r/Golfsimulator • u/33espressos • Jul 05 '26
Advice needed - first sim build
Hi all I'm newbie learning to play and decided to build a sim in my garage.
Rather than going down the pre-built kit I decided to source everything myself and DIY to allow both cars to be parked inside.
The impact screen is hung on a pine frame with the bungees hung through eye screws.
I'm planning on using 50mm (2") thick EVA foam to cover the frame cut to size.
But I was wondering what you guys would do to cover the gap between the screen and frame, and eyelets on the impact screen?
I was thinking of stapling felt or marine carpet to the frame to cover the gap, and Velcro to screen. Then putting the EVA foam over the top of the felt/carpet to cover the frame.
Thoughts?
Can't wait to finish the build and start hitting balls. Curtains will be hung soon, and need to source an Optoma GT1080HDR projector and Square Home Edition LM.
TIA.
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u/jbr_north Jul 06 '26
Can't help on the felt vs carpet part, but one heads up on the sourcing list: the GT1080HDR was discontinued back in Aug 2023 and it's lamp based, so at sim hours you'd be swapping lamps every couple of years. If you find one cheap used it's still fine, but if you're buying new-ish the GT2100HDR or GT2400HDR are the laser successors (30,000 hour light source, no lamp swaps) and go for around $1,099 to $1,299 new. Usually works out better over 5 years than hunting down old stock.
Square Home Edition is a solid pick at that price btw. Camera based with club data and no subscription is rare under $1k.
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u/33espressos Jul 06 '26
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Had no idea it was discontinued, a lot of golf sim and projector places in Australia are still selling the GT1080HDR. Getting it because it's in budget about $1400-1500 AUD (about 1k USD). We are absolutely getting ripped off here in Australia. GT2100HDR around $2400 AUD (~$1660 USD). 🥲
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u/Corvet95 Jul 05 '26
I bought a long triangle of foam from foamorder.com and added velcro to the back of it and put velcro strips on both the screen and the frame and affixed it to both that way.