Fanatec CSW/CSR Elite Modders Thread *UPDATE February 2014*

  • Thread starter eKretz
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Stef Bord
The problem is that actually, the FFB windows system is not very good for that, it's the limits of the actual system...

http://www.virtualr.net/why-ffb-in-s...-by-leo-bodnar
Stef, when I tried to see the Article from Leo, clicking on the link in the page on virtuair.net, I get (Sorry, we were unable to find the document at the original source. Verify that the document still exists.)

Might be just me, but if you could quote the article in this thread or provide a link that leads to the article it would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Here you go gentlemen:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17548791/FFBdontwork.pdf

I understand what he is saying and I agree on some points, but not everything. The main point, that FFB doesn't feel like a real car, we agree completely on.
 
eKretz
Here you go gentlemen:
Click to expand...

👍 Thank you.

I find it explains a lot on what we are feeling ( or should I say not feeling) but could not really understand.
Still, a FFB wheel is great, light year ahead of a stick.
Once you have had a better wheel on a good simulator there is no way back.
Still very important to realize that we are still miles away, getting closer every day, step by step.
 
The main idea is that the wheel should not receive a position input, the simulation should send a torque to the wheel and then read the wheel position. With a model where the simulation send the position, depending of the FFB motor strength, the torque will differ a lot. In real life, when turning the wheel, tire deformation and suspension geometry induce some forces/torque that propagates to the wheel, when you feel the torque variation, yours arms understand what happens. If the torque increase or decrease, with a position input model, the simulation has to choose a new wheel position and then the wheel will try to reach the new position. If the wheel is powerfull, the torque will be powerfull but not related to the "real" torque.

There is no good way for the simulation to know what will be the next wheel position, it depends on the driver reaction : the simulation chooses to ignore it and predicts a possible new wheel position.

Edit : I really suck writing decent English, sorry, sometimes I hate been a damn French.
 
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RacerXX
For the most part the issue is beyond the scope of this thread.

In the mean time, clearly the steady and sustained forces are too low on mainstream wheels. And they fade pretty easily.
Click to expand...

Very true, this thread is about different ways to upgrade what is available now. Where FFB coding needs to go into the future? Well, thats for another thread...
 
lemansfanatic
Very true, this thread is about different ways to upgrade what is available now. Where FFB coding needs to go into the future? Well, thats for another thread...
Click to expand...

I agree. Where FFB coding needs to go into the future? Well, thats for another thread.
Still it is important to understand what and where the present limits are, as we cannot improve on what cannot be done in the actual state of the art. Expectations should be set with proper knowledge of the limitations.:)
 
OK, time for another mod to get things back on track:

image-6.jpg


image-7.jpg


I have really not been perfectly happy with the CSR Elite pedals as far as feel since I got them, so I decided to do a little tweakage. I added 2 R/C oil dampers from one of my old trucks and made custom pistons so I get damping on compression and hardly any on rebound. Used 3000 wt. silicone oil. I also switched the load cell mounting point to the hole that gives more leverage; however, this made the pedal way easier to push, which I didn't like, so I disassembled the pedal completely and pulled the rod out of the top of the load cell's plastic block. For those who didn't know this, the rod going into the block is not 1 piece, there are 2 separate rods and between them is a piece of material that acts as a stiff progressive spring. To help stiffen things up and make the pedal feel better, I added a spacer in between the rod and the spring material. This increases the spring rate and makes the pedal stiffer but gives a good bit better modulation at the end of travel because the leverage ratio has been increased...a very big improvement IMO. Loving it so far, feels much much better and also gives quite a bit better modulation at near lockup.

BTW, the little black and hot pink nubs visible in the photo are just pieces of silicone R/C nitro fuel tubing threaded onto the bolt ends to prevent my son from mangling himself on the semi-sharp jutting metal. He just loves to climb all over those pedals and—this part drives me nuts—turn down my load cell potentiometer. So basically every time I fire up for a race, at the first turn I'm into the wall! :lol:
 
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Yeah the flapper valve I made for the piston works awesome. Just used some thin rubber and faced the piston down to make room under the e-clip. I had a lot of trouble with left foot braking at first also, that was back in the red momo wheel days, lol. I dropped my lap times by about a second with this mod, and just tonight it helped with one of my best races I've ever had in iRacing. I was in Mazda Cup at summit Point, started 3rd, took 2nd first corner, lead after about the 4th when the leader went off. Had lead for 3 Laos then got passed, took it back 3 corners later. Held it with 2nd place hovering for 11 laps, then he got by. I was right on him but couldn't get by in time. We went thru quite a few corners side by side. Man, that was a great race. I think my fast lap was 1:25.2, his was 1:24.9, he said it was his best ever. It's a lot easier to run fast laps when you're ignoring the times, heh.

Oh yeah, speaking of cooling, I've discovered I can run iRacing with a Mazda Cup car indefinitely with no problems at 24V using only the stock cooling fans running reverse airflow. I raced all night the other night with no issues at all. Not sure if this would work with every car though, I'm sure the different cars have different FFB characteristics.

RXX, is that a snip from a Wheelcheck step log?
 
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I wonder what ever happened to michelcleo and his testing? I was looking forward to his findings. RXX, I'll have to post up a graph of the KB's at ~200 RPM later today for comparison. I've also contacted Bühler and they have a newer version of the motors I'm using which I might grab a pair of and try out. I recently took my motors to the shop and opened up the mounting holes from 3mm to #10-32 thread for a bit more strength. Also tweaked the motor mount bracket a bit to get it parallel. Ground it top and bottom real quick. From new it was pretty badly out of whack.
 
OK, well, I tried a graph like yours but it looks ratty because of the non-smooth interp I tried. But anyways, it tops out at 200ish RPM in ~70ms so it's pretty much dead even with your 4 motor setup but I'm sure you're using less amperage. I was running 22V but I didn't watch for amperage.
 
Ohh, I bet that wasn't cheap, lol. It's interesting to see the linearity differences between the KBs and the FanaBuchis. They are opposite; mine have a lower than ideal response at very low levels but higher at higher levels, where the 4-Buchis look like they are good at low level and drop off a bit on top. That will change if you alter the voltage though. I have been trying a bunch of different voltages and the linearity is different for every one.
 
OK, just so everybody else isn't left out of the loop; I've blown out a MOSFET in the motor drive h-bridge. Now before anyone starts thinking it is big trouble to start modding and raising voltage, here is the culprit that caused the whole issue:

KJ2T2058.jpg


Now before anyone starts with the "he looks so innocent" stuff, I give you exhibits A:

DSC00008.jpg


B:

IMG_0884.jpg


And most damning of all, C:

KJ2T2297.jpg


As you can see, the dervish in question just loves to push buttons and twiddle knobs. To make a long story short, he tweaked my power supply voltage up when I wasn't looking and next thing I knew, my wheel was being run at 52V. Luckily, the damaged component is pretty low cost, all told we're looking at about $1 plus shipping and a little bit of soldering. Lesson learned. I had my overvoltage protection set but had tweaked it up to work on something else and forgot to set it to 40V again. I guess I'm going to need to make covers for the adjusting knobs.
 
Hey gents, newbie here - sorry to put this into your csw/csr thread, but you guys seem to be pretty damn good at it and there seems to be no better place;

Does anyone know what FFB motor (if any) could be used to replace a GT3RS broken one?

The story is that the ffb motor gave up according to support. They claim a replacement motor shipment would cost too much (there's none locally) - and that's that.
 
Pssh. Somebody ship him a spare one. I'm pretty sure all of my stock motors laying around are toast, or I'd send it myself. Ysu did you offer to pay for shipping? Or is your wheel still under warranty? I thought they had official deliveries/service in Aus now. RXX do you have a source for spares? Or did you get yours from F-tec?
 
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Sweet! Yeah that might be a good idea to keep him busy, lol. I've been practicing my hand winding with my spare armature. I've noted the original pattern and have it down pretty good. It looks like I should be able to do quite a lot of tweaking and experimentation as there is quite a lot of room for extra turns. I did a quick trial and was able to increase them by 50% using the same size wire. My first experiment is going to be to bump up one wire gage and add 20% more turns. I also found out these Buhler motors I am using are actually a lot more common than I thought, they were used in a Xerox machine that was pretty common.

Also, I've been studying up on the microcontroller a bit. It's a Microchip PIC33EP256MU806. 16 bit. According to the datasheet, the microcontroller itself does have support for BLDC motor control. Not sure if you'd need different drive circuits, etc. though.
 
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Sorry, my second scales never arrived so got a refund.
In the meantime i now seem to only play pcars and its multiplayer , as i'm playing mp i dont see the terrible loss of strength as races are usually around 15/20min with a 5/10 min gap inbetween, the addition of 3 added fans keeps me gong all night :) so i'm longer thinking my wheel is pap 99% of the time, i'm happy enough as multiplayer is where its at for me allthugh im sure once a single player game needs cars tracks unlocking i'll be bugged again.
I've now forgot abut my isses so no longer frequent the threads i used to ;)


This thread is still awsome :)
 

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