A DIY Oculus Rift
In this instructable, I will be walking you through the design of The Nova's headset, the build process of said headset, and the head tracking techniques used in order to create the illusion of virtual reality.
Without any further ado, let's get to building!Hey Instructables! So, it's been almost two years since I first published this instructable. A lot has changed since then! There are now cloned parts and pieces for the official Oculus Development Kit 1 since it was made open source sometime last year, so you can now use those parts for your DIY Rift.
Keep in mind, however, that there is no guarantee that upon the retail release of the Oculus Rift that the hardware used for this guide will be compatible with the full version of the Oculus Rift software, 3d vr headset as this DIY Rift guide uses parts from the Development Kit 1. Some other open source software such as OpenVR may include support, but it may have some compatibility issues anyway.
So keep in mind, this Rift will only work with DK1 and some DK2 Oculus demos!
If you have any questions, the /r/DIYRift subreddit is a great place for community sourced answers. You could probably get a much faster and more accurate response from there than from me!
Cheers, and have fun!
Tom
Good question! With the Oculus Rift releasing sometime within the next year or so, and plenty of Oculus Rift Development Kits available for sale and preorder, making your own Virtual Reality Headset would seem a bit absurd.3d vr headset
However, there are many reasons why you'd want to make your own:
It's here!
You want to learn more about VR.
The Virtual Reality market is growing at an exponential rate. You can get in on the VR craze and learn a thing or two by building your own VR headset could even brainstorm a new VR concept that you can implement into your own VR headset and share with the world. You can create your own design that fits your needs.
The Oculus Rift has many great features and looks pretty slick, but what if you could come up with a better design? One that suits your face better, maybe? Or maybe make one in a different color?3d vr headset The sky's the limit: this is YOUR VR headset! It's a great weekend project.
The total build time is 30 hours, including cutting out the pieces, hot gluing everything together, soldering the head tracking LEDs (if you opt for them), and setting up the software. You can start making your own VR headset on a Friday afternoon and be up and running by Sunday afternoon! You can make one yourself without being bought out by a sketchy third party
Looking at you, Palmer. I don't blame him though, 2 billion dollars is a lot of money to go into making a high quality and affordable VR unit, so maybe things will work out in the end. Until then, 3d vr headset you can still make your own VR headset for less than half the cost of a development kit!
Are you convinced yet? Great! Then let's go on to the next step: Parts and Tools!
Alright guys! As soon as I found out about this DIY Rift, I just had to make it and use it while I wait for the Oculus Consumer version!
Let start by telling you what I actually made. Yes I could buy all the equipment for the exact replica of the Nova, but I found that unneccesary in my opinion. I already owned an iPad Mini 3 which has a 7 inch HD screen so I just used it.
My version of the Nova, I like to call the iMini Nova works pretty good. 3d vr headset I made it out of cardboard and it pretty strong. The only thing is, my iPad is a bit heavy so I going to have to add another strap down the middle to hold it up when I wearing it. It not that big of a problem first. I have another more imminent problem.
First I talk about the problem I having now and then I tell you all about some of the fixes that I have made for some people who may not be able to get the whole VR thing working for them.