Thrustmaster T300 Calibration Issues

[tinker]

I'm about to begin the process of (attempting to) repairing a T300 which refuses to calibrate and generally behaves as described here and unfortunately many other places.

My progress so far is to download the good write up @Wiaderekk made and take apart the wheel. The good news - I suppose - is everything looks fine inside the wheel housing. Less fortunate is, nothing looks broken or misaligned, I expect the next step is to go ahead and disassemble the motor. and try glueing the magnet.

A couple of questions

• Do you recommend cleaning the hall-sensor and other parts to see if this fixes the failing to calibrate issue, before diving into glueing the magnet
• What kind of glue have you used to fix the magnet on the rotor - I have some two-component epoxy from another project
• Do you recommend updating the T300 firmware before/after calibrating the wheel, or not at all
• Is there a newer version of the calibration tool than v3.00 from 2015/16

So far it has been great to follow this thread and learn from your experiences. Will let you know how my attempt at a repair goes.

 

[asteroulis]

With some patience the motor will be better than new after you close it!

1. It won't hurt , so do it anyway
2. 2 part epoxy glue is what I use. Just be carefull not to put any on the outside of the magnet , because it may get in touch with the coils. What I do is mix the glue on a paper or something , and then with a toothpick get some and slowly pour it over the previous one. Also make sure you cover all the disk inside . Then let it dry for 15 minutes or even more before turning around to do the other side.
3. No reason to do this.
4. No that's it. Open the software and then plug in the usb, WITHOUT steering wheel attached!

Good luck!

 

[tinker]

With some patience the motor will be better than new after you close it!

Thanks for the tips. Super cool.

 

[tinker]

Just a quick progress update. The motor disassembly and epoxy glueing went fine, I think.

Disassembling the motor and and getting the cap off, while being careful not to warp anything and cutting that pesky black wire at the bottom of the pcb was a bit fiddly as many of you have spoken of.

@asteroulis. Thanks again for your tips. I hope that I can tell you everything is working fine tomorrow.

 

[tinker]

Works!

I completed the assembly of the wheel, recalibrated and had a good go on some of the "hot" wheel action on Sardegna and some laps on Nordschleife. Everything went well. The motor got quite hot.

Letting everything cool down, reconnecting and rebooting the PS4 over a number of times, all seems to be working.

Thanks a bunch everyone, without your experience and tips this would not have been such a success

 

[Eric Gen]

Hi tinker, glad to hear it worked for you!

If you've seen my previous posts, I tried to go the extra mile, even removing the rotor magnetic core and damaging it in the process.
I superglued the bigger broken pieces, my reasoning being that even if it doesn't work, I don't have anything to lose at this point.

I used industrial strength glue, designed for bonding of cylindrical fitting parts, which takes ages to set, so I'm at the waiting stage right now.



Anyway, it seems that I may have been overthinking this, and a simpler gluing process might have been sufficient.

I'll report back when I've put everything together.

 

[tinker]

If you've seen my previous posts, I tried to go the extra mile, even removing the rotor magnetic core and damaging it in the process...

I'll report back when I've put everything together.

Indeed I did read and learn from your experience with the fractured mag-core. I probably would have done the same thing.

I ended up filling the indentation at each end with epoxy. I kept the rotor vertical filling each end to ensure an even distribution.

Maybe you could do this step while waiting for the core to cure? - at least it gives more surface to the bonding.

While reassembling. The two things I found most fiddly was realigning and soldering the pcb inside the motor and fastening the motor end-cap.

Looking forward to seeing more of your progress.

Hals und beinbruch!

Note:
Getting ready with the last round of epoxy.

 

[Eric Gen]

I've put the wheel back together, and tested it both on my PC and PS4, and it works!

It still feels a little 'laggy', but the ffb is back, and it calibrates normally so far. I've activated the forced cooling mode, and I played a couple of hours of GT sport, and although the motor went eventually quite warm, I didn't notice any ffb loss.

So, all in all, this has been a successful process, as the wheel was practically unplayable before, and now hopefully I can get plenty more hours of sim racing out of it!

 

[tinker]

I've put the wheel back together, and tested it both on my PC and PS4, and it works!

Cool! Good to hear.

Wonder where the lagginess can come from? When all was taken apart here, I tightened the drive-belt somewhat, - at least a bit more than before the motor repair. My perception is that the wheel is more responsive, but mayyybe that's just my mind playing tricks

 

[Eric Gen]

Well, I did discover another issue with the wheel when I opened it up. The casing for the shaft was cracked, which I assume happened when the wheel was failing to calibrate and was banging from stop to stop.



So I decided to investigate further, and didn't like what I found...



I contacted Thrustmaster about it, and they told me I should send it in for inspection and repairs, for the cost of £130, plus shipping from me to them. I argued that I did all the inspection that needed to be done, and I would just like the replacement part thank you very much, but, as expected, they ignored it and insisted that I send it in.

So my options were, try to source a replacement part somehow, or attempt to glue it.

I searched the internet far and wide, but couldn't find anything. I contacted a couple of 3d printing companies, about the possibility of reverse - engineering and then printing it, but they quoted me around £500 - 600 for it so it was a no go.

Next, was getting my hands on a broken T300 on ebay, and extracting the part. I was hoping I could get one for £30 max, but here in the UK for some reason, they sell for £80 - 100. I'm assuming that people in the know are buying them in order to fix the motor (as we did), and sell them for double the price.

So my last option was to try and glue it. My internet research told me that the gear was made out of polyoxymethelene, a thermoplastic which is ridiculously hard to glue. Nevertheless, I managed to find a combo of superglue and primer, which was supposed to work well with POM, and I glued it. I let it cure for 72 hours, just to give it the best chance of bonding.

Sure enough, with the wheel put together, the first moment it calibrated the gear snapped again! So, all that work for nothing.

Surprisingly, the wheel is still very playable, and as I said above, it is way better than it used to be, so I count it as a success!

 

[Andysan]

Certainly glad to hear that so many people have had success repairing their wheels. Far better than them ending up in landfill and from my experience is a very satisfactory feeling indeed.

Nice work all!

 

[Daz555]

Well, I did discover another issue with the wheel when I opened it up. The casing for the shaft was cracked, which I assume happened when the wheel was failing to calibrate and was banging from stop to stop.

View attachment 992934

So I decided to investigate further, and didn't like what I found...

View attachment 992935 View attachment 992936 View attachment 992937

I contacted Thrustmaster about it, and they told me I should send it in for inspection and repairs, for the cost of £130, plus shipping from me to them. I argued that I did all the inspection that needed to be done, and I would just like the replacement part thank you very much, but, as expected, they ignored it and insisted that I send it in.

So my options were, try to source a replacement part somehow, or attempt to glue it.

I searched the internet far and wide, but couldn't find anything. I contacted a couple of 3d printing companies, about the possibility of reverse - engineering and then printing it, but they quoted me around £500 - 600 for it so it was a no go.

Next, was getting my hands on a broken T300 on ebay, and extracting the part. I was hoping I could get one for £30 max, but here in the UK for some reason, they sell for £80 - 100. I'm assuming that people in the know are buying them in order to fix the motor (as we did), and sell them for double the price.

So my last option was to try and glue it. My internet research told me that the gear was made out of polyoxymethelene, a thermoplastic which is ridiculously hard to glue. Nevertheless, I managed to find a combo of superglue and primer, which was supposed to work well with POM, and I glued it. I let it cure for 72 hours, just to give it the best chance of bonding.

Sure enough, with the wheel put together, the first moment it calibrated the gear snapped again! So, all that work for nothing.

Surprisingly, the wheel is still very playable, and as I said above, it is way better than it used to be, so I count it as a success!

You could try cutting a thin groove around the broken part so that you can use a twist wire to tie it and prevent the parts separating. Maybe even enough room for a zip tie?

 

[Zvnewcomer]

I have attempted the fix by pulling the motor apart.

However when attempting to put it back together the magnet and brass bushings are no longer where they should be and nothing is aligned properly.

Does anyone have a diagram that gives measurements of everything on the shaft? or possibly a center core that they can measure for me by chance?

 

[Eric Gen]

I have attempted the fix by pulling the motor apart.

However when attempting to put it back together the magnet and brass bushings are no longer where they should be and nothing is aligned properly.

Does anyone have a diagram that gives measurements of everything on the shaft? or possibly a center core that they can measure for me by chance?

I'm not sure how far you went with disassembling the motor, or what is not aligning properly.



If you got to this point, the silver metal shaft needs to be glued to the black magnet cylinder (it's the relative movement of those pieces that creates all of the issues in this case).

Once you are done with that, you can put the whole assembly back to the casing.



At this point ^ , it's not going to be aligned yet, and the magnet is going to stick on the sides of the casing. That's normal, as it is the cover that houses the ball bearing and aligns everything.



Once you put that back in place, and assuming that it wasn't deformed when you opened it, everything should align properly again.

Hope this helps, if not, maybe you can post a picture of what is not aligning and we'll try to help.

 

[Zvnewcomer]

The shaft moves in the magnet housing and caused the two brass bushings to move as well. Now nothing lines up just right and the hall sensor magnet is too far away from the sensor pcb

 

[Eric Gen]

Still struggling to understand what you mean. The fix is that you should glue the shaft in the magnet housing so it doesn't move relative to it.

Unless you mean that when you glued it, it wasn't in exactly the same position as it was before, in which case you probably have to go back and try and reglue it to the correct position.



This is what I did, which is roughly how it originally was (I may have missed it by a few mm), hope it helps.

 

[Zvnewcomer]

Sorry I suck at explaining.

Everything moved somehow. So I need the measurements for the numbers shown. The distance from the ends of the shaft to the bushings, and the distance from the end of the shaft to the magnet housing.

Sorry again for the hand drawing. At work currently lol

 

[Eric Gen]

Ah ok, I see what you're trying to say. First of all, I don't have any measurements, and my motor is already installed and working so no chance of measuring it... But I'll try and help with references to the photos I took when I attempted the fix.

(lvl 9000 ms paint )

I didn't think you could move the brash bushings (1), and even if it is, it's unlikely that you moved them by accident, as there's no force applied to them at any point during the disassembly. If you are positive that you moved them, then maybe the photos above could serve as some sort of reference for moving them back to the correct place.

If not, then we come to the positioning of the black magnet cylinder. As you can see in the second photo, it should sit equidistantly to the silver cylinder thingies (2), so that the distances A and B are roughly equal. This will ensure, (assuming that 1 was not moved, or you managed to put it back in place), that the magnet is sitting at the right place in the motor.

Now nothing lines up just right and the hall sensor magnet is too far away from the sensor pcb

If you've put everything back together, and the motor is turning freely, that means that the ball bearings and the cover are aligned properly. If at this point the hall sensor magnet is sitting a few mm further than it used to be, that is fine, mine was the same but the wheel is working perfectly ok. If it is more than a few mm, then it is possible to remove the black plastic that holds the hall sensor magnet (but carefully because it is glued, and it's very easy to break), and glue it back a few mm higher so it sits closer to the pcb.

 

[KBOne]

Does anyone know where to find a complete motor? The one on Alibaba is unavailable. Nothing on eBay either.

 

[Andysan]

Does anyone know where to find a complete motor? The one on Alibaba is unavailable. Nothing on eBay either.

Hey

eBay item 274865469419 has been pulled from an actual unit by the looks of things.

There's a thread here with some similar motors being discussed as recently as the past week - perhaps one of them is worth a go -

 

[KBOne]

Hey

eBay item 274865469419 has been pulled from an actual unit by the looks of things.

There's a thread here with some similar motors being discussed as recently as the past week - perhaps one of them is worth a go -

Thanks. Looks like the motors from the Reddit post is unavailable too. I'll just keep checking often. They are bound to stock them at some point.

 

[Eric Gen]

Does anyone know where to find a complete motor? The one on Alibaba is unavailable. Nothing on eBay either.

I strongly suspect that the ones on Alibaba are reclaimed motors from faulty units, then someone went through the same process as described here to fix them. Most of the pictures have the exact same markings that I made when trying to open mine.

So I recommend to give it a go, and try and fix your motor. Mine is still going strong, and it survived a couple of endurance races on pretty hot days.

 

[Andysan]

I strongly suspect that the ones on Alibaba are reclaimed motors from faulty units, then someone went through the same process as described here to fix them. Most of the pictures have the exact same markings that I made when trying to open mine.

So I recommend to give it a go, and try and fix your motor. Mine is still going strong, and it survived a couple of endurance races on pretty hot days.

I put an Alibaba unit in my T300 and it's been going strong for about two years ever since, although I can only vouch for my own experiences so you may be right.

I seem to recall asking the seller and then saying they were pulled from decommed air con units or something.

 

[Eric Gen]

Sure, given that I managed to fix mine, I expect that even if I'm right and the Alibaba motors are refurbished, they should be perfectly good for a long time. Maybe even better than the original motor.

I was just pointing out that, since they're probably not brand new, and given the unavailability or the long wait times when they're in stock, it's well worth to try and fix the one you already have.

The guide in this thread is pretty good, and if the repair is successful, the motor is likely to be as good, or even better than the 'new' ones on Alibaba.

 

[Satomethi]

This part looks great. I also have two of this (also the pcb with the hall sensor). And I have changed it, but no result.

Hello, i have the same issue. Do you solved it?

 

[zaraza1]

Hi there, maybe anybody can help me.

I have also a broken T300RS here. I have tried to repair it with all the known solutions, but nothing helped.

After that, I have bought a second broken T300RS and also a brand new motor.

On the Video you can see, that the Motor can not rotate (the same is during calibration process). But if the Wheel is power less, I can rotate motor without any problems.



Many Thanks for your help.

Hello
I have a similar problem, but when I drop the belts, the engine turns properly.

I took the motor apart and the magnet sits stiffly.

Sorry my english is bad.

 

[zaraza1]

Hello, i have the same issue. Do you solved it?

Have you solved this problem?

 

[gytunio]

Hello
I have a similar problem, but when I drop the belts, the engine turns properly.

I took the motor apart and the magnet sits stiffly.

Sorry my english is bad.

Hello,
maybe you solved the problem?

 

[ekosan]

I accidentally broke the glue on the motor shaft while re tightening the belt. but thanks to this page, managed to reglue the magnetic core to the shaft and it works even better than before

 

[thomppaa]

Thanks for this great thread 👌
I repaired my motor with help of the pdf and my T300 rs works better than from the factory 😁 Thank you very much 😊