Cousin of OSW (Open Sim Wheel)

In one of the youtube video we can see how fast motor spins back. It looks good.

Just a question, how does the steering wheel stop at 900 °?
There is a mechanical stop or just the engine stops the steering wheel?

There is no mechanical stop, the motor is resisting movement

Hi! I'm very interested of how your simplified direct drive wheel works in more detail. I have had the same plans (using a brushed DC motor just for the simplicity) for a while now and search the internet and found this thread. I currently using a G27 which isn't too bad, but using it together with rfactor2 makes you crazy with the rattle sound from the gearing. So my question is, compared to a G27 (if you have tried one or another consumer wheel) how is the detail from loosing the back etc. And also the strength, In your video, it doesn't look that strong at all.

in the video it was running off a 12v 7 amp power supply

it now runs on a 77 amp 12v power supply

i have G25 wheel and its rubbish compared to this wheel

the downside of this project is its quite technical to get it working and there is not much support available on the wheelconfig program

I would much appreciate if you could post some video showing the strength/response. Driving over some curbs, some drifting etc. Do you know if this arduino solution is comparable with the MMOs solution? I have a leornado allready, but it seems that the most DIY projects are using the MMOs.

Thanks for your respond

Some more video with the test driver below.

I have drilled the front cover to let some heat out - you can now hear the motor vibrating with the pwm frequency.

I will try a different frequency to see if i can get the noise to dissapear

Thank you very much for that! I have study brushed DC motors during the day, and what I can understand, the power is constant regardless of the rpm, so lower speed equals higher torque. So the 250w version of this motor actually should give you about 8 Nm at 300 RPM. But I realize now that the heating could be a problem. My plan is to use 24VDC/30A to take full advantage of the power of the 250w engine. How did you fit the rotary encoder to the motor axle?

I am using a 350w motor - if i was to build a new wheel i would use a 450/500w motor and make it work at half power

to fit the shaft encoder what i did was open the motor and remove the armature - then remove the rear cover and drill out the centre with a drill, i then bonded a metal cap to the end of the armature and reassembled the motor.
a small stub axle now pokes out the back of the motor. A rubber pipe connects the shaft encoder and the stub axle.

as a test i reduced the ffb effect in the LFS game to 50% - the wheel seemed to give even better feedback and was still powerful when a bumped a kerb or crashed the car - not what i was expecting !

raising the PWM frequency to 20khz means you can no longer hear the high pitched noise


I also tried the wheel with a true 3 phase omron shaft encoder but it did not seem to allow the wheel to go into FFB mode, refitting the 2 phase encoder resulted in everything working again

http://www.slo-racing.com/forums/topic/2769-wheelcheck/

Should be interesting to see the results with your wheel

If I have understand it correct, the third phase of the encoder is just a index indication for zero position. So when ju turn on the controller, just must turn the wheel with your hands until the index signal are detected, than it should startup normally.

Attached are some pics of an old winch motor i had lying about.

This motor is 12v and well over 1kw !

It is a bit stiff to turn the axle by hand, it was removed because it was worn out.

It could be used as the basis of a DD wheel

However i am slightly concerned it could rip someones thumbs off !

Don't be concerned, most direct drive wheels are capable of breaking thumbs and dislocating wrists.

Just ordered this:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MY1...tric-Bicycle-Motor-E-Scooter/32749518337.html
1000w/36V = about 450w at 24V

that looks like a good deal

i am interested to try out one of the geared motors and see how much inertia it has

https://electricscooterparts.com/images6/MOT-36600PG.jpg

they are typically used on bicycles

I think the biggest problem with any kind of gearing is that you get some clearance and with that more or less rattling sound when your sim tries to emulate vibration. I have an G27 today, and when you lock your brakes in rfactor2 and get a flatspot you can't stand the sound from it. Now that I have already decided to go with the brushed motor, it isn't that important, but it had been interesting to see the results on your wheel with the Wheelcheck software.
https://www.xsimulator.net/community/attachments/wheelcheck_1_72-zip.43921/

Not knocking the passion for trying to do a DD wheel on the cheap, but I hope members do not expect too much from them, as unfortunately they will never have the resolution or power of a more suitably designed servo motor and controller/driver.

basically what we have built is a servo motor using a shaft encoder and a motor driver

the options are

1. build a osw
2. buy a decent ffb wheel
3. build a osw clone using a stepper motor (not sure a stepper motor is suitable for a ffb wheel)
4. build a osw clone using a dc motor

as long as we have enough resolution in the shaft encoder and the pwm output channel of the arduino we should be able to get good fidelity of FFB

however - i have not tried a OSW so i can't compare, hope to try one out back to back at some stage

Not hating on your project but, don't agree. There is more to it then just the shaft encoder resolution and simple PWM out of an arduino. People don't spend good money on specialised software/controller/drivers and Expensive Midge servo motors for nothing. If you ever get the chance to try a proper DD wheel, it will be obvious. If I thought I could get away with using a standard DC motor and controller/driver for a DIY DD wheel then believe me I would have and saved myself allot of money.

But what are the big differences then? Not that I am denying that for broad industry purposes a servo controller and servo motor are a safe bet. But for something with a specific purpose such as a dd wheel I think with the right encoder and right motor you can take that what makes the servo so great and duplicate that. All the other things that makes a off the shelf servo great are maybe not that important in a dd wheel. But if it is than maybe that can be duplicated to is what I think.

As soon as you add positional feedback to a motor it becomes a servomotor. the servomotors that you buy off the shelf are just packaged better.

1KW vs 450W/ ~$2500 $300 is the difference.

Apart from that the AC servo motor is better at positional control which is irrelevant in terms of FFB wheels. No brushes to replace, not as high currents to worry about. For the amount of shaft power an AC servo motor is cheaper and easier. Although directional changes are faster in an AC servo motor that advantage is negated due to the RPM of a DD FFB wheel being almost 0 (DC servo has higher inertia at higher RPM).

The ARGON drive that controls the MIGE motor can actually control DC motors as well as AC and BLDC.

I'm sure if you spent $600 on a DC motor and $800 on a motor driver I'm more than positive that you'll end up with a great DD wheel.

The bigger question will be how does the DC DD wheel feel in comparison with its price comparison i.e a G920/29 or a CSW/CSL Fanatec.