Projector user - need to extend range of TrackIR 5
Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 2:30 am
Hey guys
I game in my home theatre, which has a large front projection unit. I'm seated in a cockpit placed in front of the screen, and play the DCS and iRacing games almost daily. I've only had this system for a month, and there's one last problem with it - where to mount my TrackIR? Here's a photo of my setup with my old cockpit and TrackIR4. Since then, I've put in a new full seat cockpit, and replaced the TrackIR with a TrackIR 5.
[img:center]http://gon.cdn.on.net/screenshots/a/0/4 ... impit2.jpg[/img]
You can just see the TrackIR popping up behind the wheel; currently I use a camera tripod as the TrackIR mount placed at the front of the cockpit, but this is not the best option for two reasons:
1.) It's a pain having to set this up every time I move my cockpit for a bit of movie viewing.
2.) The biggest problem - the track IR unit sits in front of the screen, obscuring my view. This has become more of an issue now that I'm playing DCS Warthog, as I need to see and be able to click all of my instruments.
To get around this, I tried placing the TrackIR 5 on the top edge of the projection screen, angled down. Unfortunately, it appears my head is about 2 to 3 feet too far from the unit for it to see my TrackIR hat (I use a baseball cap with the TrackIR clip thingy, that has three reflectors). The distance from the top of the projector screen to my head while seated in the cockpit is about 8 feet.
I can't move my cockpit forwards, so I was wondering if there was any way I could extend the range of the TrackIR unit, perhaps by building an active LED system to replace the passive hat system that I'm currently using? I see that there is a TrackClip PRO available - however, I do not wear headphones while gaming, as I have an excellent home theatre 5.1 sound system that is much better at the job.
So, any ideas? Will active LEDs instead of the passive reflectors increase the range? If so, where can I find a guide on building one of these?
Or will a TrackClip PRO do the job? And if so, how can I use it without having to wear headphones?
Hope you guys can help - I love my TrackIR and am sure I'm not the first guy using a front projection system to run into this problem. Thanks in advance for any advice.
I game in my home theatre, which has a large front projection unit. I'm seated in a cockpit placed in front of the screen, and play the DCS and iRacing games almost daily. I've only had this system for a month, and there's one last problem with it - where to mount my TrackIR? Here's a photo of my setup with my old cockpit and TrackIR4. Since then, I've put in a new full seat cockpit, and replaced the TrackIR with a TrackIR 5.
[img:center]http://gon.cdn.on.net/screenshots/a/0/4 ... impit2.jpg[/img]
You can just see the TrackIR popping up behind the wheel; currently I use a camera tripod as the TrackIR mount placed at the front of the cockpit, but this is not the best option for two reasons:
1.) It's a pain having to set this up every time I move my cockpit for a bit of movie viewing.
2.) The biggest problem - the track IR unit sits in front of the screen, obscuring my view. This has become more of an issue now that I'm playing DCS Warthog, as I need to see and be able to click all of my instruments.
To get around this, I tried placing the TrackIR 5 on the top edge of the projection screen, angled down. Unfortunately, it appears my head is about 2 to 3 feet too far from the unit for it to see my TrackIR hat (I use a baseball cap with the TrackIR clip thingy, that has three reflectors). The distance from the top of the projector screen to my head while seated in the cockpit is about 8 feet.
I can't move my cockpit forwards, so I was wondering if there was any way I could extend the range of the TrackIR unit, perhaps by building an active LED system to replace the passive hat system that I'm currently using? I see that there is a TrackClip PRO available - however, I do not wear headphones while gaming, as I have an excellent home theatre 5.1 sound system that is much better at the job.
So, any ideas? Will active LEDs instead of the passive reflectors increase the range? If so, where can I find a guide on building one of these?
Or will a TrackClip PRO do the job? And if so, how can I use it without having to wear headphones?
Hope you guys can help - I love my TrackIR and am sure I'm not the first guy using a front projection system to run into this problem. Thanks in advance for any advice.