Possibly the worlds most Over-The-Top Simulation Project.

[Nicecar]

Hi there.

My names chris, and i'm not old enough to drive yet, and thank god i'm not, otherwise this project would be on hold for too long.

So i recently aquired a new HDTV, PS2 Component cable(makes graphics better) and DFP, so i thought, why not build a sim. I do believe im now hooked and can never turn back.


My dad decided he would help me with it, so right now i have my dfp and tv mounted on a desk (laid down on its side) and the old driver's seat from my dads car (he changed his interior over, so he could have a new color), which is mounted (badly) to two peices of wood.

I also managed to get his old fascia.Which my first thought was, "wow, this'll be fun."

Well, All i now have to do is:

Left Indicator
Right Indicator
Fog Light
(If automatic, PRND2 and L) If manual, i can get rid of them.
Door Open
Oil Change
Battery Low
Fuel Empty/low
Overdrive Off
Wheel Lock
Gate Unlock
Handbrake
Water Level
A/T Temperature

ALSO: Speedometer, Tachometer, Fuel Gauge, Temp Gauge and possibly, milometer.

All these will work with the game, in a sense, because i will mount stalks/buttons to the DFP, and those that are part of the game, will trigger buttons, such as the handbrake triggering the (o) button.

Speaking of handbrakes, thats another handy item i aquired off my dad, and i shall soon be connetcing that to a relay, connecting that to a dis-assembled DS2, and connecting the whole thing to some wood, and mounting that to my sim, which really needs improvement.

Updates and pictures soon, i promise.

-Chris-

 

[Joey D]

That actually sounds pretty awesome, I would love to see pictures of it!

 

[Kryz11]

Sounds pretty good, But I would worry mostly about getting better wheel for more realistic feel of the car
But why do you need left and right indicators? I never seen them used in any racing.

 

[Nicecar]

Well, the DFP is quite a good wheel, i havent had any problems with it.

and indicators, 4wd indicator and other stuff, its there, so i want to use it.

Anyway, heres some progress:

Today, since my last post, i decided to take a look and see really how the thing worked.

So, i took absolutely every single bit of it apart, bulbs, circuit, everything.

I then attempted to reset the mileometer. To do this, i unscrewed a screw, removed two greasy blue cogs, and thought hmmm, why wont it move? Ah! theres a C clip holding it together. Problem is, my fingers arent less than the 2mm gap between two peices of metal where the C clip is located.
Bloody hell.

So, i sat there thinking what could i do next, when i spun the mileometer in the wrong direction, to see it counted downwards. So there i was for a while, spinning, and i thought hmm, rather than going at this for ages, i'll leave it saying "010000.0", since thats the nearest nice round number. So, rather than resetting it, ive done 10,000 perfect miles.

So, next thing to do is see how each bulb is lit, so i can use my stalks/buttons/whatever i produce to light them up individually.

So, i got out my 12v converter, 2 pieces of wire, and a little note book and pen, and got to work. Tested the first one, the whole display illumination, and write down the pins it uses to light up. Then my dad comes in and says "heres a wiring diagram, just incase you wanna use it".

Shame i couldnt follow it, i just got to work some more. Here are my results, with one glitch.

Illumination: Right 4 + 5
Left indicator: Left 6 + Right 3
Right indicator: Left 5 + Right 3
High Beam (thought it was fog light before, my mistake): L7 + 8
Door Open: R8 + 9
Oil: R7 + 10
Automatic Transmission Temp, Battery and Water: R7 + 11 < glitch, was only meant to light up Battery.
Fuel light: R7 +12
Rev Limiter: Positive: L4 Negative: R2 AND L9 (unsure)
Temp Gauge: Pos Screw 1 + Neg screw 2
Fuel Gauge: Pos screw 1 + Neg screw 3
Gate Unlock: Centre 5 + 6
Wheel lock: C6 + Negative screw
Wheel Lock + 4WD: C6 + R2
4WD: Soldered joint + R2
Handbrake: L11 + 12
OD OFF: Pos + Neg Last on connector.

Theres what my handbook says, i'll take some pics to help you understand.

EDIT:

Sorry about bad quality pics guys, couldnt find my camera.

 

[dark_ruffo]

Just a silly question:

How do you plan to make everything work right?

I mean, I know there are projects like this. Speedometers, tachometers, shiftlights, gear indicators, LCD screens and stuff, but 100% of them are planned with PC sims in mind, because all of this gadgets depend on custom software that reads in-game indicators and then send all this especific information through the USB port, and if I read everything right, you never mentioned a PC, just a PS2, so GT4 comes to mind.

I hope I made myself clear, english is not my first language.

Have fun with your project. Be sure to post videos when you finish.

 

[Robin]

Sounds like an amazing project, everything should be do-able but getting the speedo to react to the speed on screen is going to be insanely tricky...

I always wanted to do something like that ages ago, then when I got a car it just kinda faded...

Keep us posted with pics and your progress 👍

Robin

 

[Nicecar]

Well guys, first off, congrats dark_ruffo, your english was 100% perfect there.

What i plan to do is have switches or stalks like in a real car to activate each thing.

For example, if i flick the stalk up, right indicator light flashes, you understand? As for temp. gauge, that will be room temperature. fuel, speed and revs, i'm working on, but im hoping i can get them to work with PS2 + GT4 via my second available USB port. If not, then this project will be good for looks, until i get my new pc.

Then, i shall either use Hybridding to make GT4 send out signals to the USB port, or i'll do the lazy thing and make it work on PC too.

Thanks for the replies and support guys, more updates to come tomorrow, im sure.

EDIT:

another problem is the speedometer runs off a motor, so getting that wired up right will be a nighmare.

 

[Kryz11]

I know you can ask mods for some MODS and Patches so that your gauges will be compatible with games like rFactor, Live for Speed, GTR2 and so forth... But on the PS2 and GT4, I really doubts anything will work other then wheel itself.

Some people Play around with Guages and other aspects like OIL tmep and Engine temp, Only on PCs tho.





Good luck man !

 

[Nicecar]

Thanks guys, actually that first video made me want to o this, but he uses betainnovations gear, i decided i'd try and make something that was better than their stuff, and cheaper too

No updates yet, just woken up, but today i'll find out wether i can get my hands on some kit, i.e car dashboard, stalks etc.

 

[Kryz11]

Car dashboard cool, are you going to use some car seat? or are you going to pepboys and get a 100 dollar racing seat?

 

[Nicecar]

Ive got myself a car seat, its nice and comfortabe too, i use it as my PC chair aswell.

Right, no major updates, but ive spent the whole day sawing/screwing/drilling wood.

I took apart the old "racing sim" or the crappy attempt at it, and started again.

I drilled some fairly big holes in a peice of laminated wood, from an old office desk (was used for a keyboard) then i carefully placed the seat inside. Bugger, the screws dont come out the bottom, so i cant put the nuts on. oh well, it must be a few inches in, it'll be nice and secure, i hope.

Next i thought right, what can i do now? So i got a long (about 5 1/2 foot) peice of wood, and screwed it to the seat base. Now i have a chair on a block of wood, that tilts from side to side, because of a strip of wood in the centre. So i made up two "balance peices, that go horizontally across the base. Darn, should have had them longer, going the same way as the first peice of wood, to give more stability.

Oh well, its working fine right now, i'll add more later. So next i found some fence-post like peices of wood, square width, and i cut them at an angle (what a lot of use i am with a saw, took nearly all day!) so now ive got a half finished cockpit, and a peice of angled wood, which i plan to use for the steering wheel support.

More to come soon!

 

[Nicecar]

Not much of an update, sim is along the way, i'll make up a pedal support, unscrew a few bolts, then put the whole thing back in my room.

More soon i promise!

 

[Nicecar]

Ok, fairly large update here people.

I've just woken up, and as long as my ill sister doesnt bother me too much, i shall be doing some electronic work today.

At the moment, i have a slightly wobbly cockpit (will be fixed by using real car interior), my dfp and ps2. I need to make a stand for my tv, but i think i will save that for after i have my car interior, so i can make it the right size.



Aim for today:

Although im a little under the weather, i plan to do this:
Make handbrake work with PS2 (o) button.
Begin work on 6-speed shifter, for use with controller (same as handbrake really).
Test all lights on dash are correct (i may have noted them down wrong, but i will check them all)
Start wiring.

Hope you're all still interested, show your interest people, and please dontate (joking, i have nowhere to donate to)

 

[Kryz11]

How will the 6 speed work with PS2? only way you can do is sequential mode.
I'm telling you man, you need to do this for PC racing sim games.

 

[Nicecar]

How will the 6 speed work with PS2? only way you can do is sequential mode.
I'm telling you man, you need to do this for PC racing sim games.

I know this one is possible.

If im in first, then i shift up to second, a chip sends electronic pulses to the shift up [r2] button, in this case once. If im in second now, then i shift up to 4th by accident, it will send 2 pulses to the [r2] button, sending me into 4th gear.

Will work in theory, and ive actually seen this one done before. As for the revs, speed and whatnot, looks like theyre only going to work when i get my new pc, when i will make a program to read the speed/revs on Test Drive:Unlimited, an awesome game.

No updates today, ive been lazy as hell and shouldve done more work than i have. did a little research though, but i'll explain when ive actually done something

 

[H3rmaN]

I know this one is possible.

If im in first, then i shift up to second, a chip sends electronic pulses to the shift up [r2] button, in this case once. If im in second now, then i shift up to 4th by accident, it will send 2 pulses to the [r2] button, sending me into 4th gear.

Will work in theory, and ive actually seen this one done before. As for the revs, speed and whatnot, looks like theyre only going to work when i get my new pc, when i will make a program to read the speed/revs on Test Drive:Unlimited, an awesome game.

No updates today, ive been lazy as hell and shouldve done more work than i have. did a little research though, but i'll explain when ive actually done something

Right, it will work in theory, BUT how are you going to program it? If you use a PIC you will need MPLAB IDE (free from Microchip.com) a developemen board (about £30) and an ICD2 (In Circuit Debugger 2) which costs about £130!

Will the PIC be adequate enough for everything you want it to control? Will it have enough memory to buffer some of the data, etc?

You will also need to use a PIC18F2550, PIC18F4550 or some other USB compatible PIC and use the Microchip USB stack along with their C18 compiler (free 60 day trial, but costs thousands of £££ to buy!) which is a NIGHTMARE to use!

If your lucky you might be able to find a USB stack for the PICC CCS Compiler which is much easier to use than the C18 compiler. But even then you need to get hold of the compiler which costs thousands of £££ also, unless you know places to get it from.

And if a PIC is not adequate enough to hand all the things you require it to do you will have to use an FPGA and program it in Verilog (a HDL (Hardware Definition Language)) using the program Xilinx (free), but programming in Verilog is about 50x harder than programming in C/C++!! If not even harder! And then you still need to buy the FPGA that you want to use (spartan 3 might be good for this) and if you want it to work as a stand alone device you need a programmer which will set you back a few hundred £££!

Personally I would create the cockpit and leave it at that! The rest will be FAR to difficult to implement for a PS2!

 

[Nicecar]

I wont need all tht!?!?!

Im going to make a program, with a PIC, using microswitches in the gear-lever's box.

I'll then wire that to the R2 and L2 buttons of a spare controller. I have no idea what you thought i was doing.

 

[Nicecar]

and as for the rest of the lights, gauges and stuff, they wont work in game, but i will have stalks for indicators etc, so they will work, just not in the game.

I plan to make it work on pc tho.

 

[H3rmaN]

ok, you gonna make your code in whatever program....but HOW do you expect to compile it for the PIC your gonna use (each PIC needs to be compiled differently, hence why you get special compilers) and how are you gonna write the code to the PIC without a programmer or Dev board & ICD2??

Its not like writing a PC program! Yes you can code in C/C++ but its not the same! Trust me, Im in my final year at uni studying Electronic Engineering & Computer Science! You WILL need MPLAB (free as iv said) a compiler (Iv used the Microchip C18 and PICC CCS), which is not free and a method to write the code to the PIC (either with a stand alone programmer or a PICDEM 2 PLUS Demo board & ICD2 debugger).

 

[Nicecar]

I do electronics at school, and have a little knowledge, and anyway, i'm getting help from my friend because his dad is some kind o electronic genius.

 

[H3rmaN]

fair enuff, if your mates dad has all the equipment then fair play, but I still think its too much effort just to add a H-Shifter when you could have simply bought a G25 on the 1st place which already has one.

 

[Nicecar]

whats better, a free circuit, made CUSTOM by me, or paying another £120?

All i'd get then is an already built, unrealistic plastic shifter.

All in all, G25 is much better, but i dont have that kind of money.

Hell, i can't even afford to butter my toast.

Chris.

 

[H3rmaN]

whats better, a free circuit, made CUSTOM by me, or paying another £120?

A proffessionally manufactured one which costs another £120, and you can get a G25 for £150 so its actually another £70, not £120.

Custom PCB's can and do fail, hell even proffessionally manufactured ones fail! But they are far less likely to fail than a custom one made in-house. And that even to do with uni PCB's which are made in very expensive etching tanks.

And if you dont use a PCB and decide to use stripboard or matrix board instead then there's even more chance of failure if you have to solder a lot of wires. 1 single dodgy connection and you'll be sitting there for ages with the multi-meter.

Anyway, its up to you, but iv given you my suggestions, and my views on the matter. You probably dont care about them but ah well!

Good luck with it anyway, and keep us informed on how it goes. I think it will be an interesting build.

 

[breakpoint]

I just parted out a 1994 Nissan Altima i had and i removed the dash to use in my cockpit. Im going to build an entire enclosure that will be basically the inside of a car. Im using everything i need from my car like the dash, seats, headliner etc. Also the tv will be enclosed in there with me. What im going to mess around with on the gauges is this. For the speedometer im going to just try to mount a DC motor to the rear of the dash hooked to the mph needle and have the leads from the motor going to my stereo amp for the surround sound.

Im thinking that the motor should turn the needle from the sound of the engine in the game. The faster you go the louder the sounds become right? So, the more wind noise and the louder the engine screams, the faster the motor will turn and increase the mph on the gauge. In theory it should work, there might be a few tweaks to do, but it should work fine. Im not going to do water and all the other stuff though.


Im just getting all the parts together until we get a house with a garage because i will need one to put it in. Good luck on yours, keep us updated:tup:

 

[Nicecar]

erm, im not sure it gets louder as you acellerate, and that would be funny to watch when you're on a menu screen with music.

but sounds basically like what i'm trying to do, just a little more down to earth.

 

[breakpoint]

erm, im not sure it gets louder as you acellerate, and that would be funny to watch when you're on a menu screen with music.

but sounds basically like what i'm trying to do, just a little more down to earth.

I made a fan version of it and it worked just fine, only difference would be i would be using a needle on a gauge and not turning a fan. The faster you go the louder the engine noise gets, as well as wind noise. So, the motor turns faster as you get faster. Worked well for me:tup: As for the menu or anything like that it doesn't respond to that. It has to be a constant, not like hip hop or electronica blaster in and out beats. You can also use different farad capacitors to adjust the "around" frequency the motor will respond to. Usually making it respond to a lower frequency works well.

 

[Nicecar]

that sounds like an excellent technique, i will have to do some test runs, and if it works for me, you have just saved my cockpit from being an ornament

Thanks for the help!!

 

[breakpoint]

haha, well it works because i already made the fan one about a year ago. Let us know how it works out. Also make sure the signal will be coming from an amp or there won't be a strong enough signal to turn the motor.

 

[Nicecar]

im not sure how to make the rig you have made, and im afraid this project may have to go on hold, as i no money at all, my GCSE's are starting, and now i need to revise, and if i had money, i'd spend it on this.

More to come soon people!

 

[breakpoint]

money? This is a free project mate! Only thing you would have to get would be the speedo which you can get from any junkyard from cheap to free. The motor will be just taken out of something laying around, the amp is the only thing you should have to actually buy. Pawn shop for that. Entire thing should cost you minimu 15-20 bucks. I got lucky because i had a car i was parting out so i took the entire instrument cluster and dash out and used the entire dash, also got the seats etc. So mine was really cheap, also had an old altec lansing amp from way back when tha i bought for a whopping 5 bucks, 800 amps too!\


Actually i just found this while browsing instructables.com


This should help you out allot. http://www.instructables.com/id/Speed-simulator-for-racing-games-or-coaster-simula/