DD-Wheel with Hoverboard Motor

Does anyone here know how to prevent the encoder to miss steps?

I use the BLDC FFB Wheel Firmware. Most of the time it works great. But when i do fast abrupt turns it looses steps.
Like turning wheel to the left, than abruptly turning it to the right.
I felt it 4 or 5 times in games, sometimes more sometimes lesst heavy.

Today i installed Assetto Corsa and at the FFB Wheel calibration screen is an indicator where your Wheel position is. I reset the wheel to the middle, than tried the abrupt turning many times in a row. Without letting go of the wheel, the indicator reched the left virtual end-stop of the wheel. This goes in both directions.

To be sure i marked the gear on the encoder and the encoder shaft.
Also recorded both gears (encoder + motor) in slowmotion to be able to see if the gears slip.
No slipping of gears.
No slipping of the encoder shaft.

So it has to be software or even a broken or bad encoder. I use an incremental encoder with a 600 p/r.
CPR is correctly calculated and set in the configuration software of the firmware.
With a gear-reduction of 4, CPR should be 9600 right?

600 * 4 * 4 (gear reduction) = 9600

Is there a way to check if it is the encoder? I bought it of amazon and perhaps it's cheap encoder and is just not good enough?!

I use ODESC 3.6 with brake resistor (50 w 2RJ) and the Encoder.

Hello all!

Finally jumping in on the hoverboard DD base. Got myself a hoverboard, still not sure about specs for it. Going to order a ODESC board & encoder somewhere next months. I have two questions:
-for the software, who do I need to contact, and will he/she openly provide the software?
-for the power source, is 24v/15A enough for the motor to put out 10Nm(on a usual F1 wheel size), and if so, do I need to use a brake resistor?

Thanks so much! I will monitor my progress here, if that is okay for the topic.

Hey, I am still a bit new but to date build the Wheel, Pedals and also Seq.Shifter+Handbrake.
So I do know a bit and would like to answer your questions

1. For me the best working Software (using ODESC 3.1) was the "BLDC-FFB-WHEEL" Firmware.
Link: https://github.com/o-devices/bldc-ffb-wheel/tree/master
You don't need to, but you should contact the dev. Because there are important Settings which need activation.
He needs the Device-ID, shown in the Software, and if you ask nicely he will give you a Key to unlock all features for free. I did donated some money, but I did try the software for almost a week after he gave me the Key.
Other Firmware+Software didn't work for me. You can't use the original oDrive Firmware and I couldn't manage to get another run. BLDC-FFB-Wheel worked right out of the box. Just had to fiddle around with the settings.

2. 24V / 15A is more than enough! Believe me!
I have a 19V / 3.4A Power Supply and run the Software at only 30-40 %.
I tried 50-60 %, but that is REALLY hard to drive with! Those Hoverboard Motors are so strong!
I am sure, with a good PowerSupply you can easy make quiet past 20Nm!!
I had a Logitech G29 Wheel before that and it has NO TORQUE compared to this motor at only 40% Power Output!
And yes you need a brake resistor. There are ways without it, but afaik they are not as easy of a setup.

I bought this ODESC, which has a brake resistor and nice thick cables included.
It was here (Germany) in like a Week and was pretty cheap.
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DdvEMlD

@SaltyEddy
Thank you!
This is valuable information.
I have an offer locally for such a power source, so I think I m going for it.

Yup, I think I m gonna order the same ODesc. I saw that there is V4 available, but I m not sure if anyone got it working and I m not in the position where I can test.

Are you using the resistor which came with the board? If yes, have you experienced supply trips?

Thanks,
Paul.

Yes I am using the resistor that came with the ODESC.

I had power supply trips when i had the output power in the Software on 60% or higher.
But only when i crashed and the wheel was spinning like crazy. Like when i let go and it spins back and forth 1-2 times really fast and "hard". Than i had trips. But for me that's not a problem because with more than 40% I can't play games for really long so i didn't bother to change something.

Today my racing-wheel from Aliexpress came and it's a bit heavier than my 3D-Printed "test-wheel".
So PERHAPS now 40% OutputPower won't be enough. But I think it will still be sufficiant enough.

I'll see later today ^^

What method did you use to mount the encoder? I m thinking machining a shaft to extend on both sides of the motor. On one side mount a quick-release, and on the other side mount the gear reduction mecanism for the encoder.

Thanks,
Paul.

I 3D-printed everything. Encoder and Wheel-Mount, Gears and stuff.

I have a Blog where i documented everything.
There are also pictures. On Part 2 is a good picture which shows the mount pretty close-up.

https://diy-blog.org/2023/08/23/diy...ck-lenkrad-aus-einem-hoverboard-motor-teil-2/

Edit: First I had a 4:1 reduction, which actually was to fast for the encoder and I hat "skipped" pulses when I turn the wheel to fast. Which happened quiet often in Dirt Rally 2.0.
I changed the reduction to 2:1. That fixed it for me.

I was actually looking for an all-in-one tutorial for this project, this is an awesome post, thanks so much !
I might follow one-to-one your journey, but mount the encoder north-side of the wheel.

Oh nice !!!
I am really happy to hear that

I actually made this tutorial because there is not a single, even somewhat, detailed tutorial for this project.
Not on YT, not here, Discord not anywhere else.
And I did search for at least a week as I was waiting for my ODESC to arrive.

For questions, just write me here or make a comment in one of that articles i wrote.

I also did some changes.
- Made the Frame of the Wheel much shorter
- switched the pedals to inverted orientation
- got my wheel today and will mount when the Adapter is finished printing
- designed a sequ-Shifter + Handbrake for a Xbox One Controller (this came out pretty nice and good working!)


I will make a Video when of everything when its ready. Probably tomorrow

I saw on your blog post, you mount your wheel to the base using, essentially, friction. Did that ever slip?
I am thinking of drilling the front side of the engine and running some bolts. I also want to use a cheap chinese quick-release.
I used to be in a Formula Student team, so I know we had some F1 style steering wheels fabricated from 3 mm thick carbon fiber that were thrown. Maybe I'll ask them if I could have them.
Thanks for your generosity and help!
Hopefully we will meet on some virtual race tracks soon

Nope, never slipped. I had to modify the big Adapter part because my wheels "rim" was a bit deeper than what this Adapter was intended for. I ended up redesigning the whole thing and making it about 5 mm deeper. It fits snuggly now.

I also was worried if it would slip, but it never did. I even marked both parts to be sure. The markings never moved at all.

hehe perhaps. I am mostly driving Dirt 2 and Assetto Corsa right now. I like Rally and drifting.
Thats why i want a round wheel.

I will send the ordered wheel back because it looses its color. After about 30 min in Dirt 2 i had black hands.

Don't buy cheap fake-alcantara wheels from AliExpress ^^

Hello all.

Today I received my hoverboard, proceeded to dismantle it, and it looks like it is in good shape (fun thing, they used 12.9 grade bolts for the motor shaft mount, that is impressive)
Also ordered my power supply, ODesc board and encoder.
I guess next thing is to figure the gear reduction mechanism and print all the remaining parts.
@SaltyEddy how did you print those double helical gears? Does it make a big difference in the noise of the gears?
Thank you,
Paul.

I designed them in fusion 360 with an plug-in someone made. You just type your numbers and it generates what ever you want. Normal gear, helical gear, double-helical gear. It's a nice tool.

I printed the gear on the motor in PLA and the gear on the encoder in TPU. This way I can't really hear it while gaming
I chose double-helical gears because they are self-aligning. Never had a slip or skip with them till now.

Hey guys im probably sorting out the last things to finally make my diy wheel work.
Im having problems with my encoder, as i can only make it count positive or 'up' even if IRL i turn it clockwise or counter clockwise. I have not tried to use external pull up resistors because i dont have any 1k-10k in home so i need to go buy some, i think this is a must with my type of encoder as it is a open npn and not a push n pull, i have tried using some internal pull ups but they are too high (100k). any tips?

Hey, I have made DD wheel using hoverboard motor, rotary encoder, original hoverboard controller flashed with Eferu Foc firmware, stm32f401 controller which is flashed with EMC firmware, and I'm controlling it with RC PWM signal. My question is why I cant feel road curbs, or road bumps, only thing I can feel is really big bumps and a car if it starts drifting etc. I tried turning of filters in Eferu firmware, but it only gives the wheel shaking, oscillations etc. how can I fix this? I saw someone remove some filter caps on the unused side of hall inputs to handle higher pulse frequency from encoder, but I don't really know how to do it.. Thanks for the help

I saw some people use encoder directly connected to this motherboard instead of hall sensors which gives very nice precision, but I don't really understand how to achieve this..

Hi all,

I finally assembled my wheel with Odesc board. I have shared cad files for cog wheels for encoder and motor, and encoder bracket for the stock hoverboard base, here : https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...verboard-motor-wheel.14454/page-2#post-241871

I am having some issues in game with the wheel: At +-15 degrees(from 0), the wheel acts as it is supposed to do, after that, i am getting large cogging in increments of 20 degrees maybe ? Also, the wheel does not account for road feedback(self aligning characteristics of the wheel)
I have not unlocked the hardware tab yet, waiting to see if i get an answer , to mess with encoder setting.
Anyone have some tips ?

Thanks,
Regards,
Paul.

Hi Paul, which game did you test it in?
Unlocking premium features in the software helps because you have to at least setup the encoder ppr correctly to make it work right.

Also: my odesc started to act weird and it got worse and worse over time.
Now I can't play one minute without it acting weird.
It reverses force feedback direction and varies in ffb strength out of nowhere...

I ordered a mks odrive for 70 €.

Others also said they have problems with odesc :/

Hi Eddy,

Well that is bad news, we might want to convert to the real deal soon

I did not expect to get a response, but the person responsible with the serial key is very fast Many thanks if you see this. Indeed, my issues was related to encoder CPR, it was set waay to high, i reduced it to 4800, as i have a 600 ppr encoder and a gear reduction of 2. Now it is fine.
Now, i wonder if the GPIO pins on the Odesc will accept buttons, i would like to quickly wire some shifters to it