It seems that Thrustmaster is soon to expand its direct drive wheel options with something a little bit different, as it’s teased a “direct axial drive” unit today.
Thrustmaster currently only makes the PC-only T818 as a direct drive base, and it’s been talking about bringing new products to address that for a little while now. However a document released to newsletter subscribers today has gone into quite a bit more detail over what we can expect — and when.
It’s a pretty tech-heavy treatise — even the title, “Direct Axial Drive: Unveiling the Next Generation of Direct Drive Wheelbases“, is on the wordy side — but the upshot here is that Thrustmaster is pursuing a radically different technology from every other direct drive wheel out there.
Essentially it comes down to the orientation of the components of the motor. Every DD wheel around uses a “radial flux” design, with the shaft acting like the rotor of a motor and turning inside an array of powerful magnets surrounding it which act as the stator.
Thrustmaster’s notion is that this design has shortcomings, primarily through an effect called “cogging”. This is due to a force exerted perpendicularly to the shaft through magnetic flux as the rotor turns, leading to a tendency for the wheel to resist or enhance turning by a very small amount.
The “axial flux” design works differently, by placing two sets of magnets on the shaft around a stator so that the magnetic flux is parallel to the shaft and all-but eliminating cogging. It also means that the device can be much smaller, lighter, and more efficient — although Thrustmaster concedes that heat build-up could be more of an issue but adds that it has worked with an unnamed partner which created a solution.
This radial vs. axial design also has parallels in the motor industry where the majority of EVs have radial flux motors. However British company YASA has been creating specialist axial flux motors for use in high-performance hybrids like the Lamborghini Revuelto and Koenigsegg Regera, with double the power density of a radial flux unit.
At the moment we don’t know much more about what Thrustmaster has in store other than the fact that the wheel is set for a global reveal on Friday October 11. Watch this space for more!
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