Designing Seat for 1st time.

[debs]

Hi,

We have been participating since 1 year but this time we will be making a seat for 1st time. Since we are short on budget, we want to make own instead of buying new 1.
How would we make it? We have taken ergonomic dimension of most members.
Exactly which dimensions should me kept while making the seats. and some ways to make it.

Thanks in advance

[Tickers]

Look into some of the expanding seat foam or bead kits available online. That's how seats and seat inserts are made in most types of Motorsport, even up to the highest levels. We've used foam seats for the past few years, they take half an hour to make and are perfectly fitted to the driver.

I'd like to get the input of one of the judges on this though. When we get to design judging they always make a point of the fact that we use this 'ugly' method and consider it a negative design feature. How can a seat that takes half an hour to make, fits like a glove and enables driver changes in a few seconds with no pedal/wheel adjustment be a bad thing? Maybe it's an issue with having a majority of judges not coming from the motorsport industry.

[Will M]

@ Tickers
Are you using foam inserts with a monocoque/large bucket seat or foam that is later layered with fiber glass or carbon?

I personally like the idea of the bucket seat + foam inserts.

[Mike Cook]

For what its worth, I can guarantee you will waste more money and time and end up with a worse seat if you try to build it yourself than just buy it. Really with what is out there, I can think of no reason to not buy one. If you think it will be cheaper to do it yourself, make a list of all the raw materials you need and add it up. Hell you can buy a shifter kart seat for like 50$ off of ebay.

[NickFavazzo]

UWA Motorsport make seats for less than $20 each for each driver, the things we use to make to seats do not mention anything about making seats on them...think outside the box, anything that can form to the drivers and cockpit shape is handy ie expanding foam...

[AngryIndian]

Originally posted by debs:
Hi,

We have been participating since 1 year but this time we will be making a seat for 1st time. Since we are short on budget, we want to make own instead of buying new 1.
How would we make it? We have taken ergonomic dimension of most members.
Exactly which dimensions should me kept while making the seats. and some ways to make it.

Thanks in advance

Hi,
Refer to this link. Took me less than a minute to search..

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/...w-handmade-fsae.html

[shark.ashwa]

Originally posted by AngryIndian:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by debs:
Hi,

We have been participating since 1 year but this time we will be making a seat for 1st time. Since we are short on budget, we want to make own instead of buying new 1.
How would we make it? We have taken ergonomic dimension of most members.
Exactly which dimensions should me kept while making the seats. and some ways to make it.

Thanks in advance

Hi,
Refer to this link. Took me less than a minute to search..

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/...w-handmade-fsae.html </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

AngryIndian (funny name!),

Thanks for the post, but I dont think it will help Debs too much. As far as I could make out, he was asking how to make a seat and going by the post, where they make a female mold and do a wet layup with Carbon Fiber, Im hard pressed to think that he will actually go for this.
A much better idea would be:
- buy expanding foam (comes as resin and hardener)
- make a mock up of the chassis (or use actual chassis covering all the pipes in contact), position your largest driver in the desired driving position
- mix resin and hardener in appropriate ratios and pour into the void between driver's bottom and whatever boundary has been set (please note to separate the driver's bottom and expanding foam!)
- let it dry, usually takes some 10-20 mins. Then sand to get a smooth surface.
- then apply wax or putty (whichever is easily available), sand some more and apply PVA release agent
- now comes the hard part. you need resin, fiber mat and a brush. apply some resin then put the fiber mat and apply some more resin on top of that. You will get better with experience. After finishing this, leave it to dry overnight.
This can be made your negative and the same process can be used to make a positive out of it(with better finish on the front).
Might weigh anywhere between 2 and 4 kgs depending on the shape.
Hope this helps. If you think it is too much work, you could always buy one off ebay as someone mentioned.
But we prefer doing this as the seat shall be a snug fit in the chassis and also we have the materials easily available. For different drivers, we just use inserts made from the same expanding foam (with higher amount of hardener).

Regards,
Sharath

[Tickers]

Will, we were using the seats as inserts in our monocoque, with a different one for each driver.

Originally posted by Will M:
@ Tickers
Are you using foam inserts with a monocoque/large bucket seat or foam that is later layered with fiber glass or carbon?

I personally like the idea of the bucket seat + foam inserts.

[Jon Burford]

Foam is the way to go.
First attempt at ours last year went very well.
Perfect fit on driver. really comfortable and to make it look good we had it covered by a local upholsterer in like a perforated nylon fabric. looks good. It got good design praise.
It's the way it's done in single seat racing these days!
Jon

[RollingCamel]

Some safety notes.

http://www.formulastudent.de/a...article/-6a9dfde268/