sim racing lcd screen factory

Dashboards for sim racing can be dash displays (either pre-made or DIY), button boxes or physical dashboards that mount on your sim racing rig. In today’s post we’re going to look at how to make your own display with Simhub, make recommendations for a few of the best ready-made displays (DDUs) and look at a few dashboards that are compatible with the most popular sim racing rigs available today.

I’ve wanted to give making a dashboard display for my sim a go for ages. As it turns out it’s really, really easy to get started. All you need is a tablet or a mobile phone, your sim PC and Simhub.

In case you didn’t already know, SimHub is a clever bit of software where you can add external hardware to your simulator including dashboards to bass shakers, and lots of homemade stuff with Arduino. It’s actually pretty mindblowing how powerful Simhub is, and how many problems it solves. It supports a vast majority of sim racing hardware these days, it’s highly prolific!

The video below is a quick demo of an old Nexus Android tablet running a dashboard display on Simhub, which this article explains how to do yourself. If of course, you’ve got a bit of cash to splash, you might just want a recommendation for a dashboard – if that’s the case, this post has you covered.

There are many – all of which are easily mounted and either have Simhub compatibility (for example, the VPG wheels are all Nextion displays that Simhub supports) or are set up very easily.

Launched in late October 2022, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup DDU display is manufactured and sold by Grid Engineering who were recently acquired by Sim-Lab:

Anything with a Porsche badge gets me excited, but this isn’t some gimmicky dash. It’s quite unusual in terms of screen size and resolution. Grid Engineerings “True Size 10.3″ Display” running at a resolution of 1920 x 720px stands out as a more lifelike-looking dashboard over the typical, squarer shaped units. In terms of technical advancement in sim racing, this is a class-defining item.

It’s a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (official) replica where Porsche has approved the unit for Grid to create and sell. Compatibility-wise, it is a recognised device in Simhub’s hardware list making it customisable for every PC-based racing sim. That it will work out of the box in Assetto Corsa, iRacing, rFactor2, Assetto Corsa Competizione and more.

It’s a full-featured dashboard, meaning all critical information is relayed to you. The DDU-5 display from GRID is a professional 5” simulator dash that provides all the essential race data you need to maximise your driving performance. Attaching the DDU-5 to your sim racing cockpit will instantly make your rig feel more lifelike and increase your field of view as you will no longer need an in-car dash on your monitor.

The unit features a motorsports-grade aluminium enclosure, anodised with an industrial coating, which houses a vibrant LCD screen and 20 adjustable RGB LEDs. Both the screen and the LEDs are fully customisable.

You can use multiple software programs to assign endless combinations of racing data to the screen and LEDs like low fuel, RPMs, flags, etc., and fine-tune the brightness levels. In addition, GRID supplies all the mounting hardware needed to attach the DDU-5 display to your rig in the box. The device is compatible with most mainstream wheelbases and connects with a USB cable. For a full compatibility list, click here.

The GT3R Racing Display from Apex Sim Racing looks really nice installed (see picture below). The DDU is a 5-inch display compatible with Simhub and therefore PC only. It features a tempered scratch-resistant glass overlay and 34 RGB programmable LEDs (controlled via SimHub’s LED configuration manager) and features a 24-bit true colour 480 x 800 resolution screen.

This is a really nice unit, ideal for those of you who selected a sim racing wheel without a display (fair enough). The Simutec SDU-2, “sim data display unit” comes with a 4.3″ LCD colour display and 18 fully addressable RGB LEDs. There are customisation options available too:

The SD43-LED display is a multifunctional 4.3” simulator dash that shows all the vital race information you need to boost your performance. Mounting the SD43-LED display to your rig also adds to the overall realism of your cockpit and helps you make on-the-spot corrections that can improve your racing results.

The dash is compatible with SimHub or Z1 PC software packages and allows you to track live race data like your speed, RPMs, tire status, fuel levels, flags, etc. Plus, since you will no longer require an in-car dash on your monitor, you can increase your field of view and maximise your screen space.

With its USBD480 colour display and 23 full-colour RGB LEDs (13 LEDs along the top of the screen and 5 on either side), the number of combinations of racing data outputs is endless. Furthermore, the entire unit is encased in billet aluminium which makes it tough yet remains well-polished and not overly bulky.

The dash connects to your PC via a USB cable and is supplied with mounting brackets so you can quickly attach it to your chassis. As for hardware compatibility, the SD43-LED display works with most Fanatec and Simucube DD wheelbases. For a full list of compatible hardware, click here.

Software compatibility is broad and the DDU5 works alongside Z1 Dashboard, SimHub and JRT (Joel Real Timing), although of course, our preference is SimHub!

Precision has designed the DDU5 to work with the LM-Pro, GT3 Wireless and GT3 steering wheels and the mounting system is compatible with most motorsport steering wheels on the market. It can be fitted to all major direct drive wheel systems including Simucube, Fanatec Podium, SimSteering and OSW direct drive wheels.  All mounting hardware is included making installation very easy.

The carbon is 2mm thick and has front mounting MiGE / Simucube compatibility. Importantly, on the rear there’s a USB socket, and much like the button box on your sim steering wheel, the buttons will be immediately assignable to game controls in your favourite sim software.

If you’re looking for alternative layouts or compatibility with Fanatec wheelbases and different cockpits, check out this list from Apex Sim Racing. If you’re a DD2 / DD1 owner, check out this beauty:

To make a sim racing dashboard with your tablet, install Simhub, select your simulator platform, then head to Dashboards and click start on whatever dashboard you want to run.

Then open a browser on the tablet (being sure that it’s on the same network as your PC) and head to the IP address that Simhub gave you when you started the dashboard.

Take the IP address including the “:8888” (the port number) and open it in a browser on your tablet. It might not work the first time (which is OK we’ll get to that). If it does work you’ll see a screen like this:

From here, just select your dash and make the dashboard fullscreen with the options that appear at the top of the window. Your dash is now ready and will sprint to life when you open iRacing (or whatever sim racing software you use).

If the browser can’t open Simhub it’s probable that Simhub doesn’t have permission to open an external network connection. The fix is simple: open Windows Firewall and click “Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall”.

You’ll be given a list of apps in Windows and a set of checkboxes next to each app name which gives permission to access the network. Find Simhub and click both checkboxes to the right:

Once you’ve OK’d the firewall settings, return to your tablet and refresh the browser. That’s it – a quick and easy racing dash for your sim. If you’re having any further issues, try this useful troubleshooting guide.

Of course, Simhub is extremely powerful and can do an awful lot more than dashboards on a mobile phone. Here’s how to make a DIY RGB rev light cluster for your sim racing simulator using Simhub and an Arduino.

The dilemma release … should I or should I not add Gran Turismo support ? SimHub is dedicated to PC games support and supporting Gran Turismo games which are console “only” was creating such big dilemma ! After a long (really long !) I finally decided to release it ! Have fun !

LEDS devices and LCD devices now have brightness control mappings (warning : some vocore models do not support very well changing the brightness on the fly)

Improved WRC telemetry automatic setup : the game tends to generate the setting file “when it wants”, SimHub will now create the file during configuration if it is still missing

Nextion dependencies are not bundled anymore, it’s available now as a separate installer : see https://github.com/SHWotever/SimHub/wiki/Nextion—End-of-support

8.0.3 was triggering kasperspy detection without any specific reasons. A simple recompilation with the very little changes listed above solved it … without any specific reasons neither … Antiviruses mysteries …

DashStudio Dashboards created with versions 7.X and prior will be automatically upgraded to the new file version. If you were using an older version and want to be able to rollback to versions 7.X make sure to do a backup first of your DashStudio dashboards contained in SimHub\DashTemplates folder.

This rework gets DashStudio editor closer to real life race dash editors (like Motec Display Creator), and gets the experience more in line to the designers “UX” standards like Visual Studio or similar. I sincerely hope you will like it !

Reorganised Dashstudio properties panels : images, screens and dashboard properties are now available from the top main menu instead of the complicated right column tab navigation

WebSocket (the communication layer between simhub and a remote web dashboard) now uses the same TCP port as the web interface, removing the need to have two TCP ports opened in firewalls.

New exclusive Drafting effect : Feel the the front opponent getting closer and closer and the wind accelerating when finally you start to overtake !This works with games reporting real player position inside telemetry (unfortunately that excludes Iracing)

Fix : Latest IRacing cars generates malformed session data (IE : Hyundai Elantra N TC). Added a workaround to suppress the malformated data and restore simhub connectivity when encountering it.

Added a property with current simhub server url (to allow using the webpageview to display something hosted in simhub’s server (see https://github.com/SHWotever/SimHub/issues/973#issuecomment-981088011 for an example)

Fixed USB displays behaviour when computer is trying to shutdown, USB display processes will delay their process shutdown until SimHub closes them properly.

Improved usb display handling, if SimHub is “killed” (task manager, debugging with VS (when working with the plugin sdk for instance) , the child display processes will try to properly close and shutdown the displays as soon as the parent process (simhub) is lost.

Added a splashscreen while simhub is loading instead of a “half loaded” UI. This should also solve some random black screen issues when starting simhub,

Added a “new plugins detected” dialog instead of the sad windows message boxes when starting simhub. When a/many new plugin(s) is/are detected simhub window will open after startup even if “start minimized” option is enabled.

Added a simple plugin for Belt tensionner , this takes back all the behaviors of the custom serial examples given, but with data visualization, smoothing, button box actions (release all/force zero/live telemetry) (plugin must be manually activated from simhub settings), belt tensionner plans are available on Simhub discord…

Added support for F12018-2020 game reported inputs to control simhub actions (even if consoles are not officially supported it will allow to control simhub from those games directly from the controller)

Dashstudio will now automatically skip frame when the previous one is not yet rendered, it should avoid some CPU overuse when heavy dash are running. It seems also to solve some internal WPF rendering locks which were occurring on multi GPU or after switching a game from exclusive fullscreen.

Global simhub settings are now stored with all the other settings inside “pluginsdata” folder and using the previously described automatic recovery in case of corrupted file (previous version settings will be automatically migrated).

I had feedback about few people having overwritten inadvertently their Arduino based device firmware (motion, button box …) with the Simhub arduino setup tool.

Arduino breaking changes : Starting from Simhub version 7.2.0 compatibility with obsolete sketches is removed (built before simhub 6.6). If your arduino device still use it, please update your arduino sketch or you can download the last version supporting it here

GTR2 now uses a dedicated plugin instead of simplified game shared memory (it makes more data available) From an original idea of The Sparten (Thanks to The Iron Wolf for the credit chain clarification !)

Arduino inputs are no longer given back via serial when using the gamepad option (reduces conflicts and useless latency), game pad should now work even if simhub is not connected(please note that it’s still intended to be used with Simhub)

Resolution changes improvements when using 4k monitors or similar Setups where windows would push the dash out of the screen when resolution was changing

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