Question Pedestal or hoop style steering wheel mount?

I'm working through CAD modeling my rig to get a feel for what it would look like and to figure out how much metal I'll need, but one design piece that I keep waffling on lately is the steering wheel mount. I've got a Thrustmaster TX (Xbox version of the T300), so nothing crazy on weight or power, but not just empty plastic either. The static wooden rig I built to hold everything so far has a hoop mount, but I find it difficult to get in and out of with the wheel were I want it for driving. However, the thought of a pedestal mount has me wondering if I would just be trading off easier ingress/egress for more uncomfortable driving. I feel a hoop style is also going to be more stable than a pedestal and easier to reinforce if I needed to, but I also haven't seen a ton of pedestal mounts.

Ultimately I'm planning a DOF Reality H3 style build, so a full mover, not just seat. The pedestal mount would keep mass more centered for easier rotation, though that's probably a minor dynamic problem at best. I don't think I can do a "shelf" style mount with a full rig mover design that easily, at least not as economically. What has everyone else done for wheel mounting?

I assume by pedestal mount you mean this https://tinyurl.com/y6alow9u and by hoop mount you mean this https://tinyurl.com/y2bo268f. I personally do not like pedestal mounts because they usually aren't too strong and don't allow leg mobility for using the pedals. Try widening the hoop mount like the example I showed. My hoop mount is pretty skinny so it is cramped but it should be much easier to get in and out if there is more leg room.

Yeah, that's more or less what I meant for the two styles. Basically a single post between your legs or a hoop around them. That particular post I agree looks really bad for pedals. I was thinking more like a vertical post that goes straight down from the steering wheel, so you'd have more room to move your legs and feet around compared to the one pictured, but could still be interesting. I know in my formula SAE days the steering column went between your legs, so it's not that uncommon, but we also didn't run a clutch on our newer cars as it was all pneumatically controlled so we didn't need to move our feet around as much.

I agree that a hoop is also easier to stiffen against the kind of loads you'd normally have with a steering wheel. The majority of loading should be torque, which translates mostly to vertical loading which would work better with the hoop, though at the cost of using up a lot more space. Since I was looking at a whole platform mover the post style mount was starting to look better from a compact standpoint, but I rarely ever see them so was curious if anyone had ever done one.

Though now that I think about it, since I'm planning to run a shifter I guess I'll need something hanging out there to mount it to as well, so I guess I may be right back to a hoop after all. Would still be curious to see what others have done. I could always mount my shifter to the seat mount as well.

Yeah you are right. I forgot that there isn’t really a convenient place to mount a shifter with a pedestal mount. Most of the rigs I see here use hoop mounts. I don’t think you need to be concerned with saving space. Usually hoop mounts are no bigger than the width of the base of the simulator.