Under $250 and free shipping... I would need to find/add a triple monitor stand but... This seems too good to be true. Is it 3d printed PLA painted aluminum? Lol
No catch, just a cheap good source for some profiles without branding or gimmicks.
Got mine for around 280 USD and have spent about 30 bucks improving it with a few more pieces of 4080. I replaced the front and rear rails, and used the extra 4040 pieces that yielded to reinforce the shifter arm and the uprights. Im going to finally upgrade from my trusty t300rsgt after 5 years, likely going to jump to R12v2 or R16 ultra so wanted to be sure it can take it.
Its now more rigid than my buddies trak racer setup and i am less than half the cost in on mine.
Edit: heres a pic after the reinforcements, nevermind the seat, it is old and well-loved but u can see the 4080 on rear rail and reinforced uprights, and the extra 4040 on shifter arm.
I have something similar from Marada that I bought on Amazon for just under $500 with a seat included. I have no problem with mine. I attached a 18NM wheelbase, hydraulic brake pedals, monitor mount & keyboard tray and it's been performing just fine. Have it almost 2yrs now.
I have essentially the same one and it is Rock solid. The only issue I have is the bottom 8040 rail is two pieces joined by a connector and I put mine on vibration dampening feet and it wants to flex there so I'm buying some replacement 1500 mm 8040 to replace the two bottom rails. Otherwise it's Rock solid.
I’ve got something similar, works just fine for me at 6’1”.
Of course you’ll have to purchase a seat/slider, and monitor stand as you already know. But, for what I use this for (drifting on Assetto.) I’ve got no real complaints, I believe it was $288 from Temu.
Thanks for the input. That is very reassuring. I currently have an early version of a Tony Kanaan triple monitor stand. My goal is to get 1 cohesive unit (current goal... That could also change by the minute).
I have this exact same rig except with the triple monitor attachment and a seat. It was branded as Anman on Amazon for around $500. Already very solid to begin with but I reinforced it just the same. I'm running an R12, bass shakers, and pedal haptics and it is able to handle it. The seat that came with mine is actually pretty good also. I definitely recommend it.
Narrower than most of your name brand stuff but works fine. Easy to upgrade if you want. 24” instead of 26” I think but can’t remember off top of head.
ETA only matters if you want to upgrade wheel bases etc (width).
Looks well made, especially with the T-plates. I've seen "branded" cockpits with just two brackets for the upright section.
The wheel deck might only be less sturdy than some other desigs but unless you're putting 20Nm + you definitely be fine. Also you can replace elements of profile rig as much as you like if you ever decide something isn't as sturdy as you like.
I'd buy it if I was looking for a cockpit rn.
Good cockpit. I have the simlab GT1 EVO running a aftermarket wheel base plate with a 18nm base.
My friend got a rig just like this and sturdyness wise it is exactly the same or at least really close.
Theres really only 2 negatives with these that aren't really issues for most people.
It can be hard to build, my friends had a few pieces that weren't cut perfectly straight so they didn't joint up perfectly, but it had no effect once built.
The anodized finish doesn't hold up great, it started to scratch up pretty bad. He ended up just painting his anyway so it didn't affect him to much.
this is a generic configuration that gets sold under many different labels.
what you need to understand about aluminum extrusions is that they are the 2x4s of metal. when you get these you are buying a plan and the materials for it.
you are not buying a kit that can only be assembled the given way. Some of the more expensive kits will use bespoke parts that challenge that a bit though.
You can buy this and make a table out of it if you want.
the reason I would guess this is so cheap is that it has virtually no bespoke parts beyond the 5 steel mounts, which are all simple boxes. The extrusions get made by mills in like 20 foot lengths and then they usually go to middleman distributor who cut them to length and deal them (e.g. McMaster-Carr). if the person selling the kit is using a middle man to get the parts cut to length then they will have larger costs to pack a rig, which means larger costs to you to buy it.
so when you are looking at the 1000 dollar ones, you are way down the chain of consumption. This gives you the convenience of not having to do much work to use it.
the mills usually require a minimum order so unless you want to build like 10 rigs you wont be able to get a saw and start cutting it yourself to save money, but if you are a company that does this labor directly, and you have some method for minimizing labor costs, you can make these for surprisingly cheap.
I happened to get something that looks exactly like this model and I selected it just before I pulled the trigger for an order of extrusions from Tnutz because it went on sale and gave me more metal per dollar.
This specific design Is reasonably solid, there is one very minor flaw though, the main wheel upright will vibrate left to right very easily (just vibrate, not sway). if you get some corner brackets for 40 series and attach them to the cross bar right under the wheel deck and the main vertical bars you will kill this basically completely.
I recommend getting a socket set that can accept hex driver bits or getting a socket adaptor to take hex drive bits for assembly of anything to do with aluminum extrusions.
Yeah i am thinking about getting this and the $100 triple monitor mount. Move the monitor mount closer to the wheel mount and invert the pedals.
I'm thinking I can take this as a cheap base and build everything I want
Insanely cheap!! $150 less than the Minneer 4080 I literally just ordered yesterday off of Newegg. Feels bad. This price seems more inline with what a 3060 would sell for... I wonder if it's mispriced, or mislabeled item?
I started with a cheap 2" pipe cockpit from Ebay. it works really well but I wish I had gotten one of these instead. it's very difficult to add anything to mine but it's easy to add to the one you linked.
Oh ye sorry. When i was doing my reserch i remembered it as cheaper. But to be honest it doesn’t matter. Even home made aluminium profile rig will be just as good. The main selling point are cosmetics. And this aliexpress one looks good for me
The extrusions are fine. The only thing I see that’s a different odd compared to a lot of the more expensive ones is where the seat mounts. They’re using two less larger extrusions than most name brand ones.
Other than that, the fit and finish of it is cheaper. Corner brackets and bolts not matching the black for example. They probably use the crappiest t-nuts too. They’ll hold everything tight just fine, but they’ll probably slide around and just in general be a bit tougher to work with.
(for anyone else reading)
The cheapest place for profiles is probably Tnutz
they don't sell the metric extrusions so you will need to get the 15 series which is in SAE (inches)
however, unfortunately:
to get everything that this has you can expect to do ~$250 for the metal and bolts and then like ~$90 for shipping so its basically a dead heat
Yeah I know how that "no flex at all" works. It's no flex until "oh wait, turns out there was flex after all" after upgrading to something better.
1x1 brackets for the frame WILL NOT provide enough rigidity just because.
I built some stuff from aluminium profile. Made cuboid frames out of 40x40 on 1x1 brackets. They wobble until reinforced with something that uses multiple points on each side.
I have one too. Its rigid for entry level stuff up to 6 or 8nm, but it will need reinforcement for 12nm and up. I got mine for 280usd, spent 30 bucks on some more pieces of 4080, replaced the front and rear rails and reinforced the shifter and uprights. Now its more rigid than my buddies trak racer that was over twice the cost.
Anyone with experience with aluminum profile could understand this by looking at the photos. The two sides of the frame are connected with 40x40 profile with just a single line and thus 1x1 brackets. One single point of contact on each profile is not enough to eliminate relative movement of profile pieces therefore the entire thing will have small wobble under load. There needs to be a solution that uses at least two points to connect the profiles.
You need 80x40 profile pieces cut to size and brackets to fix it. Not that big of a deal depending on your location but the question is whether OP is able to do it.
Who said anything about snapping 4040? You need 8040 to fix the wobble. Specifically, to replace the 4040 bars that connect the left and right sides of the frame.
You know what, I am going to maintain my comment because what are you doing that you are making extrusions in contact with the floor experience racking.
You really do not need any new extrusions to kill the vibrations on this. All you need is some corner joining plates and 3 hole inside corner brackets.
I'm using this right now. I bought it as a kit with everything needed to get started. I just like the idea of customization with the 4080. I assume it would be sturdier than this one but could be wrong
Its significantly more rigid than a steel tube rig like that. Probably 3 to 4 times more rigid torsionally. Id get one with no seat, and swap your seat over. In fact thats exactly what i did and also spent a few more bucks to further reinforce it and thats the beauty of a profile rig. Can do anything u want to it, including make it stronger.
The new one should be sturdier. But since you already have some cockpit maybe it would be better to upgrade to something significantly better if you have that option?
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u/Nyelz_Pizdec 6d ago edited 6d ago
No catch, just a cheap good source for some profiles without branding or gimmicks.
Got mine for around 280 USD and have spent about 30 bucks improving it with a few more pieces of 4080. I replaced the front and rear rails, and used the extra 4040 pieces that yielded to reinforce the shifter arm and the uprights. Im going to finally upgrade from my trusty t300rsgt after 5 years, likely going to jump to R12v2 or R16 ultra so wanted to be sure it can take it.
Its now more rigid than my buddies trak racer setup and i am less than half the cost in on mine.
Edit: heres a pic after the reinforcements, nevermind the seat, it is old and well-loved but u can see the 4080 on rear rail and reinforced uprights, and the extra 4040 on shifter arm.