My friend Neil and I are working on a steering wheel /pedals set, (for
my use), and its coming along so good, we're thinking about marketing
it as a custom setup for sale.
(For people reading this in van.general, I'm talking about a
wheel/pedal control system to play racing sims on your computer).
So far, it isn't finished yet (since we're doing a lot of
experimenting, changing plans, etc), but its looking good - here's a
rundown of the features (I'll post a gif of the finished prototype in
alt.binaries.auto.simulators when its done):
- main material: aluminum (incl. dash, footpedal rests, etc.)
- small solid wheel (we are currently using a $150(!!!) short stock
wheel Neil had, but hope to find a more suitable, i.e., much cheaper,
copy in the near future)
- gear change flippers on the wheel (a la F1)
- four programmable buttons on the 4 corners of the wheel spider
(again, a la F1)
- a series of lights on the dash to show you which gear you're in.
- progressive resistance wheel and pedals
- full control of the car from the wheel (if plugged into a dual
joystick port)
- extremely solid design, desk mountable or under-monitor mountable
the finished unit will be brushed aluminum, so it looks totally cool.
Well, that's what we have so far - we've got the dash built, figured
out how to mount and activate the butterfly tabs on the wheel, and the
buttons, just started building the pedals, and so forth... this is
really a part time, garage type setup.
Now, as for why I'm posting this: we think we've designed a totally
responsive, fairly lightweight but still strong unit. Neil's worked
with machinery and computers for a long time, and he knows what he's
doing.... anyways, I'm posting this because I want to see what kind of
response there is out there to us selling this setup. We haven't set
any prices yet, but I can tell you, we won't even think of charging as
much as some of the other custom jobbies out there, like the TSW wheel
setup... we were thinking in the neighbourhood of $150-$200 US... with
a guarantee, of course.
Also, we would be very willing to build in custom features if any
buyer so desires (for an extra cost, natch).
After we build this prototype, we want to find one or two people, in
the Vancouver, British Columbia area to test out the next few systems
we build, so if there's any takers, just e-mail me to my address.
Also, I would appreciate it if the guys from Sim Racing News
(hopefully someone in the States or Canada - shipping to Britain would
be a pain) would consider testing one of the wheels at a later date,
more to help us in our R&D rather than to get advertising... thats
what we're really concerned with at the moment,,,
So, to sum up, I just wanted to put out feelers to see if anyone would
be interested in owning this system, and also to find a couple of
local, hard core auto sim drivers (preferably people who already have
wheel/pedal setups) to test out some of our early production models.
Thanks for reading through this!
Mark
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Mark Prince The WriteDesign Company
Visit my web page at www.geocities.com/SoHo/1301
