Silly(c)One's first 2DOF SCN5 racing sim

By any chance, do anybody know where to find ball joints with an M10 1.25 female thread for the top of the SCN5 ? I only could find rose joints with this thread size, and the misalignment angle of the rose joint is far smaller than the ball joint's...

Hi
i had the same problem.
The only manufacturer I could find is this one
JJ Bearing in China!
So I found a DIY solution


Made out of a pair of coupling bars from an VW for 12€ both
and a screw tap for 10€. Never had any need for m10x1,25.
There are more Pics in my Gallery!

Works great, no backlash, smooth and enough angle alignment.
But be careful when welding, immediate cooling is recommendet!

regards
kai

Hey guys,

you should find everything you need here ... got mines on usa website...

http://www.misumi-europe.com



Bleco

Thanks guys... Eventually, with the correct angles, the rose joints are working fine.
Bleco, I couldn't find ball joints on the site you indicated though.

Anyways, I've been messing up with the arms angle, length, height and dampening. I ended up with similar angles than Bernard's, just with a smaller footprint... Which is what I had before starting over
The only thing that changed significantly was the strength of the dampening. It was way to soft, so the SCN5s were doing rebounds when going fast in any direction, putting unnecessary strain on them, and giving too much bouncing for the driver : in Dirt2 with Nima/Chris profile, at 500 acceleration on the SCN5s, it was almost impossible to keep the feet on the pedals !
Since everything is better adjusted, the range of movement is more limited (less fun) and more subtle (better brain clues) giving a much more efficient feedback and thus allowing for better driving performance :clap:

But just before I thought I had it right, my Fanatec 911 Turbo S started nagging me
The centering is completely loved up from the start, and after 15 minutes of any game, the calibration is off by 30 degrees to the left... unplayable and VERY frustrating : it took months and hundreds of euros to get the motion sim working, just to loose the wheel

The GT3RS v2 is out of stock and not available till january, but.... Thomas from Fanatec just announced the availability of their latest wheel, the GT2.
It's nothing more than a Turbo S with the GT3RS Alcantara wheel (and a sober color ), and it's gonna be available before Christmas (crossing fingers).
I ordered one so I can drive again sooner than waiting for a repair of the Turbo S, and as I'm going to build a second motion sim for my brother (I'm moving in with him in our late parents house so we can do LAN motion sim racing at home... gggg), the 2 wheels will be perfect.
I tried the G27 I had before the Turbo S, but I can't drive with that anymore, the gears are noisy, there's a bad deadzone and absolutely no smoothness like a belt driven FFB wheel. Once you taste quality, the only way is up... Too bad Frex is out of stock on their SimWheel

The t.amp S150 arrived last week, and it's definitely much better than the cheap ebay amps. At 2/3 of the power on both Bass Shakers, the whole room is shaking !!!
Now I'm waiting for some electronic components to build a power supply for the Aura Interactor amp that will be used as a filter between the soundcard/DAC and the t.Amp to get the sound of the games on one shaker (like a ButtKicker Gamer) and X-Sim on the other. Which is no problem for the t.amp coz it's a dual channel mono amp and the Aura Interactor filter is also mono.

Cheers,
Silly(c)One.

Hi,
...
you should find the parts on misumi web site but I agree that I had a hard time finding the correct part when ordering from their US website...

Too bad for your wheel ... Fanatec products are very appealing but doesn't seem to be very reliable ... I just got my shifter set yesterday after 2 months of waiting (back order) ... and guess what ... the H-gate shifter is defect and I really don't understand how the issue with it was not detected at testing process as the problem is obvious ...


Bleco

I do believe their products are reliable, but they are victim of their success. The company is too small for the amount of wheels they produce. Most people are absolutely delighted with their wheel, and of course we only hear of the unlucky ones, but ANY item produced by human beings will have a percentage of defective units... And once you can get a hold on someone from Fanatec support (that can take a few weeks), they'll do everything they can to satisfy their client base.

But it's true also that some Fanatec items aren't on par with their wheels and clubsport pedals, like the shifters and standard pedals. That's why we (the Fanatec fanatics ) have been waiting for the clubsport shifter announced by Thomas a few months ago... I bought the RS Shifter 2006 from Act-Labs to replace the H-shifter, but after a while, I'm back with the Fanatec one that I modded to be silent.

What's the issue with your H-gate shifter ? It's quite easy to open and check out the problem without voiding the warranty (there are no sealing stickers to prevent the opening).

Otherwise, are you happy with your wheel ? Is it a GT3RS v2 ?

Silly(c)One.

I opened the shifter the same day ... did not notice anything I could repair ... Issue is that some gears (1-3-5) can be detected when at neutral position making it unusable ... The thing I don't understand is how this unit passed the quality tests as the issue is obvious ...

My wheel is the gt3 rs v2 ... I like it for it's leather and force feedback and also because of the adjustment you can do directly on the wheel. But I do prefer the G25 wheel design and grip (hands position)

Bleco

Did you calibrate the 7 gears, because I had the same probleme on my gtr3 rs v2 I reveived last week.
I downloaded the documentation to do this on the fanatec website.
I am very happy with this H shift.

Nicely spotted !!!

It's true that you have to calibrate the H-shifter the first time. I had forgotten that but the same happened to me, Bleco
The procedure is in the manual.

Hi,

Yeah your right ... Fanatec support send me the solution this morning ... Feel stupid now!! :thbd: Like I said to them after solving the issue, here in Quebec we call these issues 'Code 18' (Stupid user error) !

One thing they should do however is to add the calibration procedure in the box when packing the shifters set ...

Thx for the replies!


Bleco

There is still some work to do in the Fanatec customer service department, no doubt about that, but eventually, their products work beautifully.
After you get used to your GT3RS, I can assure you won't miss your G25... Initially I felt like you and prefered the feeling of the G27 over my Turbo S, but after a few hours of driving the PWTS, I couldn't go back : the G27 has an horrible dead zone, it's noisy, the FFB lacks totally of finesse and you can feel the shock of the gears when the FFB changes direction...
All that is perfectly normal when you take into consideration the production prices of both wheels : Logitech sells the G27/pedals combo through dealers that make a lot of money on distribution, while Fanatec sells its products directly to the customer to keep prices down. My approximation was that the G27 wheel should cost between half and a quarter of the price of the PWTS to produce (depending on the licensing costs of the PWTS to Porsche and Micro$oft). I opened the G27 and no secret there : engineered to be cheap to build and reliable enough to be put in the hands of kids and console racers. The Fanatec line of belt driven wheels are no toys...

On the good news front, Fanatec gave me 2 for my birthday (yesterday ) : first they'll send me a brand new PWTS in replacement of my defective one, and second, it appears they have got a very small batch of GT2 for the EU to be shipped before january, and I've been quick enough to order the wheel : it has been shipped yesterday

I had installed temporarily a Thrustmaster F430 in my rig in order to drive a bit and to keep testing X-Sim. I also renewed my subscription to iRacing for a test, but it's the worst sim to test with a cheap wheel after a Fanatec one. Nevertheless, the quality of the physics engine is really something else... Too bad they are mostly based on the american view of motorsports, lacking the finesse of european cars (GT, DTM, etc) and diversity of tracks (what is it with all those oval circuits ??? I guess it's much easier to laser scan but come on guys !).
Hopefully they'll change that in the future... or rFactor 2 better have the same level of physics and track scanning techniques

Here are 2 pics of the actual configuration of my sim :



- I painted the arm covers in red,
- changed the rose joints to ball joints on the SCN5s end,
- added 2 pieces of alu profile behind the dampening bar to prevent it from moving too much,
- tidied up and gained both SCN5 power and RS485 cables,
- switched the RS485 adapters to smaller ones that only do USB<>RS485 (no RS232 : the less components, the less possible interferences, like in HiFi audio),
- covered the RS485 adapters with foam for protection,
- made a new wheel support in 18mm MDF with a cut out on the left for easier entry in the sim,
- integrated the arcade keyboard PCB and my DIY handbrake in the wheel support,
- installed the base on 6 silent blocks for the vibration (but will remove them as it moves too much, to be replaced by a 175x80cm MDF board to add weight and structural stability to the base)
- and last but not least, adjusted the geometry again.

The most important dimension to get right is definitely the position of the pivot relative to the seat.
I tried with the pivot more to the front of the seat, and that was a real torture for the actuators, and now with the pivot much more to the back of the seat, I can feel in my back that they have to support much less load and they now balance me from left to right and front to back effortlessly (and thus also much faster !)
They are also much noisier due to the speed, but that's a good thing for my peace of mind
Now I have to finely tune the Profiles to get the clues I want and the less arcady feeling possible.
I tried the sim with NFS Shift (unmodded, all aids off) and hated the horrible physics and unrealistic car specs : the motion is fun but not much of a driving tool... But maybe the problem is in the wheel itself (Thrustmaster F430). I own the game a chance with a Fanatec wheel and modded physics (and a real car, because a Lambo with 1000 BHP, come on !)

To be continued.

Feel free to comment as usual
Silly(c)One.

Hey!,

your sim is looking very good. nice work ;-)

The only thing I miss about the G25 is the wheel design for it's better hand positionning... that's all!

Also the Fanatec shifter sets feels great, I love it!

Forget about Shift ... I spend so many hours trying to ameliorate this game without success ... Maybe Shift 2 will have better physics.

I agree with you about iRacing and lack of road courses ... I never race oval courses and Nascar cars ... But it should not be very simple and cheap to travel around the world to laser scan race courses... They still have some interresting courses like Road america, laguna seca, Silverstone, lime rock, Road Atlanta and the upcoming Spa ... One thing I can't wait is their new tyre model ... The actual tyre model really needs ameliorations on certain aspects, I have the impression of driving on ice with summer tyres sometimes ...

Recently my subcription to iRacing ended and did not automatically renew ... So I took some time to re-discover rFactor on my new 47'' lcd (definatelly have to update my sim thread) and what a nice sim ... Currently racing with Serie Internationale du Mans 2.77 by CNDG, one of my prefered mod and I am having so much fun. In rFactor you wil find either very poor mods and tracks or fantastic ones and it's presently my prefered sim ... Can't wait for rFactor 2 which looks already very promising!

Link to mod download:
http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cf ... 0Du%20Mans



Cheers!


Bleco

Thanks
Still a few things to add... I'll definitely build a small PC for X-Sim Profiler : many games need adjustments on the fly and Alt-Tab just kills FFB in many of them...
I have a C2D 1.8Ghz CPU, some DDR2 ram and an old 17 LCD from previous PCs that I'll use with a micro ATX mobo in a small cube case that I have to buy still. The SCN5's PSU will fit in the CD drive bay (51/4) and the case itself fits at the back of the sim.

Yeah you're probably right... when I started the simracing crazyness around 6 months ago, Shift was really fun, but now that I spent many hours in GTR Evolution, rFactor and iRacing, the lack of decent physics is impossible to forgive. Especially with good gear and a motion sim !
So thanks for the tip, it'll save me quite some time

Yes they have some nice road courses indeed... I don't think it's a matter of price for the travel, seen the price of the subscription and the tracks, and they did Silverstone and Spa... I really think it's Dave Kaemmer bias towards Indianapolis and NASCAR that is the issue here. Though with time, it can only improve... I'll only be really happy the day I can drive a GT car (Porsche or Ferrari would be nice) or DTM on the Nordschleife so I guess in the long run, rFactor 2 will be closer to what I'm looking for. I really like the community efforts with the beautiful mods that can fulfill any taste, and I'm not sure to feel at home with the iRacing community.

I didn't know this mod... Looks terrific, I'll give it a try... I haven't touched rFactor for some time, waiting for the 2, but now that I'll have my Fanatec wheels back and ditched Shift, rFactor here I am :
One day soon, I'll have to do some online racing with fellow X-Simers on rFactor too !

Oh one last news for my sim, I just bought an MDF board (18mm) to add weight (hence stability) and rigidity below the base frame (175 cm x 80 cm). Tomorrow I'll paint it black to stay in tune with my colour theme (black/red/alu) and drill it for the M8 screws and B-nut.
I'll post more pictures once the GT2 is installed, early this week I hope :clap:

Cheers,
Silly(c)One.

Damn snow... The GT2 was announced by UPS to be at my door today between 9am and 7pm... Waited all day for nothing :thbd:

I received also word from Claudia (Fanatec) to say my replacement 911 Turbo S has been shipped today :lol: Busy week : 2 Fanatec wheels 8)

I ordered a micro-ATX mobo along with a 450W PSU and a trackball for the X-Sim Profiler PC. I initially planned to get a cube case and stick the SCN5 PSU in the CD bay, but the best one was a Lian-Li in red aluminium for more than 120€ so I'll build it in MDF and paint it... black or red ? I guess both

I also painted the pedal plates of the CSP in red like my SCN5 covers...

En rouge et noir !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvYAnsH0gEA

En rouge et noir, j'exilerai ma peur ;
J'irai plus haut que ces montagnes de douleur,
En rouge et noir, j'afficherai mon cœur ;
En échange d'une trêve de douceur,
En rouge et noir, mes luttes mes faiblesses,
Je les connais, je voudrais tellement qu'elles s'arrêtent ;
En rouge et noir, drapeau de mes colères,
Je réclame un peu de tendresse.
: : :

The GT2 arrived yesterday and is for my own rig... Damn I love this thing ! The Alcantara is wonderfull, and I had forgotten how good was the Fanatec FFB ! I'm a happy simracer :clap:

And UPS dropped the replacement of my Fanatec 911 Turbo S this morning :thbup:
It's destined for my next motion rig (I'll try wiper motors this time) for my brother and is mounted on the Fanatec Rennsport Wheelstand with the G27 pedals set.

I'm rediscovering Dirt2, bought netKar Pro (20€ for such an amazing sim, it's incredible... that's even less than a bundle car+track on iRacing...)
If I succeed in making it work with X-Sim motion, I think that iRacing won't be paid next month... Especially if Kunos keeps up with the updates : soon we'll have amazing weather effects, even an historical GT car, an official hill climb track, and I have found most F1 tracks converted for nkP (Spa, Silverstone, Suzuka, Le Mans, Monaco, ...)
Moreover, 2011 will be a brilliant year for us simracers : rFactor 2, GTR3, Dirt3... :yippiee:

A little pics update...

With the MDF board painted and fitted :


Side view :


The brand new Fanatec Porsche GT2, simply gorgeous :


The Clubsport pedals painted quickly in shiny red :


The T.Amp S150 from Thomann for the bass shakers :


And the new place for the second bass shaker :


Next steps :
- mount the button box,
- build an MDF case for the X-Sim PC (should be there next week),
- start working again on the dashboard Arduino code,
- make tests with 7 segment digits to integrate them in the dashboard,
- build a dashboard in MDF for the gear indicator, speedometer and rev bars,
- mount my old Logitech 5.1 speakers on the sides of the wheel,
- wait for the equalizer with subwoofer support from ebay.us and use it between the game PC sound card and the T.Amp for the bass shakers,
- probably many other details I can't think of right now.

All that while building floors and walls in my late parent's house in which I'll move in early next month... doesn't leave much time for racing

As always, feel free to comment !
Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it :

Silly(c)One.

nice work your sim is great!!! : happy christmassss

Just in time for Christmas!

Why would you want a wiper motor rig when you have the SCN5's?

Because I don't have another 2000+€ to build another rig for my brother...

Moreover, it will be a great exercise for electronics (Tronicgr's solution) and TIG welding as I intend to build the frame in steel.

I'd love to start a company in Belgium to sell my own motion rigs as there are no cheap options available (I couldn't find anything below 3000€ and that's a Frex SCM from Japan...), so this will be a step in my R&D : I'm curious to see if a wiper motor rig can be reliable enough to be sold, in which case I could lower the costs by a few hundreds euros. (those damn SCN5 are the best but are too expensive here in Belgium)
My other solution would be to try those Nema23 RS232 motion controllers (http://en.uirobot.com/robot-archive-a-354.html) but I don't know how I could buy just a pair for testing... Though I think Bernard may have ordered a few, I'll have to check with him...

Happy New Year, crazy fellow xsimers :

I wish you all the best racing motions for the year to come :clap:

On the sim front, I received a box of springs from ebay that I intend to use as a belt tensioning system. I couldn't find much information on the forum though, apart from quick mentions of it from Mike and Bernard. I think I'll use 3 or 4 springs per side, still studying the mounting system. Good thing there is a thick MDF plate under the base now !

New hardware update, the motherboard for the X-Sim Profiler PC arrived and is installed in my old Sonata mid-tower case with an old Core2Duo 1.8Ghz and 4GB of DDR2. I just have to fit the SCN5 PSU in a 5 1/4 drive bay for a cleaner cable management. The case seems huge for the micro-ATX format so it'd be better in a cube case but enough spent for the moment as I also just ordered my gaming PC :yippiee:

Here are the specs of the new monster (in expectation of the triple screen setup) :
- Overclockers.co.uk's Krypton Intel Core i7 950 @ 4.00GHz Overclocked Bundle
[
CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz
Motherboard: Asus P6X58D-E (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: Corsair XMS3 (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel
Cooler: Corsair A50 CPU Cooler
]
- PSU: OcUK 650W Dual Rail Modular PSU
- Gfx: HSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 (2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort)
- HD1: SSD 120GB Big Foot (3.5 standard HD size)
- HD2: Samsung EcoGreen SATA 2TB

That should do it for the DX11 sims of 2011 :mug1:
Initially, I chose the 6950 because it was just a bit more expensive than the slightly faster 5870 which should die sooner than the 6950, and by the time I can afford the triple 42 HD setup, it will have dropped of price and I'll just have to add a second one in Crossfire to have all the power needed and some more to run anything I want in 5000+ horizontal resolution 8)
Though just now I stumble on a terrific post (AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod) that changes everything as the 6970 is faster than the 5870 already... I'll have to test it alone with 3 screens first to see if the second one is needed after all.
The choice of an overclocked bundle is new for me. I've been building my PCs since the 386SX-16 (1990) and overclocking them since the Pentium 75 (1994)... But I got tired to spend hours and hours and hours burning the CPU and changing voltages in the bios by 0.05 increments, not even counting the randomness of the operation : get a bad series CPU and your whole overclocking config is useless
This time, all I have to do is plug and play... literally
It's a welcome change as I prefer to spend time hacking my sim and driving than running Prime95 for the 10.000th hour... Life is too short and is spinning fast !

I still have no case for the SimMonster though. I have spent enough for the PC already and could only afford 1 new case.
Either I put the Profiler PC in a shiny aluminium cube case behind the seat right below the SCN5s, and the SimMonster in the Sonata next to the sim, or I leave the Profiler PC in the Sonata behind the sim and I get a nice Lian Li mid tower aluminium case with window, in which case I'd setup a single rad watercooling unit for the CPU with some UV lighting (yeah I know, it's cheap, but cleanly done, it's kinda neat and everything is in stock from previous machines 8) )

No matter those superficial design considerations, I'll be happy to work with a dedicated PC for X-Sim as it is going to make the profile adjustments much easier... and in game ! Great comfort addition for such a small upgrade (a small motherboard and PSU.) Hmm, I know, I know, sirnoname and the team expressed it many times in the tutorials, manuals, etc. Somehow I have to hack my own way through things to understand them :

As usual, feel free to comment :hi:
Silly(c)One, 2011.

Hi Silly(c)One

Thanks for the info on modding the 6950 to a 6970 Here in the UK the Sapphire 6950 is almost £70 cheaper than the 6970 :

My bass shakers arrived yesterday, so I am looking forward to giving them a test today. I have acquired two Audiolab 800px power amps, each one is 2 channels at 100w rms per channel. They are very heavy and should drive the bass shakers with ease. The only problem is that they only have a power button and no gain/volume controls at all, so no I need to source a preamp or better still a Berhinger 2x 31 band graphic EQ like this little chap

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Behringer-FBQ3102 ... 2149wt_907

I need to tidy up the workshop and make a sturdy base for my new pillar drill this morning before continuing with my alloy chassis (now back from welding).

I still would really like to use scn5's but can't afford them at the moment, I have sourced a number of 24v and 12v motors so I am going to see if I can use them instead.

Have you driven a motor based sim? and if so how was it compared to your scn5 based setup?
Even with the motors given to me, I still need to spend £200 - £300 to build a motor based setup, I know the three scn5s will cost me a great deal more, but I ultimately want the best performing rig I can get. I can't help wondering if I should just wait until I can afford the scn5 actuators.

One last thing, I really hope you have a great 2011. I am lucky to still have both of my parents, my thoughts are with you.
I can find another wife in the future (not sure if I ever want another one though :no: )

Happy new year

Deaks