The Thrustmaster T500RS Thread

[RacerXX]

Just done over 2 hours nonstop hillclimb at 70% in pc control panel.
Feedback stayed the same strength from 5 minutes in to 2 hours in so extra fans make a world of difference for me.

That's wonderful news. Nothing like peace of mind! Some of the very high end wheels offer water cooling options, many out there don't care to turn-it-down.

You can also get a cheap indoor/outdoor thermometer and apply the outdoor probe to the motor. I use one that retails for 14.95. Then you'll get a live readout of motor temperature. Try to keep it below about 120º F. It would be cool to use a car gage readout.

If your fans do not continue to satisfy, then consider adding some more heat sinking for the motor. That will help pull more heat out of it so that the fanned air can then draw heat from the increased surface area.

 

[Michelcleo]

I was looking at heatsinks as i can see a few things on pcb's that could do with a few.
I was wondering about the motor though, i can add heatsinks to its heatsink, what i'd reealy like is to add heatsinks to its non heat sinked side on the right but heatsinks are flat, the motor is round

Update on power.

At 70% power after hours of racing the internal fan never switches on, with 75% power the internal fan turns on after around 30 minutes, a small amount of power is lost and it then stays like that for the rest of the gaming session.
When the internal fan starts it blows through the bottom left intake with the many holes, wether this is now cooling the pcb enough for it to sustian its small loss in power i'll not know untill i get my other fans as i'm adding 2 to the bottom left side and bottom vents and they will be on 24/7 like other fans, if when i do this and at 75% power the internal fan does'nt start then cooling the pcb is a must have .

Leaving the wheel for around 5 minutes the stock internal fan ( i have it external on bottom ) stops so the 1 added internal and 3 external really push some serious cooling, from my test ican see hopefully there is a very good chance that the 2 left bottom side intake fans will make a huge impact on cooling

I personally think i am now satisfied with the wheels power, i have strong ffb with the cooling needed to cool it, i mod my pc all the time so adding fansto increase performance is nothing new to me.

If all wheels are like the 3 i have had then i could only reccomend them if the buyer was willing to add their on fans, adding fans make my wheel a beast for many hours

My mate that has been bigging up his Ms Sidewinder from yesteryear said the other night it was pathetic and he cant believe he allways thought it was awsome hahaha sucker, once bitten and the t500rs buyers know the rest

 

[oqvist]

I am kind of fascinated how different the fan can sound on each startup... Now I have some grasshopper inside the wheel lol. Suppose there is some cable in there grinding. Is it easy to open up without making a mess?

 

[spinner]

With mine , it was just the fan blades rubbing on something that made the noise. The fan was able to wobble around on its "spindle" , (really , really average quality !) which is why the noise changes slightly each time it runs.

There is a post in this thread somewhere with step by step photos and information on how to replace the fan.

Mine still makes a noise but now its the sound of a lot of air rushing through the wheel , not crickets or whatever else it decides to imitate !

 

[WildRun]

2 new nice drifting vids:

With GT Wheel (on LFS)


With MOMO Wheel (on GT5)

 

[Michelcleo]

I can't help myself being a modder at heart, it looks like this week i will be sourcing some copper mofset heatsinks and copper pipe, my mate will half the pipe at work for me and then we'll solder the copper heatsinks to the copper pipe and then use thermal pad to stick the pipe to the motor.

There's nothing like a fresh cold motor, it has so much more power than evn my wheel with my mods, i get strong power at start and then it fades alittle, the cooling i have added makes sure that the wheel stays the same power after 10 min flat out racing to 4 hours, this is nonestop time trials

Here's some photo's of my latest build, i changed the 2 top 92mm as they made a terrible banging sound when wheel vibrated as they had alot of up and down movement on the spidle.
I got some Noctua nf-b9 92mm fans, they are expensive and extremely quiet as they have no spindle movement up and down so no banging, so when the wheel vibrates i hear no banging/clacking, awsome

In total there are 7 fans now

 

[Dean]

- I've just bought the T500RS... I'm looking forward to it's arrival, from France.

 

[RacerXX]

I can't help myself being a modder at heart, it looks like this week i will be sourcing some copper mofset heatsinks and copper pipe, my mate will half the pipe at work for me and then we'll solder the copper heatsinks to the copper pipe and then use thermal pad to stick the pipe to the motor.

There's nothing like a fresh cold motor, it has so much more power than evn my wheel with my mods, i get strong power at start and then it fades alittle, the cooling i have added makes sure that the wheel stays the same power after 10 min flat out racing to 4 hours, this is nonestop time trials

Here's some photo's of my latest build, i changed the 2 top 92mm as they made a terrible banging sound when wheel vibrated as they had alot of up and down movement on the spidle.
I got some Noctua nf-b9 92mm fans, they are expensive and extremely quiet as they have no spindle movement up and down so no banging, so when the wheel vibrates i hear no banging/clacking, awsome

In total there are 7 fans now

FWIW I found that my Fanatec CSR can heat fade about 15-20%. The motor and the mosfet chips on the circuit board are the hot spots. Try using the wheel with the cover off and keep checking the hotspots with an infrared no-contact thermometer.

Just using motor heat sinking to isolate issues I found that the stock CSR heat sink was inadequate. Most of the cooling was coming from the fan alone, the heat sink was just a fan holder really. So in your case when you add the motor heat sinking make sure you have a dedicated fan blowing at both sides of the motor. Check the mosfet heat sinking and make sure that receives air from a fan. It's not enough to just vent the case. I quintupled the size of my mosfet heat sinks, and later added more mosfets to allow greater than stock amperage / torque. Check for any airgaps at the heat sink to motor interface. Sand the bits until the fit is near perfect, and use a good thermal paste such as Arctic Silver.

Add a motor temperature display too. Such as one from an indoor/outdoor thermometer. Just place the outdoor probe onto the motor near it's coils. Try measuring torque at the wheel rim using a fish scale as I did…then you can see how well you are doing. You want to be able to maintain just-turned-on torque, when you have been using the wheel hard for some time.

If you really want to end heat woes, like if your present efforts are still not sufficient, go liquid cooling via tubes wrapping the motor. Or even peltier.

Here is a graph showing how much my CSR motor heat sinking alone helped, with no fan in use. With two motor fans in use the difference is even larger due to the larger surface area.

 

[MuRRe]

Two questions.

Is it worth getting the shifter (im almosy exclusively playing gt5)?

And, i try to figure this out. Do y I u guys feel small bumps when turning the wheel?

 

[JogoAsobi]

Two questions.

Is it worth getting the shifter (im almosy exclusively playing gt5)?

And, i try to figure this out. Do y I u guys feel small bumps when turning the wheel?

Regarding the TH8 in GT5:

The clutch implementation in GT5 does make it a bit less friendly to use the H-shifter than other games/sims.
The clutch behavior also seems to vary with the car in GT-5.

That being said, if you take the time to learn its quirks you can actually go quite fast.
There are people who do the GT-5 TTs using clutch/H-shifter that are really quick.

The TH8 has a windows-based utility that lets you map the shifter gate's active/neutral zones, that helps too, information about that is on mrbasher's SFA1 thread and the TH8RS thread.

 

[MuRRe]

Regarding the TH8 in GT5:

The clutch implementation in GT5 does make it a bit less friendly to use the H-shifter than other games/sims.
The clutch behavior also seems to vary with the car in GT-5.

That being said, if you take the time to learn its quirks you can actually go quite fast.
There are people who do the GT-5 TTs using clutch/H-shifter that are really quick.

The TH8 has a windows-based utility that lets you map the shifter gate's active/neutral zones, that helps too, information about that is on mrbasher's SFA1 thread and the TH8RS thread.

I'm pretty bad driver, so I would mainly buy it for the "fun" factor.
I just find driving an old 70s car wth the paddles kinda not as it supposed to be.
Also it would be a great way to actually force myself to awlays use manual.

 

[JogoAsobi]

I'm pretty bad driver, so I would mainly buy it for the "fun" factor.
I just find driving an old 70s car wth the paddles kinda not as it supposed to be.
Also it would be a great way to actually force myself to awlays use manual.

Then you should be fine, the timing between accelerator and clutch in GT5 can be frustrating, but the game will also allow you to shift using H-shifter without the clutch.

The stock TH8 shift plate's gates are pretty long so that will feel like an older car.
I agree something does not seem quite right when using the paddles on the older cars.

 

[oqvist]

Okay today my fan went totally nuts. Anybody have any tip on a good quality fan with a decent noise/performance ratio. It don´t have to be more silent then the current one but without all the extra side noises

 

[RacerXX]

Okay today my fan went totally nuts. Anybody have any tip on a good quality fan with a decent noise/performance ratio. It don´t have to be more silent then the current one but without all the extra side noises

I don't have a Thrustmaster, but on PCs I've built I really like the Noctua fans. Very teched out for output versus sound, and extreme expected lifespan. Expensive but not that bad.

 

[mrbasher]

The fan has been discussed on this thread quite a bit. Apparently there are two models in the different versions, the newer is larger... Details below.

The new model is CC6020M12S, 12v and is rated at .06 amp draw. Size is 60mm x 60mm x 20mm. Fan datasheet: http://www.chiefly-choice.com.tw/fans/uploads/1229392417yzf8w.pdf

The old model is CC6010H12S, 12v and is rated at .20 amp draw. Size is 60mm x 60mm x 20mm. Fan datasheet: http://www.chiefly-choice.com.tw/fans/uploads/1229392486mxiv3u.pdf

Based on the model designations. I believe the new model is a medium speed fan, sleeve bearing. The old model is a high speed fan, sleeve bearing.

The fan maker is Chiefly.

Using that info you should be able to find a compatible fan from somewhere else pretty cheaply really. Noctua fans are excellent. Unfortunately, their 60mm fan is 25 mm thick

Best of luck.

Edit... I may just pick a fan up. Sounds fun and certainly wouldn't hurt though I've never noticed any performance issues, even after several hours of playing. Nothing wrong with erroring on the side of caution though.

 

[WildRun]

oqvist you should contact "TM Tech Support" and ask them the new Fan version (really easy to install):
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=135961&page=298

 

[PLazarou]

Update on my Amazon situation - received the replacement today, didn't even come in an outer cardboard box, so the product packaging was in a fairly poor condition compared to the first one I received. There's also no way of telling the version number from this, so I thought 'well if it never came in an outer box, how did they verify with me that it was a version 5?'... and thus... I open it... it's another V.2. Yayyy.

I can only imagine that either they were just making it up as I first feared, or perhaps the person who checked the stock saw this one without its brown box, spotted the GT5 logo on the side, and assumed that's what I meant.

I spoke to another supervisor, they still don't seem to understand... they're taking the damn thing off the website while they 'check it'. Sigh.

Another update. It's now getting close to two months since I received the first wheel from Amazon. After they sent me a second V.2 (which I sent straight back), I have been trying to get them to properly check what version they have in stock (which has been very difficult as Amazon's stock levels of this item are now very low/intermittent). Finally a few days ago they said that they have V.4s, so I got them to send me another replacement (which is against their single replacement policy but they mucked it up the first time, so they agreed after some grumbling). Arrived today... V.2 on the brown box. o_O

'Maybe they opened it and look at the product box' I thought. So I opened it, and to my surprise 'V.4' on the underside of the product box. With enthusiasm, I opened it up... nope... V.2 on the underside of the wheel and pedals.

So I'm really baffled. I can't really blame Amazon this time (although I'm still not entirely convinced that they checked properly) as it does indeed say V.4 on the underside of the product box.

Some pictures...

How it arrived today:

Next to the first one that I've been holding onto (note the odd sticker 'V.2' on the first one, and how they are both 'US VERSION' boxes with 'US' blocked out with pen):

Close-up of the sticker found on the one received today (15 JAN 2011) suggesting that it left the factory over TWO years ago (the first V.2 I received also has a sticker saying 2011 but I can't make out the month):

Underside of product box clearly stating 'V.4' despite arriving in a V.2 brown box:

While I was checking that, I noticed that the first one I received also said 'V.4' in this position, but they had covered it with a sticker:

Underside of wheel (still in plastic bag) clearly stating 'V.2' despite being in a V.4 product box:

The 'V.2' pedals still in plastic with the 'Redal' typo, same as my first set:

Closeup of the small brake spring with brown lubricant (compared to later versions with a double spring and white lubricant)

LogiForce's photo of his V.4 brake pedal spring as a comparison:

Ok... this post is already too long. I'm gonna PM LogiForce to see if he's willing to take a few more shots of the other aspects he said were improved on his V.4 so I can do further comparisons.

 

[mrbasher]

PLazarou,

Sorry man I feel for ya, I really do. I will send you my story via PM. It has not yet come to a close so I haven't posted about it publicly yet and may not actually.

It is my opinion at this point that someone will be extremely lucky to purchase a T500RS and get anything but a V2 or V3. It seems that Thrustmaster is liquidating their stock of V2 and V3, many places are simply out of stock and when they get new stock, they are V2 and V3. This seems extremely odd when you consider that people were buying V4's from local stores and online a year ago! V2 and V3 should be gone by now, replaced by new versions, but they are not.

It's been discussed here on numerous occasions, despite Thrustmaster stating that the only difference is the firmware, it certainly is not.

Best of luck my friend.

 

[PLazarou]

I'm hoping that if we can get enough clear images of the visible differences between versions, Thrustmaster might change their tune.

 

[mrbasher]

Well the fan alone is a major difference... The old fan is half the thickness.

I need a good photo of the motor from a V4 or V5... I have one of the V2. I have a suspicion that the motor is slightly different as well.

 

[sirlisterofsmeg]

You guys just scared the hell out of me.
Ran upstairs to check mine.
Ive only had it a few weeks and have yet to open it.
Box said V4
but checked the units just incase
Phew
Both wheel & Pedals are both V4.

Are there any different versions of the F1 wheel as i have just bought one of those as well.

 

[LogiForce]

You guys just scared the hell out of me.
Ran upstairs to check mine.
Ive only had it a few weeks and have yet to open it.
Box said V4
but checked the units just incase
Phew
Both wheel & Pedals are both V4.

Are there any different versions of the F1 wheel as i have just bought one of those as well.

All Thrustmaster products have a version number on them. My TH8 is a V1 and has a serial number saying it's unit 81 that came off of the belt.

Will go to work now for PLazarou

 

[mrbasher]

There's nothing to be "scared" of... We're just discussing the differences mostly. MANY MANY people have sub V4 and V5 and are perfectly happy with them.

 

[WildRun]

Preview: High-end GT Wheels (for T500RS or G25/G27).
http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/2324899.page

T500RS Adapter:

GT3 Wheel: (Preview Renders)
Featuring a 4.3" LCD touch screen display running Russell Hodgson's Z1 display software.

GT2 Wheel: (Preview Renders)
Featuring Leo Bodnar's (unreleased) Sli-F1 display.

GT1 Wheel:

All of the wheels will feature the following:
-6 Knitter Buttons, 2 Toggle Switches, and 2 rotary encoders with custom Aluminium knobs.
-Genuine carbon fibre face plate.
-Aluminium paddle shift units.
-Anodised Aluminium enclosure and wheel spacer.
-Wired USB Quick-release and wheel adapter.

Quick video of paddle shifters:

 

[LogiForce]

Here are the pics. Sorry it took a bit as I wanted to setup a Flickr account to try that out for once.

ps. The pics are clickable for bigger shots up to 2048 x 1360.

 

[oqvist]

I think there is only one revision on the F1 rim?

I got a V5 when they where on sale. Sale that dumped the prices some 40 % or something compared to the T500RS I find now! So it doesn´t seem like they are trying to get rid of any old batch over here but maybe the last? The cheap T500RS only lastedd some weeks or so.

So I guess I already have the new fan if my wheel and pedals say V5?

 

[LogiForce]

My Thrustmaster equipment...

Wheel: V4
Pedals: V4
GT rim: V4
F1 rim: V1
Shifter: V1

(as for the GT rim, I reckon it's equal to the base. Though I think they will have a sticker when sold seperately)

 

[PLazarou]

Nice photos LogiForce! I need a macro lens... will see if I can do some similar shots tomorrow in better light. To be honest I expected a bigger difference - the bare metal is still showing on the edges of the centre marker, something you pointed out as improved from the V.2.

You also noted that the rubber was more grey on the V.2 and that the V.4 looks more black. It certainly looks black in your shots, but that could be due to contrast/levels - it's hard to tell without a reference colour in the same frame.

The seams appear to be marginally smoother than what I'm seeing, but probably hard to demonstrate with images.

Anyway I'll return with pics soon!

 

[LogiForce]

Nice photos LogiForce! I need a macro lens... will see if I can do some similar shots tomorrow in better light. To be honest I expected a bigger difference - the bare metal is still showing on the edges of the centre marker, something you pointed out as improved from the V.2.

You also noted that the rubber was more grey on the V.2 and that the V.4 looks more black. It certainly looks black in your shots, but that could be due to contrast/levels - it's hard to tell without a reference colour in the same frame.

The seams appear to be marginally smoother than what I'm seeing, but probably hard to demonstrate with images.

Anyway I'll return with pics soon!

I used a: Nikon D90 + Nikon DX AF-S Micro Nikkor 40mm 1:2.8G + build-in flash and macro mode (tulip flower setting on dial)


About the edges of the marker. Yes, the cut edge is still showing bare. However, what I meant with the edge was the 2-3mm from the edge to center that was bare/very faded. Instead of painted like it is now it looked more see through like as you'd expect with very thinned water paint. It was a really thin and almost nonexistent layer with the darkest area in the center.

About the grey and seam... *uploads some shots*

Reference foto (source) is printed with a HP Color Laserjet CP1515N








Edit:

Some more shots I took with this combination for contrast comparison of the Camera+Lens combi.
Yes, I did all do this with the Nikon 40mm macro lens.

( DigitalRev Review of the lens here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSy8qvgbvG4 )

First a comparison between my 'Clubsport Porsche rim' for the CSW (without badge):


Second one of DSD's tilton pedals for the CSP's:




Other shots I once made in the past with the combination:

 

[guybo]

Those Reiter wheels are making my mouth water. I have looked at them in curiosity and they are expensive