I'll have 16 zones of color control which will make the colors line up a lot better with the edges of the TVs I'm gonna install this camera up in one of the ceiling tiles so I just used a job saw to roughly cut out the shape of the camera [Music] and then I 3D printed this little washer flange thing that's going to cover up the bad looking cut and make it look a lot more professional [Music] then I just ran a good-sized DC power adapter up behind the TVs and this is going to power the camera and both sets of LED strips [Music] after reinstalling the TVs I have to calibrate that camera in the ceiling [Music] and then I set up the color zones for the strips and then turn on dream View [Music] it looks okay right now but I really hate harsh LEDs so I'm going to work on something to diffuse that light by the way I finally got a table saw for Christmas but I gotta say they still scare the out of me so I ripped up a few strips of half inch MDF and I'm gonna glue them into these little L brackets [Music] so I was hoping these would take away the direct shine of the light and you would just be left with Ambiance but I didn't account for the reflection off the wall so I have these translucent LED diffuser strips that came with some Led Channel I bought and that seems to work perfectly in diffusing this light into something that looks cool and that's all that matters so I hot glued these diffusers onto the side of the MDF [Music] and then installed them flush up against the wall foreign [Music] like this neon look they got going but now I have to do something about the bottom because it looks terrible so I just hot glued two of these diffuser strips together and do an l and then with a couple tacks of hot glue just glued that right onto the cabinet itself and now that looks pretty similar to the side so let's get everything back together foreign [Music] for a little more room light I have this Govi floor lamp that I can also use to connect into the dream view system like I said before this video isn't sponsored and everything you see in it I bought with my own money but there are affiliate links in the description below so if you see something you like like these led backlight systems that are pretty cool please use the links below and I'll get a small percentage that'll help me make better and better content so you need to have the room lights dim to pick up the colors more accurately but once I kind of figured everything out I couldn't believe how accurate the colors actually were and the zones themselves it really makes a pretty immersive experience especially when playing video games or anything that has a lot of bright changing colors but I'm not stopping there [Music] thank you so I cut up at 24 by 32 inch piece of maple plywood and then I'm going to use this 3D printed stencil of my brain logo to Route it through the plywood and make a funky backlit neon sign and yes you guessed it it's going to be part of the dream view system as well so I have this quarter inch flush trim bit that has a top bearing so I'm going to use this to trace around the stencil and work my way through the wood [Music] and then theory that would have worked great but this bit was just too thin for the amount of stress I was putting on it so I'm going to use one of these more typical quarter inch bits that has a bearing on the bottom instead of the top this isn't as ideal because I'm gonna have to cut it out blind from the bottom but these bits are pretty foolproof and it's really not going to go through the stencil without me putting a ridiculous amount of foresight but I actually ended up just roughly routing it in from the top without touching the stencil at all and then trimming up the edges from the bottom just so I could kind of anticipate what was coming next [Music] [Music] for the sharper points and the lightning bolts I just use my jigsaw to square out those edges now that's almost done other than those holding tabs so I temporarily just hot glued on a couple of popsicle sticks on the back foreign and then I cut through all of those tabs [Music] [Applause] [Music] then I can just break off the stencil and chisel off any dabs of hot glue now I have to Quick move those popsicle sticks up to the top side and remove the ones on the back and then I have this old sheet of wood that I have covered in Tuck tape so I'm just going to put a silicone bead around the back of the logo and press the whole thing down onto the tuck tape I'm sure you've guessed by now that I'm going to fill this with epoxy and the epoxy won't stick to the tuck tape so we can break this free from the mold once it's hardened [Music] so I just have some casting epoxy I got from a local company called Rusty design and I just mixed it up to its recommended ratio and added in some white Mika powder I added enough to make it look white but not enough to make it fully opaque so light can still easily penetrate through then I put the epoxy into one of these condiment applicators and started filling up the logo it works best here to just take your time because you definitely don't want too many spills or drips or anything [Music] foreign I brought the epoxy basically right up to the brim and then after a few hours it settles down a couple millimeters and hardens there you also want to wipe off any drips if you have any before it hardens so that it's easier to sand [Music] after a few days that's fully hardened so we can break it free from the base foreign [Music] now I just have to remove those popsicle sticks from the front and give it a good sand [Music] and then I took two pieces of scrap half inch plywood and I'm just measuring around the logo to make a cutout that's about a couple inches away from every point of the logo foreign [Music] and I'm going to be using one of the 16 foot strips of Govi strip lights again [Music] and then I'm marking an area to make a cutout for the controller [Music] foreign roughly laid out I'm going to glue down those pieces of plywood onto the main panel [Music] and I hot glued the controller and all the excess wire into place then I'm just going around the perimeter of that cutout with the LED strip light [Music] now Govi says these lights aren't cuttable or you lose some functionality but I thought there's no better way to find out than to just try it and after I cut it everything still seemed to work fine so I guess they're cuttable then I just cased around the whole exterior with some three inch wide strips of half inch plywood and I purposely let everything hang over a little bit because I'm going to cut this flush shortly anyway and I installed this back panel with four screws to be an access panel into the electronics at any point later I actually took this panel off and it gave the sign a little outer glow which was cool too so it's up to you now really important here I tape this hanging power cable up out of the way and then I cut back all four sides about a quarter inch from the original panel size [Music] now you might be fine with that edge as is but I'm going to install some two inch Edge banding and the exact same method as I did with the shelves earlier in the video [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then I applied that same early American stain as I did on the shelves [Music] [Music] and some Rubio Monaco to seal it up [Music] foreign [Music] is ready to hang up in its final location [Music] so this sign connects into the dream view system too but I actually think it looks better with a little more intense motion but it can do both now this room is starting to shape up pretty sweet but it's missing one vital thing yet so I'm a racer that's just the kind of video games I like to play when I play so I designed up this racing Sim cockpit that's made entirely out of plywood so let's give it a shot at building this [Music] [Applause] so I cut every single piece for this by hand and yes it took forever but it's uh not that bad couple days of work but if you had a CNC this is a really great business opportunity waiting for somebody to snatch up wink wink you could really cut out all the pieces you need out of one sheet of plywood and then assemble it and the plans are there for free on my website so the first thing I made was this box which is basically the main base I just glued and nailed most of it together but the bottom panel I screwed in so that I can access this if need be and I will need to the next piece I'm marking out is these adjustable Foot Rails that the pedal board is going to be mounted onto so I measured everything out manually and then cut the shape out as accurately as I could with the jigsaw [Music] then I used a half inch forstner bit to drill all of these adjustment holes [Music] now I need to duplicate this three times to have four total pieces and unfortunately copy and paste doesn't work here so I traced the board onto another blank foreign and then I cut just slightly outside the line with the jigsaw and then clamp the two pieces together and use that same quarter inch flush trim bit that I used on the side to exactly duplicate the shape of the first piece [Music] for all the adjustment holes I just drilled through slightly larger than the bit itself [Music] and then use the same flush trim bit to bore out every hole to the same size as the one below it then I repeated this twice more for pieces three and four [Applause] [Music] and then I glued together two pieces at two ply thick [Music] I use some half inch bolts to make sure the alignment was exactly right between the two pieces and clamped them together [Music] now on to the next piece [Music] so this piece is going to be the middle bar that comes up between the legs and then holds up the platform for the steering wheel and it's gonna be three ply thick so using the exact same methods as the last piece I cut out the first piece and then cut the next two to match it exactly [Music] on one of the pieces I notch back the front edge about a quarter inch this is going to be the middle ply and I notched it back so that I can run wires down this indent but it's not really that necessary foreign [Music] next I made up the platform that the steering wheel will Mount onto and I'm just going to kind of time lapse through this part because it's all the same as the last few pieces I cut [Music] foreign [Music] and lastly I made a platform for the foot pedals [Music] and finally that's all the pieces created so now it's time to assemble [Music] but first i'm giving all the laminated pieces a good sand and then I'm gluing on those two leg pieces to the base I screwed it in with one long four inch screw just to hold it in place and then I opened up the bottom and screwed it in from multiple points with a bunch of two and a half inch screws then I used a good size hole saw to bore a hole through the base to allow wires to feed through from the steering wheel and pedals into the base then I attach the center rail using three two and a half inch leg bolts on both sides and I put this little two and a quarter inch strip between the two leg pieces [Music] then I can install the adjustable steering wheel mount with two half inch bolts [Music] and same with the pedal mount every piece on this rig can be adjusted in both angle and position and should fit pretty much anybody as for a racing seat I wasn't sure what to do because the cheapest actual racing seat looking thing I could find was like at least seven or eight hundred dollars and I really wanted to build the whole Sim rig electronics and all for that price to keep it at least somewhat realistic for almost anybody to build so I went to a local liquidation store and I found this gaming chair for 135 dollars so I took off the office chair base and the armrests and then I'm building up this two-part plywood box system [Music] one piece that attaches to the bottom of the chair through the same Bowl tools that I just took off the first base with [Music] and another piece that attaches to the base of the Sim rig [Music] and the seat then attaches into the rig with two 12-inch carriage bolts and it has four angles to choose from [Music] one last touch before I add the electronics I just put these Caster wheels mounted onto the back of the base that way when you pick up the nose it'll drop onto the Caster wheels and make it easy to move around with one person foreign [Applause] a slot through the base so I can get my jigsaw in there and cut an access panel to the electronics that are going to be below it I glued in a catch piece on both sides and then I drilled a finger hole through the main panel [Music] for the electronics I'm using the Logitech G29 racing wheel and pedals I chose this one because it's a good mid-level option and it has force feedback which was the main thing I was looking for which means when I'm actually driving in the simulator you'll feel the wheel tugging as if they were driving a real car [Music] foreign last step I'm going to add some base shakers to this rig to give it a real feel of the road so I have one big base Shaker and two of these mini Puck shakers all made by Dayton audio and I'm mounting the base Shaker on the back of the seat and one of the pucks below the steering wheel and the other below the pedals [Music] then I can hook these up to some speaker wire and use that to run it into this knob sound USB audio amplifier this is a two channel USB amplifier that I can plug into my computer and then the computer will be able to send signals to these transducers to make the whole rig vibrate according to what's going on in the game foreign then I just had to quickly set up the channels for the vibration in Sim hub [Music] it's really simple to set these up I'm not going to go into a ton of detail but there's a video up in the top corner right now that explains everything you'll need to know and now it's time to go racing hey Siri enter gaming mode okay done [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] it's hard to show through video how much better the base shakers actually make the experience but watch how much this guy hops around this is all movement from the Shakers and let's try out some other games [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so I think it's safe to say I'm a PC Gamer now well the Gaming's amazing on this the graphics card isn't that good so I did have to bump down the resolution to the next lowest step but honestly it's really still pretty damn clear but the graphics card will still run anything other than games at the full three screen at 4K resolution [Music] the virtual window feature I did the whole first video about is now a million times better being able to search videos on YouTube and instantly full screen them across all three screens plus it got another step up thanks to all the immersive lights I can also finally get my live window going so after I installed the real link desktop app I've literally just had to open it and my camera was already there because it's on my local network I removed some of the branding and the text on the video feed hit full screen and it's good to go I can also pan it around to change my view in about 180 degrees this is probably my most used feature on a daily basis because whenever I'm down here hanging out I really just have this on so I can see what's going on outside because my other windows are under the deck and it gets quite depressing having no view hence the first video I'm also one quick couch move away from my own home theater hey Siri enter game mode [Music] people ask all the time if the bars down the middle get in the way and honestly with a moving pitcher you really don't see them at all they're more annoying when you're on the desktop and they cover up some of the text but it's a pretty non-issue in my opinion so there you have it this thing can now pretty much do anything a normal computer can do only with 130 inch screen like I said in the first video the first build cost about 2500 in TVs and a thousand dollars in other materials and all the materials for this video cost about three thousand dollars it took a lot of heat in the first video for the price and I'll agree it's definitely not for everybody to be honest people spend that kind of money on four wheelers or home theaters or cars that they don't need all the time and I wanted a TV window if you already have a good gaming computer you'd also shave a good fifteen hundred dollars or more off of that price if you want to attempt to build any of this the plans for everything I built in this video are out for free on my website and links for all the products I use are in the description thanks so much for watching my video I put a month's worth of effort into every single one so hit that subscribe button because you're going to want to see what I have coming up next [Music] thank you

Channel: Drew Builds Stuff

Views: 6,743,914

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Id: -UT6v68fJY0

Length: 45min 37sec (2737 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 28 2023