Update on basement DIg

[imanidiot]

I have received a few private emails on wanting to see pictures and info on how we have done it. so here goes...

I had an engineer draw up plans to make sure the house didn't fall down. ($350)

Following the plans I talked with my friend who owns a concrete company. After an initial estimate of roughly $3,500 we began construction. (this is one of my best friends so without the connection the price would be more closer to $6-7,000) I am paying his employees cash and trying to do alot of the work myself also.

IMAGE_058.jpg IMAGE_057.jpg

We hit water so we are having to deal with a new sump and piping but that was halfway expected.

Tomorrow they will be laying the rock and pipe and hopefully saturday pouring the concrete floor. We will be pouring the floor first then coming back and pouring the walls. When all is said and done I should be left with an area a little larger than 10 feet high and 10 feet wide and 15 feet long.

Here is the finished hole...

IMAGE_059.jpg IMAGE_060.jpg

Simulator suggestions are now being taken even more so than they were before. And i will be contacting Cory very very soon.

[Kilroy]

Now THAT's a build thread! Congrats on your efforts and keep the progress pictures coming!

[jackyl]

Where's the picture of the dumpster in my yard? That's my wife's favorite part. Also, here's the original thread since we have a serious breach of internet etiquette here.

[jeffc]

man you guys are hardcore! If I approached the wife for something like that, I'd be looking for a new place to live.

[bubba22]

Holy batman. This is a huge project. I would suggest you put in a very good sim after all this trouble.

[Break68]

That's amazing, I don't think I could dig like that here in the market, too much river bedrock down here. I wish I could do this project though. Simply amazing work.

[imanidiot]

@break - yea we were worried about hitting rock here also as they had to do some blasting for basements in some of the houses that are just being built behind us but we got lucky.

@jeffc - my wife caught the bug in fall 2 years ago and after a week in the islands golfing last summer she gave me the go ahead.

@bubba - Yea we are going hard core with the dancing dog and a painters tarp with a 1960's projector on high beam!!! ...OK seriously that was the point so help me out and tell me what you would do with it if you had a total budget of around $20,000. Subtract the $3,500 + $350 out for the dig and engineer and what would you do for $16,000? In the other thread (screw internet protocol) we had a spreadsheet for some DYI GGS options but would like some other suggestions as well.

@jacky (call him Jacky he loves it I was gonna let you do that part

[bubba22]

16 grand gives you a lot of options. Obviously you will need a good computer, impact screen and projector as well as some sort of a mat. That will be around 3 or 4 grand depending on your taste. You still have 13 grand. your options are a sensor based system such as the ProTee, Pro7 or GGS (see my review of the ProTee) or a camera based system. Both options are good. The camera systems like the GC2 would be portable but you probably could go with a fixed camera system. What options are you looking for , club data, ball data, launch, spin?

[imanidiot]

club data, ball, launch, spin.. um yes yes yes and yes. but they all don't "have to" be there if I can get the same enjoyment and feedback for $5,000 instead of $15,000 if you know what I mean. I want the best option I can get without having to fork over the $50,000 for a new top of the line model of something.

I just finished the read on the Protee and some others. How well do you like it and I guess my question would be if you had my budget would you stick with the Protee or pick something else? It seems to be a pretty good bang for the buck.

[imanidiot]

as a side note to that how do the all camera based systems deal with putting? I cant find any info on that subject.

Thanks for all the help btw!!!!

[bubba22]

I love the ProTee. It calculates spin but that is good enough for me. Once the launch cam is available it will measure pretty well everything except spin. If you are dead on having spin then you should look at the GC2. By the time you factor in the courses as well as clubdata add on then you have eaten up your budget. From what I have read and on playing with the putting on camera based systems I feel that the sensor based systems are better for putting. You at least have options. It is too bad there wasn't a place that you could actually go and try all the systems in your budget. That would be really cool. I think you would be very happy with a sytem like the ProTee/Pro7 or GGS however they don't measure spin (unless you get a spin add on for the GGS). It really depends on your expectations and what you really want. I would hate to lead you to the ice cream parlor if what you really want is a burger.

[imanidiot]

I guess I should have kept this in the other thread. here is what I posted earlier and it holds true today...

OK what do I want out of it... it has been a long thought process here...what I really and truly want out of it is an accurate(most important) and playable tool that will let my entire family (me - 2-4 handicap, wife - just hooked on golf this year, and 4 year old - only putted), both play/practice golf inside in the winter/rain. I want something that will be able to be used on a Friday night drinking and playing golf with buddies and also being able to practice and learn on any given day where I can really sit down and see what the club is doing every time through the impact zone and how the ball is really traveling from each hit. My real concern is the large professional indoor golf sims that I have played at have all been not accurate in my mind. In fact not even close. Toed and heeled shots were not even close to accurate along with pull hooks and such. I am not so concerned about putting. And I am not so concerned about the "look" of the projected image as I am the accurate reading of the ball and a true ball flight extended out... not just a guess.

The other thing that I guess I need is for it to be able to measure from both a right and left handed swing for my silly neighbor...

[bubba22]

Ok then. Count out the GC2 as I think that would be a pain for left and right. Sportscoach or GGS camera based systems may be a good option for you. I am a handicap and rather enjoy the proTee accuracy thus far. the short game is amazing. It calculates spin but does it well in my mind. The other sims like the HD Sim, About, Full swing may be just out of your price range.

[rdh]

I missed these postings...just catching up now. Nice project you have going there!

I think your goals are identical to what I wanted out of my system. I'm very happy with the pro 7 and would recommend it...although I can't speak to the software side as golftek sells GPS Golf and I went with GSA as you know. When you say you're not as concerned with great graphics as you are with accurate shot depiction, though, GPS Golf may fit the bill very nicely.

One thing you'll need to think about if you have a 10-12' width is the left/right player situation. If you have your sensor pad directly in the middle, you'll probably be okay for irons, but taller players may hit the wall with their driver (or people with a flat swing plane). I know this because my cage is 10' wide in the garage, and is a couple feet from the left wall. At the last minute (literally as the electricians were doing the wiring for the light track) I realized I might have a problem and ended up shifting my sensor pad over a bit so it's not exactly in the center. Drivers are fine now, but it definitely would have been an issue if I hadn't made the shift. The garage is open on the other side, so lefties stand a bit more off-center but can swing fine. So, I was working with (effectively on the left side) the equivalent of a 13-14' width area and it would have been a problem if the sensor was dead center. Make sure you give that some thought when you're figuring out how to position things and what device to go with. The GC2 may not be ideal for left/right play with having to move it, but at least it would work. A sensor system right in the middle may rule out drivers for some players on each side. I know P3Pro has one setup they sell with dual sensor pads (one on each side out near the edge) for this reason - so players can stand in the middle and you can have both left/right hand play in a confined space. Not sure I'd like having my ball teed up over near the edge of the screen though...

[bubba22]

Not to mention having to buy 2 sensor systems.

[jackyl]

One thing you'll need to think about if you have a 10-12' width is the left/right player situation. If you have your sensor pad directly in the middle, you'll probably be okay for irons, but taller players may hit the wall with their driver (or people with a flat swing plane).

The good news here is that the dug out space is roughly 10', but there is more room above the dig out. Our thought is (and we'll verify once the pour is complete) that when the clubs are behind you, they'll be above the original floor.

There's two different ways to swing in this space (at the wall on the hole pictures or away from it) and we talked about experimenting with drivers going both ways. Probably not going to be experimenting with ball too, but its not my basement, so maybe!

[rdh]

Ah, that should work well. It looks like there's more open space off the one side of the room (unless you're putting a wall in or anything) so you may just want to offset the sensor pad a bit off to that side where there's more swing space.

[jackyl]

Yeah, the basement looks something like this (sorry for the garbage mspaint, but I'm not motivated enough to do a true google sketchup ) .

The black area is the hole and the blue area is the staircase. So, we can hit at the back wall or at the staircase, but the latter will require some impressive protection for the rest of the basement.

[imanidiot]

As an addition to what jacky said the area I think will be fine and will not need to be offset because, at 2.5 feet high we will have a wall distance of 14 feet not 10 (we will have the concrete 2 feet in from the existing wall then drop down). So in a way the room swing distance from the center will be at 7 feet from each wall which should get me the distance I need to hit driver.

Our main problem right now is that there is some duct work that drops down about 10 inches from the ceiling on the open side of the pit and I wont know until after the pour of the floor if this will be in the way or not.

Kinda hard to explain but maybe if I have time I can edit Jacky's drawing with some dimensions in there.

[imanidiot]

This aspect if posing a true problem would almost certainly make me go to an all camera based system as then I could hit from anywhere on the mat. Right?

[jackyl]

This aspect if posing a true problem would almost certainly make me go to an all camera based system as then I could hit from anywhere on the mat. Right?

Look at the diagram here:

http://www.ggssystems.com/CameraSetup.html


He shows a straight line setup, which makes sense because of the ceiling mounted cameras. So I think the answer to your question is "sort of". Yeah, you can have multiple surfaces, but a limited hitting area.

[ZMax]

Look at the diagram here:

http://www.ggssystems.com/CameraSetup.html


He shows a straight line setup, which makes sense because of the ceiling mounted cameras. So I think the answer to your question is "sort of". Yeah, you can have multiple surfaces, but a limited hitting area.

Also, when hitting off rough or sand panels or anywhere other than the sensor mat trigger, the club track camera will not be used. Which means a good spin camera is needed to calculate ball flight correctly.

Currently, the GGS system does not feed any spin data to GSA. mmlincon, who has been experimenting with the spin camera should chime in here to give us the latest info.

I believe the only system in your price range that does spin correctly is the GC2. But I think you still have to swing in front of the GC2 cameras.

Btw, what about the two support columns? Will those be moved?

[imanidiot]

no the columns will not be moved ... but they should be outside of the area need for any swing I would think...distance between them is greater than 14 feet so I would think that they will not come into play... or at least I hope. Thanks for looking out for me, I need all the help i can get!!!

[mmlincon]

That is quite a project! Makes me want to move my setup from the garage to the bonus room, but would it would take quite a bit of work.

So, GGS and the spin cam.... Basically, I don't think this is working yet. Neither are the firewire cameras from what I understand. So, I don't know when we will see this and until we can control the spin in GSA I don't see much point in it anyway.

Does anyone know how the GC2 is measuring spin? According to Martin at GGS it would take a camera with the 4000+ fps to accurately measure it.

[ZMax]

no the columns will not be moved ... but they should be outside of the area need for any swing I would think...distance between them is greater than 14 feet so I would think that they will not come into play... or at least I hope. Thanks for looking out for me, I need all the help i can get!!!

I asked because I have 1 support column myself. It's also 7 ft from the sensor mat(centered),and it's to the left and behind me as I'm right handed. For normal driver swings, it doesn't come in to play, but if I try to hit a fade with the driver, I get very close to it and it's certainly hittable if I'm not careful.

[jackyl]

I don't see how it is possible that it measures spin.. Let's look closely at the claim:

At the heart of the GC2 is a stereoscopic camera system that precisely captures and analyzes ball flight at the most critical point of measurement – club impact – and delivers the most accurate values of ball velocity, launch angle, azimuth, back spin, side spin and total spin available today.

So.. At club impact. Also "delivers", not "measures". That sounds to me like it does similar things to any other club based sim and estimates spin based on face angle and ball azimuth.

[ZMax]

So, GGS and the spin cam.... Basically, I don't think this is working yet. Neither are the firewire cameras from what I understand. So, I don't know when we will see this and until we can control the spin in GSA I don't see much point in it anyway.

As you know, I'm currently controlling spin by reducing club head speed. It works but Martin assured me that he is working on adding spin control in his GSA interface.

[jackyl]

I asked because I have 1 support column myself. It's also 7 ft from the sensor mat(centered),and it's to the left and behind me as I'm right handed. For normal driver swings, it doesn't come in to play, but if I try to hit a fade with the driver, I get very close to it and it's certainly hittable if I'm not careful.

What is the column holding up? LVL, a steel beam, a couple of sistered 2x8s or 10s? If the beam it is holding up can handle it from a deflection standpoint (structural engineer time), you can move it.

There's a gigantic BUT here, though. Look at attachment 25610 on immy's first post. If you go across the pit from the visible pole, there's another one hidden by the plastic. Look at the pier built below it - you'll have to have something like that under the new post location..

[ZMax]

What is the column holding up? LVL, a steel beam, a couple of sistered 2x8s or 10s? If the beam it is holding up can handle it from a deflection standpoint (structural engineer time), you can move it.

There's a gigantic BUT here, though. Look at attachment 25610 on immy's first post. If you go across the pit from the visible pole, there's another one hidden by the plastic. Look at the pier built below it - you'll have to have something like that under the new post location..

Yes, I saw the other column behind the plastic, but didn't see the pier. My column is supporting a steel I beam. I've thought about moving it but after seeing that pier, I thing I'll just leave it alone.

[ZMax]

I don't see how it is possible that it measures spin.. Let's look closely at the claim:



So.. At club impact. Also "delivers", not "measures". That sounds to me like it does similar things to any other club based sim and estimates spin based on face angle and ball azimuth.

No, it does measure spin. It doesn't have club data yet, but that option will be available very soon I've heard.