LogiForce
Premium
- 4,078
- Groningen, Netherlands
- LogiForce86
- LogiForce
Simple, reliability mostly. Secondly belts vs slippage.
My T500 still works fine after 3 years. Where as my beta wheel burned out its motors (or at least one) after almost a year. The retail base had about the same strength/torque as the used T500 when I got it as replacement, but I noticed that even without the motors actually burning out the motors in the Fanatec actually slowly started to degrade and lose torque over time. Especially noticeable at the speed at which it calibrates itself during the startup routine.
So the CSW still works fine, but it doesn't have the speed and power it once had anymore. So since I've been testing the Physics in Project CARS a lot I preferred to stick with that which had the most reliable performance through the years of me having these wheels.
There is one other reason why I prefer the T500 over the CSW. That's the type of belts used.
After having tried both the CSW with its V-groove belts and the T500 with the toothed belts.
I found that the CSW had micro-slip which is something those belts were designed to do in cars, this to prevent you from losing your auxiliary devices attached to the engine. Cause if a toothed belt slips in a car, the teeth will be destroyed vary rapidly.
Why micro-slip is bad in FFB is that every slip of the belt? Well, micro-slip causes effects coming from the game and being executed by the FFB motor to not reach the steering wheel... and thus not you, the driver.
Also it hinders game Physics as well. This because the Physics in the game sends a signal that brings the steering wheel to the so called 'center of steering' of the virtual tyres (i.e. the direction the tyres want to point at naturally). However, if there is a delay because of slip or the FFB motor not being able to overcome drag (e.g. you holding the wheel tightly in place)... than basically there is a delay between what happens virtually (at Physics level) and what actually is being executed by the wheel. This because the FFB motor wasn't able to turn the position sensor into the desired position.
So those two are my main reasons for using the T500. A choice made after a lot of usage and actually finding out how stuff works by simple experience and a lot of swapping wheels.
Thus my conclusion is that even though a V-belt is smoother when turning the wheel, the toothed belt is better in my opinion.
ps. To be fair and I think I have to admit that I was too much of a rookie in terms of knowledge on how things like these work when I wrote the review. So even though I know this stuff now, I didn't back than. Than again, I couldn't have foreseen the reliability issues with the motors at the time.
The glorious T500 RS master race! 
