subjects. One of the sections deals with gaming, and one of the members
happens to be a Logitech employee. Over the last week or so he has been
very kind to divulge information about the upcoming G25 wheel. I have
been keeping an eye on the thread and snipping information that I think
R.A.S. would find interesting and composing it.
Now keep in mind I have no desire to get this fellow in trouble, so this
information has been edited slightly from its original content.
What follows is the snippings from the thread edited into a
Question/Answer type post.
***
Question : ...how powerful are the "high torque motors," because the
logitech one that came out around the time of gt4 didn't whip my arms
back into place like I would have hoped.
Answer : I'm currently working on putting together hard numbers, so for
now you'll have to be satisfied with generalities. The motors on the G25
produce a little more torque than the DFP's motor. However, since the
G25's force mechanism is a single-reduction gear set rather than double-
reduction, the inherent drag in the system is much lower, making the
forces feel stronger. This has the added benefit of making the wheel
drive much more quietly.
***
Question : Can Logitech make a set of pedals that don't suck ass?
Answer : We certainly tried pretty hard this time. They may not please
everyone, but they are significantly improved over our previous
products.
***
Question : Expensive. Why?
Answer : The features people want in a "good wheel" are expensive. This
thing has a significant amount of steel in it - not to mention a leather
wrapped wheel rim, shift knob, and shifter boot. It is expensive because
it costs a lot to make a good wheel.
***
Question : What I'm wondering is I've noticed in using the DFP for LFS
that maybe because I have the forcefeedback turned up but the wheel is
slower than hell to turn back around. I feel I really really have to
turn it quite hard in order for me to save my car sometimes. Does this
wheel do anything this? Also the pedals. I know you say they're modified
so they can sit on carpet and on a hard surface but that's bollocks. I
have tile in my bedroom and I spend a good portion of any race I run
with them trying to make sure when I press on the gas the damned things
don't go sliding away from me. How has that changed?
Answer : The stuff I mentioned above about single reduction vs double
reduction is the answer to your first question. The wheel turns much
more smoothly and quietly because it doesn't have two sets of gears to
go through, and the motors are only turning about half as fast as they
were with the DFP. From a practical standpoint, in LFS it is MUCH easier
to correct a slide than with the DFP, because you can turn the wheel
much faster.
When you turn the DFP really really fast it spins the FF motor at a very
high rate. Motors use electricity to spin, and spinning a motor
generates electricity. The drag you feel is partially the effect of
generating electricity by spinning the motor. Additionally, if you spin
it fast enough, you can generate enough to theoretically smoke
components on the board. Beyond theoretically - on the original Formula
Force wheel (the red rimmed one) one of our engineers found that he
could actually burn out one of the resistors on the main board by
turning the wheel too fast. So there is some safety circuitry in our
wheels that throttles the maximum speed the wheel can be turned so that
you don't break them.
The pedals have rubber feet on them - nothing particularly special. It
will help, though, that the pedals alone weigh approximately 8 pounds.
***
Question : How will the wheel be mounted on the desk?
Answer : The wheel has two clamp screws that are pretty similar to the
DFP's. It's a much smaller footprint left to right because the shifter
is on a separate module. It's similar front to back to the DFP. It's
much smaller overall than the MOMO Racing wheel. The shifter module is
about 1/3 the size of the wheel, but it does have a center clamp screw
kind of like the one on the MOMO Racing. This is to prevent tipping.
***
Question : Can you make a wheel that doesn't have garbage pedals this
time? I barely used my DFP and now I get the shitty brake calibration
error. For what they cost a problem like that shouldn't exist at all.
Answer : Okay - keeping in mind that I might be screwing up one or
another of the electrical terms, here's the best answer I can offer:
The G25's pedals use standard metal "can" pots and are designed such
that the pots should last a significant amount of time. There is no easy
way (you'd have to REALLY abuse them) to drive the pedals past their
maximum range, as the pedals bottom out with steel pressing against
steel. The pedals also have steel frames and arms that are held together
with shoulder bolts that are pretty precisely cut. The pots are not
connected to the pedal arm directly, so they will not receive any load
nor will they be subjected to excess stress during whatever torsional
movement you manage to put on the thing. The end result is that the pots
should not see the same kind of electrical spiking that would confuse
the autocalibration routine.
Last thing - pots WILL wear out, regardless of how well they're
protected and constructed. The G25's should be pretty easy to replace,
though, as they're a much more standard part and the installation is
much more straightforward than before.
***
Question : It's a sweet looking wheel, but as someone who drives a
manual transmission, I have to ask - why do pedals look like they're
placed almost equally close to each other(and pretty tightly grouped
too)? I mean, in a car, you have gas and brake pedals close together,
since you operate them with one foot, and clutch is farther to the left.
Answer : For reference, here is a picture of the brake with my foot on
it. The gas and brake are actually pretty close together - the clutch
is close to the brake by necessity - we couldn't make the pedals base be
wider without the product costing significantly more. The wheel is
currently set up for left foot clutch, right foot gas/brake and it works
pretty well. Additionally, we know a lot of our customers like to left-
foot brake, so we needed to maintain some space between them to
accommodate that.
***
Question : If I magically came across a G25 pedal set, would it be
difficult/impossible to replace my MOMO pedals with it? Are the
connectors entirely different, or perhaps just USB which would allow me
to plug it into my PC instead of passing through the wheel first?
Answer : If you are talking about the MOMO Racing (black) wheel, the gas
and brake should work. The clutch will not. If you're talking about the
MOMO Force (red) wheel, they are not complementary connectors.
***
Question : Is this a worldwide release? Or will Europe get a delay
again?
Answer : It will release worldwide simultaneously. It can sometimes take
longer in Europe for products to get from our warehouse into shops,
though, so it may seem like it's being delayed there.
***
Question : I know it's a bit of a stretch, but I'd really like adustable
resistance on the pedals. With my old red MOMO wheel I did the ol' "put
a squashball underneath the lever thing on the brake pedal" so the brake
pedal didn't feel super loose. I understand that this would be hard to
impliment, and i think it's in the more expensive BRD pedals and such -
but is there any fesabile way this could start coming into mainstream
wheels/pedal sets?
Answer : The resistance isn't adjustable per se, but we're working on
getting a spec sheet (white paper) out that will allow people to spec
their own parts and change them out for performance that is preferable
to their playstyle. Additionally, the potential to put a hard rubber
insert in the brake is certainly present - it's just something that we
would be hard-pressed to provide a warranty on due to the type of
stresses that it would face. You won't consistently get a million cycles
out of a rubber column, so we really can't ship something like that.
Also, obviously, doing stuff like that voids your warranty, so do at
your own risk etc etc.
***
Question : Wow ... thanks a ton for all this info and for basically
getting Logitech to make a wheel that is finally aimed at the people who
actually play racing games. It'd be awesome if while you guys maybe
didn't actually warranty the wheel if you make changes to it, but offer
some of the white-spec parts yourself for people who want to change
their wheel characteristics.
Answer : We're probably not going to be in the business of selling
replacement or modified parts, as encouraging people to do things that
will void their warranty is very much not the way we do business. That
being said, we'll probably have some basic specs on our own parts
available, and we do know that people like Frex and ECCI have a lot of
fun playing with our stuff...
***
Question : (No question, just an 'update' post)
Answer : There is a gear that connects solidly to the pedal arm, the pot
is attached directly to the pedal frame, and a gear slips over the
pot shaft and meshes with the arm gear. There is also a coil spring on
the pot gear that pre-loads it by pushing against the bottom of the
pedal frame. This means that there is no slack or backlash in the
mechanism, as well as no load on the pot shaft other than in the
direction it was intended to take load (i.e. around the axis of the
shaft). All of this means that the pedals should be MUCH more accurate
and reliable than before, and that replacement of the pots, should it
become necessary, should be much more straightforward.
******
MRSisson
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