In this tutorial i am going to shw you how to build an AMAZING rig wich adds at least 30% of reality to ANY game you play or movie you see. in fact it vibrates the chair your are sitting on according to what it happens on the screen. if you shoot you get a nice kick, if you drive, you feel the motors vibrations, if you drive against the wall you are going to feel a hard crash!
what you need:
- a old stereo with line in. the more powerful the better! best is one of those single amplifiers.
- a speaker. the bigger the better!
- a wheight. i used a bolt (before you search for a wheight read the part of building, just to be shure you use the wheight suetable for you.
- cable
- 4 small plastic or wood screws
- one normal office chair (normal chairs would work too, but office ones are better..)
ok. lets start puting it toghether:
take the speaker, remove the membran wich produces sound, paying attention not to cut the wires wich run from the contacts along the membran. remobe the whole membran letting only the cables. in the middle ther eis a little membran wich is a little bit curved. remove that too.
undter the normal membran normally there is another one wich is a bit more rigid. you can remove that too for better result, but not the whole.. just a peace on th eleft and one on the right, else the little pipe in the middle will fall off. if you do this wrong you have to take a new speake. so i personally recomend you not to remove this one.
now, you have to put a wheight into the pipe that is at the center of the speaker. but pay attention not to put it too much inside else it is going to hit the magnet when it vibrates. and pay also attention not to put it too much outside. in souldnt go outside of the speaker s screwing points when it vibrates. i solved this by putting a bold inside the pipe. that way i can adjust the screw with the fingers.
done this, screw the speaker under the chair and connect the cables to the amplifier. connect the amplifier to the line out of the pc and switch it on. now you canadjust the vibration with the volume of the amplifier!
this syste has 2 big pros against commercial ones with spinning motors:
1) REALLY cheap. because all parts are old parts of things you probably throw away
2) due to its function it vibrates at the right frequency according to the content of what you are seeing. so if you for exymple use it on a coaster simualtor, the chair vibrates according to the sund of the tires, and that is nearly exact how it would vibrate in reality.
here are some pics: (click on thumb to enlarge)
bye have fun
sharky
