rec.autos.simulators

  Ok, now that the worlds greatest racing sim (GPL) is coming out I
finally have a reason to add a clutch pedal into that VERY vacant slot
in my T2 pedal assembly.  My problem is two-fold.
 1) I once heard someone used a pedal from their T1 and grafted it into
the T2.  Is that the  only sorce for parts or has someone managed to
order a third pedal direct from Thrustmaster? I don't have a T1 to
salvage parts from.

2) Once I secure the parts, have any of you out there successfully
re-wired a T2 to include a third POT for the clutch?

I've checked out Wally's World of Driving simulators (he has plans for
every type of homebuilt wheel pedal combo you could think of) but
unfortunately, he can't help me out with my clutch project.  I would
expect some of you GP2 guys have tried this seeing as that was the first
sim to include clutch support.  Can anyone help me?

Thanks,
       Chris

If it helps at all, I use the rudder control on my saitek combo.  I
programed the controls in the game to use the right rudder as the clutch,
and wow is it nice and smooth.  Good luck with that.

I believe the wiring will depend on the age of your T2. Mine is pretty
new and has steering on the one axis of joy1, brake and throttle on
the other joy1 axis. I seem to remember that some of the earlier
models had brake/accel. wired to a joy2 axis. Basically, what we need
to do is find a figure of the gameport's pins and wire the added pot
to an unused joystick axis. I'm sure this can be found at Wally's
site. I doubt that Thrustmaster included a lot of surplus leads in
their cables, so it will probably be necessary to use a new cable.
While I'm at it, I will also rewire gas and brake to use separate
axes.

After a short session of GPL, I will dissect my pedals and post new
findings here. If we stay in touch, I'm sure we'll be able to
customize our T2s.

[later]

Well, now that the parts and pieces of my T2 pedals are scattered on
my desk, I can see a few problems:

1) I was right about the spare wires in the cable - there are none.

2) There is a clutch slot in the plastic cover, but no corresponding
mounting holes in the metal base. A spare T2 pedal alone won't do,
we'll have to some creative metal working, too.

Suggestions from anyone who's been there before?

--
Wolfgang Preiss       \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

Uni des Saarlands       \ and U.S. law. You have been warned.

Hi :)

the other weekend i modified my T2 by adding a nice little switch
to split the pedal axiis at will, so i can probably give some
useful advice here:)
I've got an older T2 though, the one that required an adapter
because the pedals were on joystick2-x axis.
I've also added two gearshift buttons to teh wheel, and halved
the travel of the pedals for a) more realistic travel, and b) to
be much kinder on the springs.

yeah:( i was hoping to add a pedal one day but it's way beyond me
without any mounting points at all.
Since i use left foot braking it would be a pain to have to use
a left foot clutch too, so i was thinking of trying to add a hand
clutch, ala the paddles on a GP1 wheel. but I don't have a clue how
to make a hand paddle or how to mount it. there's some spare wires
in the cable for the steering unit though.

email me if you want to get down into the gritty technical details,
i'd like to help more people get their pedals split:) it's much
more realistic and feels much better when driving!:) and you can
do really awesome donuts in GPL with the brake and accel down hard:)

cheers,
Grant.

Trev

--
Wolfgang Preiss       \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

Uni des Saarlands       \ and U.S. law. You have been warned.

Grant.

Hi Grant,

I'm wondering how difficult it was just to split the pedal axis?

Did you need to run any new wires into the pedals or just rewire the existing?

I have replaced both pedal pots in the past and my guess would be that instead
of the two pots being wired in series as they are by default you would
just wire them independent +5v to each pot?

Please pass on the details to the splitting process, I think splitting the
two pots would eliminate much of the jumpiness I see in my pedal axis.

Thanks.

--John
--
*kludger AT zipcon DOT com*  | ICQ #7522564  contact me at:
  Seattle, Washington USA.   | http://wwp.mirabilis.com/7522564

I'll dig up the schematic for the pedal wiring for split axes and then create
a file to be emailed if someone would like it.  Just let me know

Alan