Buttkicker help please?

  • Hey Jay, it’s DIY. My build thread is over on xsimulator

    Happy to answer any questions. It was a lot of work, and I invested a fair amount of money in it, but I now have my own flight and driving simulator.

    But if you check out the other guys' sims, there are some masterpieces. I lust for a 6 degree of freedom where you really feel the heave, yaw, etc. I’ve just got pitch and roll and approximation of the other forces.

    Thanks Zed

    Found your rig on Xsim forum. It's very nice piece of work and really clean design.

    I'm considering my first motion platform/seat too but I would mainly use it for flight sims so I ques 6DOF is the only option. As you say it is not cheap and easy build so I will probably skip the 2/3DOF version.

    Jay

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • Hey John, unfortunately there isn’t a one size fits all "volume" setting. Some sims have less bass than others. PCars2 and AC both have dry strong bass. AFS2 seems a little light in the piston aircraft. I was flying P3D the other day in an A2A 182 and it was so strong it caused my shakers to thermal out and stop working until they cooled. It’s one of the problems with piggybacking shaking on audio. Putting your amp where it’s easy to tweak levels "in flight" is a good solution.

    Also fun is raising/lowering the gear in the AFS2 Corsair as well as folding/unfolding the wings. There’s a strong base clunk that comes in as each gear or wing hits the stops. It’s kind of a trip to feel that.

    I put the amp just under my desktop, so I can reach the volume knob easily. I soon noticed the differences between planes/sims, so having it to hand like that, it's as easy as turning up the volume on a car radio. I'll go try the Corsair, that sounds good.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • If you are thinking about a 6 dof sim, you might look close at Six Degrees of Flight's build thread. He goes into a lot of detail and also did full parts lists with pricing. And if you want to just get a huge case of lust, Robson Swiss' 6 dof (he's going to be selling them).

    There are a bunch of really good ones - Silent Chill, Kermit Kong, and Seat Time, and others all have some neat builds.

    For a 6 dof, be sure to check the motion cancellation thread since it's fairly necessary for a 6 dof design if you are going VR. If going monitor, it's not an issue.

    Thanks for the words on my sim. It really adds a lot to flying and driving. Spit40/Phil is another motor head going the G-Seat route with surge and heave which is another option.

    Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, MFG Crosswind pedals, 2 dof Motion, Valve Index

  • Right then chaps, thanks to the advice on this thread, I've got my bass shaker set up and installed in a rough but working condition. I took the front panel headphone output, through the cheapo amp, into the bass shaker. The amp, which has a separate sub output channel, connects to my chair now after I fixed a bit of plywood to a couple of convenient holes I found and then the shaker on to that. A bit of soldering and raiding the box of AV cables and we are up and running. Haven't had much time to test, but first impressions are excellent effect for the price. I'll be back with more detail when I have time.

    John,

    Can you tell us more about the cheapo amp and bass shaker. Maybe even some Amazon part numbers. If I can get some bass for $65 I am all for giving it a try. I would love to have a low end Buttkicker type setup and still have a Ben Franklin in my pocket. Anything else that needs to be purchased to make it work.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • John,

    Can you tell us more about the cheapo amp and bass shaker. Maybe even some Amazon part numbers. If I can get some bass for $65 I am all for giving it a try. I would love to have a low end Buttkicker type setup and still have a Ben Franklin in my pocket. Anything else that needs to be purchased to make it work.

    Regards,

    Ray

    I suspect John is on Vive/2D otherwise if Rift this discussion needs to include audio splitting. My parts list is this:

    1. 2 x "Body Shaker" £15.95 each in the UK off Amazon
    2. 1 x 100W amp approx £15 - £20 off Amazon/Ebay but requires 12v or 24v source at that price
    3. You can buy a 24V PSU, but I actually power mine off an old laptop PSU, as you don't usually need precise voltage for these
    4. A way to send the audio to both Rift headphones and audio output. Get "Voicemeeter Banana" as free download and make a pseudo audio output and configure it to send 1 output to Rift and 1 to Audio/amp as below
    5. I also got a £5 attenuator/bass filter for the basshsakers as the tone controls on the amp weren't enough, but I think the EQ option on voicemeeter could do that for you. I'd need to test.

  • I got this amp mainly as it had a separate subwoofer output channel with its own volume control


    I put a Y-splitter cable into the front panel headphone socket coming from my soundcard, one part to the amp, the other to the headphones. The sub out from the amp I connected to this:


    Which I screwed onto a piece of plywood that I bolted under my office chair. I'm going to connect the amp and my chair with a curly headphone cable, which will be neater and allow me to disconnect my new electric chair more easily. The rest was a few bits of speaker cable I had lying around, but if you had to buy everything from scratch it would still only be a few quid more. Whole thing took an hour or two to install, a bit of trial & error, hunting through the shed for bolts and plywood etc, and it was a very simple bit of drilling and wiring, little bit of soldering, but in terms of electronics about as easy as it gets.

    Nice thing is it just works, you can turn it on and off quickly (amp screwed under my desk) and it works in all games as it uses the sound output. I can't believe I've not cottoned on to this before, it's an excellent value for money add on, really enhances the immersion.

    Edit: however, I'm having a spot of bother getting audio mirroring working in FS2 with the rift. There is an option to do this in the rift settings, but it doesn't seem to work. Current low tech solution in VR is to unscrew the rift headphones and use my normal ones, until I figure it out. Works fine in 2-D no probs as it comes through the headphones anyway.

    Edit edit: Phil's solution looks good, I'll try that

  • Thanks Phil. I am going to start me a shopping list soon.

    I ordered the AuraSound AST-2B-4 Pro Bass Shaker Tactile Transducer from Amazon and got the AMP on eBay. I found the amp that looks nearly identical to the UK one above, except it includes a nice heavy duty looking US 110 vac/12v dc adapter. I looked to make sure it had the dedicated subwoofer output.

    Now I can be rounding up the y adapter and wire and mount the plywood for the shaker under the Volair flight seat as soon as it arrives.

    Thanks guys. I guess next to VR, this is a required item nowadays.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • This can be a really cheap upgrade to your VR experience. See below. For Power supply for amp any old laptop PSU is likely to work as these amps have a wide input range. Around 19v is ideal. I still haven't checked if VB Banana can do frequency filtering so I've included the analogue option for that.

    The nice thing about a physical gain/filter is that you can mount it near you and adjust it while in VR.

  • I notice the links I put on the post above have been taken off, apologies to mods if this breaks forum rules, sorry, I was only trying to help share my experiences.

    I looked at that open bass speaker first, but I decided to go with the encased version, just a bit neater, but you are right, you could do this at a seriously budget price. I never realised it would be possible to do this, the proper buttkickers are quite pricey, so I never went any deeper into it.

    Regarding the gain filter, I think my souncard software does something similar, it allows me to choose what frequency range is included in the low frequency output, will that be the same thing?

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • That dual knob bass controller shown above is dirt cheap if bought on ebay from China. It might take a month or more for delivery but if it is just a test to see if it works, then that might be the way to go.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • Regarding the gain filter, I think my souncard software does something similar, it allows me to choose what frequency range is included in the low frequency output, will that be the same thing?

    Yes, worth a try. Also the VB Banana software can possibly do it.

  • If you are thinking about a 6 dof sim, you might look close at Six Degrees of Flight's build thread. He goes into a lot of detail and also did full parts lists with pricing. And if you want to just get a huge case of lust, Robson Swiss' 6 dof (he's going to be selling them).

    There are a bunch of really good ones - Silent Chill, Kermit Kong, and Seat Time, and others all have some neat builds.

    For a 6 dof, be sure to check the motion cancellation thread since it's fairly necessary for a 6 dof design if you are going VR. If going monitor, it's not an issue.

    Thanks for the words on my sim. It really adds a lot to flying and driving. Spit40/Phil is another motor head going the G-Seat route with surge and heave which is another option.

    Hey guys, I need some advice on the best place to mount the transducer under my flight sim chair. This is a Volair Flight Sim/Racing chair and it is very well built and heavy as all get out. The shinny bar below the transducer is about one inch above the springs and is an integral part of the chair frame. There is a second identical brace hidden in the picture (above the transducer) but it appears to be a perfect place for me to mount a piece of plywood and then screw the transducer onto the plywood.

    Does this sound like a good location? It would be firmly attached to the wood that would be firmly attached to the metal seat frame.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • I'd recommend mounting it to the back rail so it's closer to your back if it will fit there - just drill 2 holes and use 2 sheet metal screws. They will need to be a tight fit otherwise they will vibrate loose.

    Unfortunately, I don't have enough width there on that rail. I have cut a piece of wood to be bolted onto the two braces and leave enough headroom for the transducer to be mounted anyplace between the two braces. I can easily mount it toward the back of the chair.

    I just ordered some new titanium drill bits to drill the mounting holes in the 1/4 inch steel braces.

    Next question: The chair has a tubular u-shaped base that sits flush on carpet. Should I attempt to isolate the chair somehow from the carpet? Maybe use some of those plastic sliders designed to move furniture over carpet, so something similar.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • I think it will work fine with the chair sitting on the carpet as long as you have a tight fit between the transducer, the plywood, and the frame.

    OK good. I plan to use bolts, washers, and nuts to mount the board to the frame so I can really crank it down tight. I can do the same when I mount the transducer to the board. I will use lock washers to the vibration won't loosen the nuts. I guess I could check on the installation from time to time and tighten things up if they have worked loose.

    Thanks for your advice.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • Hey Ray, one comment since you are mounting to wood which will then be mounted to your chair - you want to use some sturdy wood in that case otherwise the wood can flex and dampen out the vibrations. It probably wouldn’t be too bad though anyway, but you might also hit resonances.

    Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, MFG Crosswind pedals, 2 dof Motion, Valve Index

  • Hey Ray, one comment since you are mounting to wood which will then be mounted to your chair - you want to use some sturdy wood in that case otherwise the wood can flex and dampen out the vibrations. It probably wouldn’t be too bad though anyway, but you might also hit resonances.

    Thanks Zed. The board is 3/4 thick of real wood and is only 8 In x 12 In and will be bolted to very smooth frame members so hopefully it will pass along the vibrations as intended.

    Regards,

    Ray