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

  • Thread starter eKretz
  • 3,608 comments
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Cote Dazur
Like you I like fanatec products, to me they represent extremly good value, my elite pedals and the CSS SQ are excellent.
But then they have some other excellent product with issue, like in the example of the standard pedals I am still using every week with my Carrera wheel when I am on the road, I purchase the little ( magic ) box from Mr Basher and the pedals work perfectly with it.
As far as the obvious (except for Fanatec) motors issue with the Elite/CSW wheel, Eric comes along and offer a solution that allows us to have our cake and heat it too. If, but we do, we did not have any alternative, I, like you, would most likely consider using an other brand of wheel, but with a little help from our firends, there is no reason not to keep enjoying our Fanatec accessories, as after all, when they work, they are outstanding.
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Oh Yeah! When they work, they are awesome. And if they worked as described, it's definitely bang for your buck.

To be fair, the only issue I've had is with the CSW. Have bought 2 complete set-ups (911 wheel was the other), including pedals and shifters and everything is great, except this motor issue.
 
F1 Enthusiast
Agreed, but Fanatec is not a big company. LaCie sells their products at Best Buy, Amazon and pretty much every computer and electronics shop. Fanatec sells their products through their website.... And now i see why. The return lines would be huge.

Fanatec is a small niche company, which compete's with big companies like Logitech and Thrustmaster. Their only competitive advantage is design and quality. In some cases on par (911 wheel) and in some cases as a premium (CSW product line).

You cannot have your premium line failing like crazy. And if you do, you need to be upfront with your customers, recognize the problem, come up with a solution for them and do everything you can to keep them on board. Premium customers pay the bills. Margins are bigger on higher cost products.

The last thing you do is pretend the problem doesn't exist and you have a "V2" solution and that "sending it in for repair" is somehow going to address your engineering design flaw.

I love their products (in theory), but they are seriously testing my patience. Thrustmaster is probably my next stop, if something doesn't change with this company. Sad.
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Right, which is why I said for companies who want to play ball like a big company :) I'll be right there with you shopping at Thrustmaster should something ELSE go wrong with my wheel, or it's incompatible on the PS4.


Jerome
 
Jump_Ace
Right, which is why I said for companies who want to play ball like a big company :) I'll be right there with you shopping at Thrustmaster should something ELSE go wrong with my wheel, or it's incompatible on the PS4.


Jerome
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Lol! Yes sir. I'm with you. I dread the day. Really hoping this amazing engineer's solution works out... (eKretz).

BTW, my brother is a mechanical engineer. Showed him this thread and told him to fix my wheel. He laughed at me, said he was impressed by what eKretz was doing and walked away. Lazy bastard. :).
 
F1 Enthusiast
Lol! Yes sir. I'm with you. I dread the day. Really hoping this amazing engineer's solution works out... (eKretz).

BTW, my brother is a mechanical engineer. Showed him this thread and told him to fix my wheel. He laughed at me, said he was impressed by what eKretz was doing and walked away. Lazy bastard. :).
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Oh I'm not an "official" engineer. I did have a scholarship offer to both the colleges I applied at for mechanical engineering (one was Rose-Hulman, fairly well known) but I ended up entering an apprenticeship for machining instead. Had I gone to school instead maybe my back would still be in good shape! Oh well. IMO one learns a hell of a lot more from on-the-job experience than from schooling. Oh, and tell your brother I said thanks for the compliment!
 
eKretz
When you say "exact" diameter how close of a measurement are you looking for? If I can use a digital caliper and that's close enough then I won't need to go grab a .0001" reading micrometer, lol.

Edit: just shotgunned it.

Steering shaft diameter = 1.179" (29.94mm)
QR Male diameter = 1.4985" (38.06mm)
QR Female diameter = 1.506" (38.25mm)

Note that these sizes are only representative of my own wheel and there may be some variance between wheels/bases (they are made in China, after all). I just took a quick measurement with a caliper - so measurements may be +/- .001"
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Thanks
 
LogiForce
Actually here is another idea that sprouted from that actually...

posted it at the BasherBoards forum: http://www.basherboards.com/forum/thread-9-post-91.html#pid91
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Jon and I have already discussed this idea a bit but just tossing ideas around, no serious plans. Like I said, it could certainly be done, but for most I think the decision would be to just buy a servo wheel like the new SimX wheel, since the cost might end up pretty close and you'd still have to do quite a bit of bodging to make something work mechanically with a servo motor (I.E. build your own complete base). On top of that by piggybacking the output of the H-bridge and converting it to an input for a servo driver you'd likely add considerably more lag to the system than it already has. Better might be to try to pull a signal off the MC as far as lag, etc.
 
eKretz
Jon and I have already discussed this idea a bit but just tossing ideas around, no serious plans. Like I said, it could certainly be done, but for most I think the decision would be to just buy a servo wheel like the new SimX wheel, since the cost might end up pretty close and you'd still have to do quite a bit of bodging to make something work mechanically with a servo motor (I.E. build your own complete base). On top of that by piggybacking the output of the H-bridge and converting it to an input for a servo driver you'd likely add considerably more lag to the system than it already has. Better might be to try to pull a signal off the MC as far as lag, etc.
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I see your point. What's a base got to be though? A sturdy box of any material would do the trick. You could go ahead and build your dash into it right away while you're ass it. Or at least prepare for it.
You can already grab a servo motor off of ebay with over 20Nm of torque and a speed of 3000 rpm for not too much off of ebay. Than you'd need a driver for it. Some bits to contol it all and an old wheel's board to control it from.
And I am talking the size of motor Leo uses in his wheels, so you'd only have to make a basic stand at most and something to be make you able to mount a wheel to its driveshaft.
All in all it can't be more expensive than a CSW wheel base if you just stick to DIY, parts wise at least. Making a marketable product out of it would indeed be costly.

The point of lag is noted though. The reason I went for the output of the H-bridge was because it would be easier for people to make or order a couple of cables, than to make it into a complex soldering job. After all, once you fry the MC you can bin everything.
On second thought... I wonder if there would really be that much lag? Those DC motors should technically lag just as much if not more than converting and sending the signal to a servo would cost.

I guess we'll never know unless someone tries for fun.
 
Coming off the H-bridge you'd have extra delay because you'd get the signal straight to the DC motors ordinarily. With the system you describe you'd need to convert the h-bridge signal to a low level signal, feed it into another driver and then resend the signal to the new servo motor. Every step would introduce a bit more delay. Whether it would be significant enough to hurt response is another matter.

A base made of wood would not work very well IMO (see what I did there :D ) unless you spent a small fortune on wood and fasteners and construction adhesive. Wouldn't hold up to 20N•m for very long at all, is my guess. Sometimes the DIY cobble isn't up to the task - and IMO this would be one of those times. If you went for all used parts on the servo stuff maybe the cost could be kept semi-reasonable but you probably wouldn't be able to get the latest best drives, motors, etc. so it might not turn out quite as nice as the new servo wheels. For me at least I'd rather put the money into something like SimX which is designed to work together as a unit rather than cobble something together that may or may not work well. Not to mention having good software and firmware that is probably far better than the Fanatec stuff for running a servo motor. Some of that which is lacking could surely be tuned out but I think it will never be as good as a system designed to run a servo from the ground up.
 
Well gahhhhll-leee! (Pyle, anyone?) Finally heard back from Fanatec re: a new PCB. New board still $50. Going to pick one up just to have a second spare V1.8 board since I gave my other one away as an upgrade. I thought I felt a little difference in FFB in the 2 boards when I tried them back-to-back but it may have been placebo effect/my imagination. Which reminds me, I need to try out that testing on the older board with the fans, forgot about that. Too much going on at once, lol.
 
eKretz
Well gahhhhll-leee! (Pyle, anyone?) Finally heard back from Fanatec re: a new PCB. New board still $50. Going to pick one up just to have a second spare V1.8 board since I gave my other one away as an upgrade. I thought I felt a little difference in FFB in the 2 boards when I tried them back-to-back but it may have been placebo effect/my imagination. Which reminds me, I need to try out that testing on the older board with the fans, forgot about that. Too much going on at once, lol.
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Thats' good news, there may be hope yet.:)
 
I have some bad news for non-early-adopters of the Bühler motors. The supplier I have been getting the refurbished motors from has run out! Heh. I have enough motors to cover everybody who I accepted an order from but for future orders we may have to go with new motors which is going to drive the price up considerably. Probably from $30 per motor to more like $90 - $100 per motor. The new motors do have a new part number and are a bit stronger and more efficient also. Hopefully I can find some more suppliers of refurbs or my guy will get some more. He's got standing orders to contact me if he finds any. In the meantime I am looking for other reliable sources.
 
Damnit! I knew I should have ordered some last week! Oh well.. wheel is still good for now. Keep us posted and if you get a line on cheaper ones again ill snap some up. Thx for the heads up!
 
eKretz
I have some bad news for non-early-adopters of the Bühler motors. The supplier I have been getting the refurbished motors from has run out! Heh. I have enough motors to cover everybody who I accepted an order from but for future orders we may have to go with new motors which is going to drive the price up considerably. Probably from $30 per motor to more like $90 - $100 per motor. The new motors do have a new part number and are a bit stronger and more efficient also. Hopefully I can find some more suppliers of refurbs or my guy will get some more. He's got standing orders to contact me if he finds any. In the meantime I am looking for other reliable sources.
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So, is it safe to say that the new motors would produce more FFB with less heat?

This may be a better option for those who don't want the air cooling option. Albeit a much more expensive option. Lol!
 
Lol, it's not going to be possible to get that level of power without cooling the motors. Think of the power in watts. The motors are run at 24V and they stall around 8-9A. That means at stall you need to try to evacuate over 200W of heat. Think of a 200W incandescent light bulb running inside your wheel base and how hot that would get over even a short period of time. Even a 60W bulb gets too hot to hold after a very short period. To make the same torque at the wheel you need about the same stall amperage, no matter the motor. The only way to avoid cooling the motors is to run a much lower FFB level. A couple guys are doing this but most of us far prefer more FFB, not less.

These new motors are slightly more efficient but not in the way you're thinking. For equal stall amperage they make more torque. To limit stall amperage and temperature, the FF setting would still need to be lowered quite a lot. Or you could take the Mr. X approach and just start stuffing a bunch of extra stock motors in your wheel, limit the current to the wheel and hope you don't get a bad motor.
 
eKretz
Coming off the H-bridge you'd have extra delay because you'd get the signal straight to the DC motors ordinarily. With the system you describe you'd need to convert the h-bridge signal to a low level signal, feed it into another driver and then resend the signal to the new servo motor. Every step would introduce a bit more delay. Whether it would be significant enough to hurt response is another matter.

A base made of wood would not work very well IMO (see what I did there :D ) unless you spent a small fortune on wood and fasteners and construction adhesive. Wouldn't hold up to 20N•m for very long at all, is my guess. Sometimes the DIY cobble isn't up to the task - and IMO this would be one of those times. If you went for all used parts on the servo stuff maybe the cost could be kept semi-reasonable but you probably wouldn't be able to get the latest best drives, motors, etc. so it might not turn out quite as nice as the new servo wheels. For me at least I'd rather put the money into something like SimX which is designed to work together as a unit rather than cobble something together that may or may not work well. Not to mention having good software and firmware that is probably far better than the Fanatec stuff for running a servo motor. Some of that which is lacking could surely be tuned out but I think it will never be as good as a system designed to run a servo from the ground up.
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You're right that it would all feel 'half-assed' feedback wise (as I would put it), in a not so half-assed money wise way. Still I have to say that all sims that are out there or in development are by far not good enough for me to warrant the purchase of anything like Leo's SimX. Maybe in 10 years time, but for now I'd rather put the same amount of money into a real car instead. Just driving places with a fun car to drive is better than frustrating yourself over games or wheels that are lacking in realism, at least that's how I feel after having driving a Toyota GT86 in real life. No game is able to simulate cars properly, as each game has one or often more things lacking or have systems fudged.

Anyways, I've seen how deep the sim rabbit hole goes and for me the sim racing fun is gone after that one hour eye opener drive with the GT86. So I am not going to spend more money than the bare requirements on sim racing. When a hobby loses its fun factor, it's simply not worth spending on after all.
 
eKretz
I have some bad news for non-early-adopters of the Bühler motors. The supplier I have been getting the refurbished motors from has run out! Heh. I have enough motors to cover everybody who I accepted an order from but for future orders we may have to go with new motors which is going to drive the price up considerably. Probably from $30 per motor to more like $90 - $100 per motor. The new motors do have a new part number and are a bit stronger and more efficient also. Hopefully I can find some more suppliers of refurbs or my guy will get some more. He's got standing orders to contact me if he finds any. In the meantime I am looking for other reliable sources.
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I got mine for a little bit less than that if you watch for ebay sales 👍


Jerome
 
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Yeah every now and then you can get them from eBay but if everybody is watching eBay the few that come up will be snatched up fast, lol. The ones on eBay aren't the newest version though. And now that people are probably looking for them they won't go for super low prices either! BTW Jerome what did you mean by "I wonder" above?
 
^ I clicked the wrong reply button and didn't fix it. #notpayingattention


Jerome
 
Eric, the focus on the great work you do should be sharpened now. 👍

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I have been following this thread for a while and decided to buy the ekretz upgrade and it is the best mod I have done to my wheel, the strength feels 3 times stronger, it is way smoother with no cogging, it handles heat a lot better and I havent had to connect my air pump up to it yet as it only gets hot when the ffb is clipping or you hold it past the soft limit, there is a little more drag but I don't notice it when in use the speed of rotation is faster it actually looks dangerous when it calibrates if you have the spring setting to +4.

It wasnt difficult for me to install other than giving the short thick belt more tension but I found some pliers that the handle was the right size and shape to fit in between the reduction pulley and the top left frame bar, I am using about 32v with a meanwell NES-350-27 power supply, you cant set the voltage all the way up on the power supply as the motors draw a little bit more than 350w and the power supply goes into over current mode and shuts off but it seems to handle 32v without shutting off.

I have also mounted a sparco 300mm wheel as I didnt like the stock rim, I made an adapter at work out of 7075 aluminium it is an interference fit on the silver shaft of the csr elite with a set screw for good measure the paddles and button plate were made by simrcnwheels who I would also recommend as his work is very high quality, I mounted the original wheel center to the front plate of the csr elite as I use a program called fanaleds which uses the 3 digit display as a gear position and rev counter and it is now easily visable.
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Sonic, keep a very close eye on your motor temps when running over 24V. Not using the pump is a very bad idea when racing, even at 24V, unless you have lowered the FF setting quite a ways. The motors will get hot even at 24V in most sims. You can get away with it in 1 or 2 but please don't hold me responsible for damage if something gets cooked when you aren't running the pump.

Meanwhile it's great to hear you are pleased with the upgrade!
 
Dont worry ekretz I wouldnt hold you responsible for my negligence, I have re used the temperature probe from the stock wheels and will use the air pump when I get a T fitting for the air line.

I also mainly play rf2 and assetto corsa both of those sims dont stress the motors too hard when using low gain settings so that the ffb doesnt clip, I'm also not an endurance racer so the shorter duration helps to.
 
Sonic, on the second pic, the wheel does not seem to have the clear plastic cover not the back black panel. Is this the way you operate your wheel or just like that in the picture to show the connections?
Running the wheel topless could help staying cool, but I would be concern with dust getting in.
 
Finally got my CSW back from getting the motors replaced. All is right with the world for now. Looking forward to getting Eric's mod when he gets his next batch of parts ready.

But after using my G27 for a month the higher no-force drag of the CSW is quite noticeable. Plus I can feel a slightly lumpy feel which was there before I sent it in for repair. I suspected the belts were tighter than they need to be so I've lowered the tension of both belts. Problem solved and no apparent slippage turning past the soft limits. I'll see how it works over time.

Oh, and the pic here is of a couple of nonferrous metal fragments I found loose inside. Anyone have an idea what they are?
 

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I run it without the clear top pannel and the also without the black back pannel as it helps with cooling and I can touch the motors to feel the temperature, the dust doesnt seem to be an issue but I have a can of compressed air that I will use if needed.

If anyone has pulled apart the stock motors did you also have gaps between the commutator segments as when I pulled mine apart the was uneven wear and about 1mm gaps between the segments, I have a feeling that may of contributed to the notchy feeling my wheel used to have.
 
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sonicshadows
I run it without the clear top pannel and the also without the black back pannel as it helps with cooling and I can touch the motors to feel the temperature, the dust doesnt seem to be an issue but I have a can of compressed air that I will use if needed.

If anyone has pulled apart the stock motors did you also have gaps between the commutator segments as when I pulled mine apart the was uneven wear and about 1mm gaps between the segments, I have a feeling that may of contributed to the notchy feeling my wheel used to have.
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I would think with the temp sensors (and requisite down-clocking of the motors via pcb) hooked to the motors and the motors being upgraded that the plexi-glass would be the first thing I'd remove when trying to strengthen the ffb via upgrades or avoid ffb-fade without upgrades. In fact, it was the first thing I modified on my csr-e. It seemed to help a bit with the crap chat functionality with the inboard pcb on the ol ex-brick.
But then again, I still sold it for a ball-pin and anti-backlash bolt rig because I got sick of fussing over the belts. I couldn't ever get it to the point where I didn't feel lag when performing quick changes of direction or catching a "snap" (or trying to at least).
You know what's kinda interesting about ek's mods... He and most of the higher end (than fanatec) ffb wheel producers use a dev psu (or refashioned pc psu) so they can hook straight up to the 12v rail (or two)... Nice work dude.
 
sonicshadows
I run it without the clear top pannel and the also without the black back pannel as it helps with cooling and I can touch the motors to feel the temperature, the dust doesnt seem to be an issue but I have a can of compressed air that I will use if needed.

If anyone has pulled apart the stock motors did you also have gaps between the commutator segments as when I pulled mine apart the was uneven wear and about 1mm gaps between the segments, I have a feeling that may of contributed to the notchy feeling my wheel used to have.
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Post some pictures of those stock motors you pulled apart. I would like to see the one you're describing.
 
MartyU
Finally got my CSW back from getting the motors replaced. All is right with the world for now. Looking forward to getting Eric's mod when he gets his next batch of parts ready.

But after using my G27 for a month the higher no-force drag of the CSW is quite noticeable. Plus I can feel a slightly lumpy feel which was there before I sent it in for repair. I suspected the belts were tighter than they need to be so I've lowered the tension of both belts. Problem solved and no apparent slippage turning past the soft limits. I'll see how it works over time.

Oh, and the pic here is of a couple of nonferrous metal fragments I found loose inside. Anyone have an idea what they are?
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You should do the free friction-reducing mods discussed earlier in the thread - between those and getting your belt tensions just right you will net a very big difference in terms of feel at least (though it probably won't help your lap times a whole lot, lol).

Could the aluminum be pieces of the heat sink fins maybe? Can't think of what else it might be.
 

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