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

  • Thread starter eKretz
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Yeah, it seemed pertinent since he mentioned he was using iRacing. I haven't really noticed this issue on my own wheel with other sims. It sounds like he has something else going on to me, another problem with his wheel somewhere.
 
RacerXX
Welcome to the thread and thanks for the kind words! I do converse with the friendly folks at Fanatec, and I do have an NDA with them. Not doing much with that ATM though.

Have you checked the in-wheel settings carefully? The hard stops on my wheel slightly vary side to side from one other. My RHS is firm but the LHS has a "soft landing" by comparison. You can kind of see that in my recent videos (Fana-Blogs 6 and 7 in this thread).

The variable software "stops" generally apply 100% current/torque to act like a virtual hardware stop. So those can vary depending on the belt situation, and whether the motors have gotten hot. My high torque Four-Buchi™ rig has very firm and solid software stops that can feel like hardware stops BTW.

Is your belt tension good, is there much slip? A certain amount of slip is just fine and not a problem whatsoever. That is kind of the price tag for the absence of the slight cogging feel from the belts on a CSR/P wheel or the T500rs for that matter. If you had an adjustable supply I'd have you look at the current readout when you hit the software stops. And maybe tweak belt tension if the current was lower than expected or some slip could be felt or seen that seems excessive. If you are into it sometimes a firmware reflash can get rid of weirdness. It's a good idea to keep a folder with the different firmware and drivers for your wheel in it. If you ever see a thread with an URL for a beta or new file, get it just in case. Sometimes they vanish or are hard to find later on. It is also easily possible for there to be more slip in one direction than the other.
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Well, first off, I didn't mean to exclude comments from others. Guess I mentioned RacerXX because he seems to be one of the most vocal on these forums.

My FF iRacing settings:

MY CSW SETTINGS at Indy

Fanatec Driver:
Wheel Angle = 900 (I had a typo here of 100, my bad!)
Dampener Strength = 100

CSW Settings:
Sen= OFF
FF=100
SHO= OFF
ABS= 95 (using G25 pedals, this is for brake lock vibration to wheel)
LIN= OFF
DEA= OFF
DRI= OFF
FOR= 100
SPR= OFF
DPR= OFF

iRacing Settings:
FF = ON
Linear Mode= On
Strength= 15.2
Min Force= 0.4

This won't mean much for those not using iRacing, but my Driver & FW settings are shown. I set this up using Wheel Check & Atlas Telemetry programs.

As far as belt tensions, I haven't opened the CSW base, it's just as it came from Fanatec. I did check the tightness of all the bolts on the base before I used it.

Heat is not the problem with the mushy rotation stop because I check that at start up. It has sat OFF all day while I'm at work. But, it has been ON for a few hours and not used and now the side that was mushy is firm (but does not vibrate) and the side that vibrated and had a solid stop now can be turned more easily past the initial resistance. Hmmmmm.

No problem reflashing FW for me. I may try it again and see if it changes anything.

I don't have an adjustable PS, but I do have a good Multimeter, Fluke 87 V, that might be of some help.

I know what you mean about drivers & FW. Someone suggested trying the 029 FW, but it wasn't on the Fanatic website anymore. One of the guys got hold of it. So, yes I do keep the different ones on my HD now. By the way the 029 was better at taming my problem around center but the rest of the FF was too low (probably why it felt better around center).

I just posted this over at iRacing forum that further explains what I am feeling.

"Just wanted to clear up what my problem is. It is not about the wheel oscillating. My wheel does not do that. If I turn the wheel and let go it goes back to center and does not keep oscillating back and forth like some of the early sim FF/wheels could do.

My issue starts at about 3/8" left or right of center as measured from the outside wheel circumference (CSW F1 rim). So, down the straight, want to pass a car or change your line, get to or hover around that 3/8" position and I feel a big bump (or bumps) from the the FF, in both left or right wheel directions. If you pass through the 3/8" area briskly the bump is much less, it is a larger bump when making slight wheel adjustments while near that 3/8 ' area. Same thing going into turns if I get in that 3/8" area from center.

In fact to rule out rough track FF inputs into the wheel I tried this sitting in the pits with similar results, although the FF dead zone seems a bit narrower (in the pits, center is referenced from which way the tire is pointed. It's best to drive ahead slightly with hands off the wheel, then stop, the front wheels should be straight ahead then).

With the 037 FW this problem is strong and very annoying for me. The 029 FW decreases the bump to a tick, BUT the rest of the FF is too weak. It may be that this can't be gotten rid of 100% and if it can't I could live with a small tick instead of the big thump I get now, as long as the rest of the FF is more like that of the 037 FW."


I'm guess I'm asking if anyone thinks I might have a issue that Fanatec needs to address.................. before I open it up.
 
I have another idea for you to try. Change your minimum force to a few different settings. If I remember correctly, if this is set too low, it makes the clunk a lot worse. Try increasing it a bit at a time and try it out, then come back out, tweak it up a bit more and try it out, etc. I think I was using .6 on mine, and I had experimented all the way up to 3.0. Also tweak your damper settings a bit, see if that makesw a difference. Like RXX says, there are so many different permutations of settings that they can really sometimes skew and affect each other in unexpected ways.
 
RacerXX
Yes I read about that too, but did not want to comment as I have not iRaced much in years.
Click to expand...

Hmm, this one caught me out, but I forgot to ask. If you're not running iRacing, which sims are your favorites at the moment? And why?
 
And you can still get the old xbox version if your not on the PC ;)

Has anyone got a spare Fanabuchi motor I could buy please? I would like to try one in my modded MS wheel.

TIA :)
 
Richard Burns Rally has the best physics, but its old, so the graphics are dated and the set up is a PIA. There is a great modding community out there, however, that is constantly updating the game. If you want to play RBR, then check out this sub-forum at racedepartment.com:

http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/rsrbr2013-installation-usage-guidelines.63872/

I also have Dirt 1, Dirt 2 and Dirt 3. All three are great, although the wheel support in Dirt 1 is spotty. I am currently playing Dirt 3 on the PC. Its cake to install and set up and it has excellent, up to date DirectX 11 graphics and triple screen support out of the box.

WRC 3 is also out there, but it did not stick for me.

We need a PC rally game with RBR physics, but Dirt 3 graphics and interface. Perhaps that will be Dirt 4???
 
The video as promised, RacerXX. ;)

Unfortunately I had to retention the belt prior to everything as it was slipping. Though its perfect now as you will see in the video. :D

I also found that the retail base features two fans instead of one, which I forgot to mention.
Plus as you can see in the video, it also comes with the 3 ribbed long belt that goes around the motor, instead of the two ribbed ones in my beta wheel.

Anyways, I am a happy camper again. :)

 
eKretz
LOL, your voice reminds me of Kimi.
Click to expand...

You're not the first one to say that.
I like Kimi too. Back in the day when Verstappen still drove, I was a fan of Verstappen. Though as he didn't finish quite often, Kimi was always the guy I liked best.

RacerXX
Glad you are liking the wheel. Yeah the CSW starts up slower than the CSR-E, what with the different boards and firmware in use. I'd keep that video as a reference you can refer back to someday (if needed).

One thing I noticed is that when you manually rotate you wheel (at around 4:30 in the video) you can hear some sounds from the base. It's hard to tell from the video, what do you think that might be? My CSR-E motors made haunted house creaking sounds at first. This turned out to be the brushes needing to be run in. I knew for sure from when I removed them and turned them by hand and the haunted house sounds continued. So I took them for a swim via a water break-in as discussed earlier in this thread. I'm sure they'd break in on their own over time but I did not feel like waiting.

Which way do your fans blow? In from the left and out through the right? The CSR-E "last batch" units like mine have an intake air filter on the LHS and the single RHS exhaust fan sucks air out to ventilate the case. My suggestion for this device (CSR-E) is to flip the fan over so that it blow directly onto the motors and their heat sinks. And then exhausts through the LHS vents. This cools more effectively as the cold air is blow directly and strongly onto the stuff that is hot. And all the little holes (such as the slots in the base's face plate for belt adjustment) let air in bypassing the air filter anyway!

And sounding like Kimi is a good thing eK!
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I will keep the video. :)

That noise is coming from the area of the motors. When I put my ear close I hear two things.
One sound is a crackling noise, which sounds at first like the belts coming under more strain. So a sound that is close to something stretching.
The other noise I got is a little high pitched squeaking noise which definitely comes from the motors.

The fans blow from the left hand side to the right hand sides. Though I agree on reversing the flow, especially since the airflow gets obstructed by the steering axle.

So...
Air In ---> CSW ---> Air Out

Also I didn't note it in the video, but I definitely think that at least for the short belt, the thickness is too much. You need to put too much of a strain on it now to let it wrap around the pulley effectively enough to have it grip nicely.
Also I still think that supporting the motor pulleys with some bearings is still a thing to implement for Fanatec as well, replacing the current motor mount with something like Takiei made for example (haven't followed the thread here to the letter, so I don't know what you guys came up with).
 
LogiForce
The video as promised, RacerXX. ;)

Unfortunately I had to retention the belt prior to everything as it was slipping. Though its perfect now as you will see in the video. :D

I also found that the retail base features two fans instead of one, which I forgot to mention.
Plus as you can see in the video, it also comes with the 3 ribbed long belt that goes around the motor, instead of the two ribbed ones in my beta wheel.

Anyways, I am a happy camper again. :)
Click to expand...

Hello LogiForce,

I also have the thin belt that is slipping. I would like to mod my wheel as yours can you PM me where you bought both belt and what are the reference numbers?

I also loose the center of my wheel after 15 - 20 min of gaming do you think it is related?
 
LeMansAid
On the much Googled topic of: "Guy that sounds like another famous guy, doing a Fanatec related video"...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw52Dq3SZaA

Requires knowledge of 80's sit"com" Perfect Strangers.
Click to expand...

Referring to Balki I take it? LOL, pretty close!


Hello LogiForce,

I also have the thin belt that is slipping. I would like to mod my wheel as yours can you PM me where you bought both belt and what are the reference numbers?

I also loose the center of my wheel after 15 - 20 min of gaming do you think it is related?
Click to expand...

The belts should be available from any auto parts store, if you're in Europe you should be able to get the direct metric replacement belt pretty easily. Just take the numbers off your belt to the parts store and tell them you want a 3-rib instead if that's what you want. The loss of center may be a problem related to a sensor in the wheel. You should contact Fanatec customer service about that.

Logi, the wider belt is necessary on the steering wheel's pulley because it is the higher stressed of the two. If you went with a 3-rib instead you would almost definitely have slippage issues that would be impossible to eliminate. If you used RXX's belt grinding method you might be able to go to a 3-rib, but it would be borderline. I am with RXX on the slippage issue...on a stock set of motors at stock voltage you should be fine in terms of slippage. If you can't feel it while racing, you should be just fine, and you'll never notice a little slippage in-game, since the slippage will only be very minor at the very highest of sharp steering forces. When I do the stall test like you did in your video with my Buhler motors at 40V, I get just a smidge of slippage when turning the wheel back and forth. I can't feel it at all when driving though. I've tried it tightened up enough to eliminate the slippage entirely and the extra drag makes it feel terrible.
 
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It's been awhile now since i had a t500rs and on day on i could feel loss of ffb after awhile.
What gets me if you ask a t500r owner do they lose ffb they will say no they can race hours with no loss of fb, and thats a fact! even though it 100% incorrect !

So then why do i feel loss of ffb, what makes me so special that i can easily feel loss of ffb due to hot motor ect.

From have'ing 4 wheels i knw they all done the same, 4 in a row, i know from my own testing if 4 wheels all have same issue so does every wheel as the issue is the motor gets too hot and every motor has teh same crappy heatsink that can't cool it.

Over on Pcars forum someody asked about loss of ffb and EVERYBODY says they dont lose ffb, now i know this is'nt true, but why do'nt they notice loss of ffb due to heat ?

Are they all special or is it me ?

Somebody has no sense and somebody has alot.
I do'nt like tobe rude bt when you can take your wheel apart and test with different fans ect and find and fix the issue of loss of ffb then anything anybody says is just plain wrong, it's allso very off utting as every wheel loses ffb when the can gets hot but if nobody notices it they must be not very aware of things !


I seem to have been the only person saying what i say !

Personally from a personal view i say everybody in the world that says there t500rs dont lose ffb has'nt got a clue as they do and it's been proven by what i notice and what measures i've taken to fix it.

You gy's allso know that a hot motor loses torque and you've felt these affects allso with fanatec products, so why are we so special, why do we see and feel what other's just cannot ?


Now i'm happy with the wheel, i know it's weaknesses and have beat them to an extent, i do'nt really care what other's think it just bugs me when people give false information as i know they are incorrect asi have seen, tested and beat loss of ffb and noticed it on every t500rs i used.

You guys have better knowledge than me, what do you think's the problem here, is it me or them ?
 
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Some people are more observant/cognizant than others. It's as simple as that. There are a lot of Fanatec owners who claim to never lose FFB strength too. Some of them run much lower FFB settings, so they won't have much of a difference. But there are at least some who are losing power and just don't realize it. It's very gradual as the wheel warms up, so it is easy to miss if you don't have much sensitivity to it.
 
eKretz
Some of them run much lower FFB settings, so they won't have much of a difference. .
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I believe you have an excellent point here, when you run lower feedback, you generate less heat, and you might actually never put the wheel in a state where it has to lower the current to stabilize the over heating.
I always prefered lower feedback, as to me, it allows me to feel more, not less, of what the game is trying to tell me.
When some one says it does not feel a difference after a while, it would be interesting to know at what level his ingame Force Feedback is at.
The T500rs and the CSR-E/CSW are so strong, that I suspect, a lot of people are like me and run low FFB ingame settings.
 
RacerXX
Oh yes Jos was fast as hell and was pals with and respected by Schuie back in the day. But I still refer to him as the "Flying Dutchman", partly because he was fast and partly because he'd wind up flying in the air during races in crashes! ;-). A problem for the Dutch in F1 is that they tend to be so tall and so many cannot fit properly into a modern F1 car. I'm half Polish and like and have met Kubica. My other half is British, the Brits may be the best racing techs in the world. Lotus wound up really liking some of my Elise mods, particularly my clutch stop which had a bolt both retaining the steering rack to the aluminum frame, and acting as an adjustable stop to cut excess clutch pedal travel which only slows you down during shifts. Plus it looked cool. Those guys love parts that do several things at once, that is how you cut weight. Oh yeah I also had that bolt holding an alignment shim for rack height which affects things like bump steer.

Remember something on belts that are not cogged. Zero slip is not the goal, some is okay and does no harm. Some folks are uncomfortable with the concept of allowing some slip, but this is a psychological thing. You can't really get this kind of belt technology to zero slip anyway. Even in real cars the clutches slip. One of my cars which I've datalogged a lot has about 1-2% clutch slip. The engines turns that much faster than it "should" when floored for a given road speed. Shrug. When this starts to go up your clutch is worn and you can't even feel that yet.

You want enough belt tension on CSW/Elites that a human does not feel slip. And so that your FFB torque all gets through. Any further reduction in the remaining minor slip just needlessly raises drag for no performance gains and only losses. If you have a fish scale handy try measuring your drag, I am now well under 2 ounces running two motors and 8 ounces with four although the latter can be brought down as the Four-Buchi™ did not have all of my latest low-drag mods in place. Both figures are much lower than stock. I can say for 100% sure that this speeds you up on the track. Seen it countless times. Because you can countersteer faster seems to be the main thing. And feel improves. My wheel now has response something like an Ecci (which has no forcefeedback) combined with a Fanatec that works on PCs and both main gaming consoles.

You are right on the belt thickness, that is a key part of what I did to drastically cut wheel drag. By doing that and a few other things I wound up removing my floating / bearing mounted pulleys and now run modified pulleys on stock motors. The floaters (ala the Japanese Tuner to which you referred) were simply not needed after all. A needless complication compared to the actual main problem. The stock belts are too darn stiff and to get decent wrap out of them to create grip (particularly at the small pulleys), you need to tighten them to the point that drag at the steering wheel rim rises dramatically.
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Yeah, Jos did some spectacular stunts too. lol
We are not all tall though. I am just 1m69 ish. So if someone wants to offer me a seat in F1... haha. Maybe better not.

Well, after I played some more I did notice the long belt that goes around the motors had moved a bit. Though it was 6-8cm at most. I never felt it slip, and that is what you have to achieve. Like you mention too.

The wheel might have drag, but its not a hindrance yet. Actually it feels quite natural with different games (LFS, iRacing, Dirt 2, ETS2, pCARS, AC).

Yeah, I already send Fanatec a mail letting him know about the fact that I think the belts are too thick for a nice wrap. It will probably reach Fanatec R&D soon.


geg1020
Hello LogiForce,

I also have the thin belt that is slipping. I would like to mod my wheel as yours can you PM me where you bought both belt and what are the reference numbers?

I also loose the center of my wheel after 15 - 20 min of gaming do you think it is related?
Click to expand...

I got a new CSW base from Fanatec, so the belts were included with that of course. ;)


eKretz
Logi, the wider belt is necessary on the steering wheel's pulley because it is the higher stressed of the two. If you went with a 3-rib instead you would almost definitely have slippage issues that would be impossible to eliminate. If you used RXX's belt grinding method you might be able to go to a 3-rib, but it would be borderline. I am with RXX on the slippage issue...on a stock set of motors at stock voltage you should be fine in terms of slippage. If you can't feel it while racing, you should be just fine, and you'll never notice a little slippage in-game, since the slippage will only be very minor at the very highest of sharp steering forces. When I do the stall test like you did in your video with my Buhler motors at 40V, I get just a smidge of slippage when turning the wheel back and forth. I can't feel it at all when driving though. I've tried it tightened up enough to eliminate the slippage entirely and the extra drag makes it feel terrible.
Click to expand...

I meant thickness, not width. If possible I want a less thick (ie. more flexible) short belt with one or two ribs extra. So the one around the steering shaft's pulley.

The 3 ribbed long belt that goes around the motors is fine, though it would be better to have a thinner belt width the same 3 rib width. This so it wraps better around the motor pulleys. Though I would recommend the implementation of spring loaded belt tensioners at this point, because due to the length and thin design they will be more elastic. And like you guys know, the more the belts stretch, the more likely it will be that one of the motors slips due to belt slack.


Cote Dazur
I believe you have an excellent point here, when you run lower feedback, you generate less heat, and you might actually never put the wheel in a state where it has to lower the current to stabilize the over heating.
I always prefered lower feedback, as to me, it allows me to feel more, not less, of what the game is trying to tell me.
When some one says it does not feel a difference after a while, it would be interesting to know at what level his ingame Force Feedback is at.
The T500rs and the CSR-E/CSW are so strong, that I suspect, a lot of people are like me and run low FFB ingame settings.
Click to expand...

Well, actually the motors are not strong enough. They get too saturated with signals and dus start to 'clip'. When that happens, they can't fully or properly execute a signal anymore and the feedback will be distorted.
It is the same with sound and tactile. If you drive the amp/speakers to their point of clipping, you will notice a distorted sound or vibration.
So what do we say with sound? "Darnit, my system is too weak to run nicely at this high of a volume". ;)

Also the systems when they clip are basically overloaded. And using a system in an overloaded state will produce excessive heat and has bad effects on the system. As with sound or tactile you say you blew up you amp or speakers, as there are lots of youtube vids where you see smoke of doom rising out of them (which is due to excessive heat).
With our wheels the motors are cooled properly enough to not cause the stuff to 'blow up' or wear out as fast. However, as proven in this thread, the heat build up still exists and diminishes 'temporarily' the power output of the motors.

Moral of the story. The current generation of wheels are still too weak to run at the levels we would wish them to be running at, and it is better to avoid clipping your wheel for the reason of feel, wear and excessive built up of heat.
 
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RacerXX
Sim wheels kind of remind me of digital and film photography. See film has the wider dynamic range of the two, how many F-Stops of brightness that can be captured. However it is not so good in low light. Digital imaging rocks in the shadows, but is not so great with very bright light and overall dynamic range (shadows plus brightness in the same image).

Looking at sim wheels, our dynamic range is presently too narrow in my view. By that I mean how weak a force and how strong a force can be presented to the driver. The weak levels of torque get a dose of wheel drag covering them up. And this also slows countersteer which means you lose course time if steering corrections are required. And the strongest forces are too strong for the wheel to handle. We need both lower drag (to feel weak things and help avoid slowing countersteer) and we need higher FFB maximums (for more immersion, and to avoid compressing important car control signals to fit within what a wheel can do).

Anyone familiar with good sound reproduction? We need low noise and hiss, combined with a wide dynamic range up to realistic sound pressure levels, across all relevant frequencies. And that is before we get to the subtle stuff.
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I can confirm this is a complaint shared by game developers as well. Or at least with the SMS developers, as the physics dev Andrew Weber complaint about this as well.
Currently in pCARSeven for the CSW and T500 the signal the signal that is coming from the game is near the clipping point or sometimes over it. Going lower makes the wheels feel too weak.
However, if we had wheels with a far stronger motor that produces far more torque than what we have now, the 'volume/amplitude' of the signal can be lowered well below the clipping threshold. Which would make it possible to feel every nuance in FFB effects without the loss of strength compared to one of the wheels today.
Like with audio equipment, which is rated in watts. I always want to have at least 10% overhead on the amp compared to the wattage of the speakers. Else the amp will end up having trouble driving the speakers properly.
So if we could get a wheel that is strong enough so you can get that 10% overhead in the game's output we would be fine.

As far as comparing things to sound go. I recently got a tactile upgrade.
Before I had a Buttkicker Gamer 2 of which the amp is rated 90 watts max at 2 ohm, with the transducer being 75 watts minimum and 400 watts max at 2 ohms.
As you can see the amp on the BKG2 package is far too weak. By the time the transducer starts kicking at 75 watts, you will only have 15 watts headroom left on the amp. So you can't really vary the volume and by the time it feels good through a sturdy rig, the amp already clips. Distorting the signal the transducer has to put out, plus for the fact that transducer easily bottoms out as the amp doesn't have the power to stop and reverse the motion of the speaker.
So recently I bought a mini LFE from HoiHman and got me a Behringer iNuke NU1000DSP as well. This amp does 500 watts per channel at 2 ohm. Which leaves a lot of headroom for amp the to properly drive the transducer, and it can be felt. Especially since I have not felt or heard the transducer bottom out. Also the limiter in the DSP of the amp helps in preventing me on blowing up the transducer, making it easy to turn it all the way up without worry. Though if the signal hits the set limit it of course clips and I will have to reduce the volume, but at least the amp can properly drive the Gamer 2 and use it to its full potential.
 
Heh, looking at the throttle position graph and the "speed" graph in the background of the "steering" graph, it's plain that Schumi was going a lot faster, thus his steering corrections may have been twitchiness due to traction loss. He is definitely smoother on the throttle than Herbert, it's interesting that they are reversed in that on the steering. You can clearly see where Herbert lost a considerable amount of speed when he chopped the throttle, then wasn't able to get a good exit speed because of the mistake.

So basically, Schumacher was on the limit, Herbert was not. I think all drivers benefit from low steering friction, driving style doesn't matter. The lower the steering friction, the more information that gets communicated to the driver. This is good no matter how you drive.
 

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