Every now and then, I come across a sim rig that literally makes my jaw drop! This completely homemade Ferrari F1 Cockpit by Pietro Filippone is just such a rig! I thought it would be cool to share this masterpiece with you all here, so I messaged Pietro and asked him if he would like to have his personal sim rig featured here on ISR. Rather obligingly, Pietro agreed to me doing an article on his creation, as well as giving me his own story on the build and how he achieved the resulting cockpit. The story is essentially his own writing, however with Pietro not being a native English speaker, I have made a few minor clarifications to his text.
I will link the complete build gallery here: Pietro’s gallery Below are a few cherry picked images that give a good impression of Pietro’s excellent craftsmanship.
Pietro’s story:
”Work began in June last year, 2015.
Since l was used to repairing windsurfing boards (my great passion) l decided to construct my project using fiberglass and carbon fiber for most parts of the chassis.
The materials used range from 1.2 cm thick plywood which was used to create the supporting skeleton of the structure. Then everything on the skeleton was coated with polystyrene (a closed cell or dense polystyrene material that lends itself well to being finely sculptured) this was in order to constitute the basis of the last fiberglass layer (the outside of the cockpit). Meanwhile on the inside of the cockpit, everything was coated with 90g per square metre carbon fibre sheet.
All measurements for the project were taken from original FIA documents. The seat is handmade with a supporting structure made of plywood. I kept applying the smooth polystyrene to the plywood base until reaching the correct form of my back and ass! Once I was happy with the shape, I then covered the exposed surfaces with carbon fiber and I can confirm that the seat is quite hard, although there is some padding built in to it.
At the rear of the cockpit I left a small space which was originally going to house the PC and keyboard but because of temperature concerns and logistical issues, I decided to use the space for the subwoofer and rear speakers. In the future another use for this space will be for mounting a possible motion system!
The steering wheel is a G25 and has been modded with an aluminum upright and adapter / spacer for the quick release (a big thank you goes out to the firm, Mauro & Co, who were kind enough to produce it for me). The whole wheelbase is mounted upside down to give me the maximum space between the base and my knees.
The pedal unit (brake and accelerator) are also modified G25 units which use 12-bit hall sensors and a Bodnar PCB card. For the most part, the project is completed, but as most people know, it will always be a work in progress.
As for the PC, to support three monitors without compromising detail I use a GTX980ti and a 750w PSU to complete my configuration, i7 4770k Asus z87k 16g ram Kingstone ssd120g and hd1tb, the monitors are 3 asus s248H 24.”
I will be on the look out for more of theses types of projects in the future. There are some people with serious skills out there, producing great personal sim rigs which deserve to be celebrated! Stay tuned for more to come folks!
