GPL and my "H" gearbox

Thought you should know I posted a 1:13.11 with an "H" gearbox and a clutch. This was about the fifth lap of the run and it felt GOOD! Any doughtnut can race using paddles or a side shifter, plus it is totally nothing like the real thing. Try using an "H" shifter and a clutch for that authentic feeling. It's GREAT!

> Thought you should know I posted a 1:13.11 with an "H" gearbox and a > clutch. This was about the fifth lap of the run and it felt GOOD! > Any doughtnut can race using paddles or a side shifter, plus it is totally > nothing like the real thing. Try using an "H" shifter and a clutch for > that authentic feeling. It's GREAT! Where does someone get an H shifter for the PC? Trips

Sure...send an "H" gear lever over here and I'd be delighted to try it out. > Thought you should know I posted a 1:13.11 with an "H" gearbox and a > clutch. This was about the fifth lap of the run and it felt GOOD! > Any doughtnut can race using paddles or a side shifter, plus it is totally > nothing like the real thing. Try using an "H" shifter and a clutch for > that authentic feeling. It's GREAT! -- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/

I have been wanting to update my T2 with a clutch ever since the GPL demo came out. I have yet to find any good info on parts or wiring diagrams. What kind of setup do you have? Homemade? If so, how did you wire it? Please fill us in because I am sure others are interested in how you accomplished this. Thanks, Chris

x> Thought you should know I posted a 1:13.11 with an "H" gearbox and a x> clutch. This was about the fifth lap of the run and it felt GOOD! x> Any doughtnut can race using paddles or a side shifter, plus it is x> totally nothing like the real thing. Try using an "H" shifter and a x> clutch for that authentic feeling. It's GREAT! Did you built it by yourself ?? I have NEVER seen this kind of gear- box or even normal but equipped with a clutch !? Thanx in advance !! Also, man mailt sich... .\\atze [ FmMW2109 - FmMB2139 ] *home* : http://www.powerteam.de/ph/buesing/

Well, i'm not the orig***poster, but I happen to have a customer who is an electronic engineer. I spoke with him for a couple hours about the problem of an H pattern shifter for the pc. I gave the additional parmiters of being able to go from 5th to 2nd, or any gear to any gear in any order, and it would have to be able to retail less than $50. He was convinced that it wasnt a very difficult problem at all and we had some rough ideas on getting started. He also had a friend that builds prototypes of that sort of thing and had just done something somewhat similer for some type of powerboat racing. The hardest part was explaing the probem to him as I don't speak his (electronic) language very well. He thought you could easily get a purpose built chip made if ther was a enough to be ordered at a time, like several thousand. He really knows about this stuff and I would like to see someone like TSW take on the project as it would drive the new standard up for everone. He made me a sketch, but i'm to dumb to make much sense of it. Dave

I'd be interested in knowing more about the electronics of your H shifter if you'd be willing to share that info. I've built my own wheel , shifter, pedal & clutch system.... H shifter system is the next addition to my project. Thanks for your help. says...

> I'd be interested in knowing more about the electronics of your H > shifter if you'd be willing to share that info. I've built my own wheel > , shifter, pedal & clutch system.... H shifter system is the next > addition to my project. Thanks for your help. GPL needs to allow mapping of each gear to a different keystroke. Part of the problem here is the necessity of converting the non-sequential shifting of an H-pattern shifter into the sequential gear-change inputs required by todays sims. That is, if I'm in 5th gear on a straight, and enter a 1st gear turn, I hit the downshift button 4 times. With an H-pattern shifter, I'm just going to shift directly from 5th to 1st without hitting the other gears. In todays sims, some additional electronics will be required to convert the non-sequential shift to sequential inputs for the shifting controls. This isn't terribly complicated to do, but it would be unnecessary if a sim could assign a different keyboard input for each gear. For example, allow reverse gear to be mapped to the "Q" key, 1st gear mapped to the "W" key, 2nd gear mapped to the "E" key, etc., on through 6th gear. Then you could go directly from any gear to any other gear just using a keyboard. Additionally, this would allow those keystrokes to be triggered by the different positions on an H-pattern shifter, thereby eliminating the need for additional electronics. It would also allow for more positive and quick shifting. So, my point again is that GPL needs to allow mapping of each gear to a different keystroke. Any other new sims that come out should do this as well. Maybe even older sims (Nascar 2) could be patched to allow this. -- Pat Dotson IMPACT Motorsports

Pardon my ignorance (as well as for jumping in), but wouldn't it be easier to assign the functions using CMOS logic? This way, the electronic signals, in order to say shift 3-clicks down, would be precise, and wouldn't likely fail over the life of the unit... I'm sure we could find an IEEE amongst this group. =) Just a thought. Cheers! Marc > > This isn't terribly complicated to do, but it would be > > unnecessary if a sim could assign a different keyboard > > input for each gear. > This would be the best way to implement it. -- The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com * No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail * * To reply, change anti.spam.net to worldnet.att.net *

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> > For example, allow reverse gear > > to be mapped to the "Q" key, 1st gear mapped to the > > "W" key, 2nd gear mapped to the "E" key, etc., on > > through 6th gear. Then you could go directly from any > > gear to any other gear just using a keyboard. > If they do it this way then we could take the electronics out of a > programmable joystick(Ch throttle)and use inside the H-shifter.

Exactly. Or, better yet, if sims would allow you full flexiblity in mapping the gears to keystrokes, you could just patch the switches at each gear position on the shifter directly into the keyboard cable. That would eliminate the need for any other messy electronics, and all you would have are switches. But it would also eliminate any programmability in the shifter itself - a cheaper (and easier) to produce but less flexible device. This method would be simple if you were building something yourself. Yea, it's ok the way it is now. Maybe even more realistic for things like Indycars which actually do use sequential shifters. It's unrealistic for a Nascar or a '67 F1 car though :) I know about and use that technique, but how often do real- life drivers really do it? I'm sure that Indycar drivers especially do it often, but in every turn? I have to believe that there are many times they down-shift through multiple gears without releasing the clutch. In a car with an H-pattern shifter, I'd think they use that technique even less. Any RL race drivers care to comment? -- Pat Dotson IMPACT Motorsports

I think it's the opposite...The switches are the "messy" part, where the electronics would be miles ahead in terms of reliability and flexibility. The purpose of electronic cicuits is to eliminate the need for "messy" wiring. Another consideration is cost. CMOS logic is far less expensive than conventional wiring and switches. Also, the switch is the electronic equivalent to the weak link in the chain from the wheel to the system. Cheers! Marc > Exactly. Or, better yet, if sims would allow you full > flexiblity in mapping the gears to keystrokes, you could > just patch the switches at each gear position on the > shifter directly into the keyboard cable. That would > eliminate the need for any other messy electronics, and all > you would have are switches. -- The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com * No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail * * To reply, change anti.spam.net to worldnet.att.net *

Another method is to do it physically rather than via programming. Five micro switches for the 'UP' changing sequences, five for the 'DOWN' , etc. The 'UP' buttons are connected in parallel, as are the 'DOWN' buttons. Although the lever is moving through a pattern and activating each switch, it is really only switching one for the UP direction and ditto for the DOWN. Reverse would be a similar arrangement. -- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/

Making the stick press up and down buttons would not allow for skipping gears. The individual keys of a keyboard is a good idea (one key for one gear), but as long as they make it so the key MUST be PRESSED to get the gear. That way, no keys pressed can be nuetral. Of course, that would have to be configurable since I don't think you want to have to press a key with one finger and try and drive with the other hand. It would have to be for decoding purposes only. -- -------------------------------------

Who has time to*** with the keyboard when you're trying to brake, apex, then NAIL THE BASTARD. Wheel, joystick, gamepad my ass. Can't you guys click a button fast enough to put you in 2nd gear or 1st( good for starts ONLY ) unless gear ratios come into play ? More Canajan 2 cents ;-) = $0.05 American Steve

Oops... I missed a decimal $0.02 cdn = $0.005 usa

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> Who has time to*** with the keyboard when you're > trying to brake, apex, then NAIL THE BASTARD. > Wheel, joystick, gamepad my ass. > Can't you guys click a button fast enough to > put you in 2nd gear or 1st( good for starts ONLY ) > unless gear ratios come into play ? > More Canajan 2 cents ;-) > = $0.05 American > Steve

> GPL needs to allow mapping of each gear to a different > keystroke. this is a very good, quick and easy to implement solution... for the programmer:) But hacking out the innards of a programmable joystick to get a programmable h-shifter would be a bit difficult for all but a few hardward wizards out there. i've got a solution that is fairly simple for both programmer and hardware person. Using 3 of the joystick button wires, you can get 8 possible combinations: button 1 2 3 gear off off off neutral off off on 1st off on off 2nd off on on 3rd on off off 4th on off on 5th on on off 6th on on on reverse building a h-box to activate these certain combinations of buttons in each gear slot is dead simple. an advantage of my button technique is taht it lets the computer know that we are in neutral while we have the shifter out of gear. but this is probably easily done with the keyboard technique too? The downside is taht you only have 1 other button left to use on the wheel. If a game could be configured to use the usual way, programmable keys, or specifiable button combinations, then we could do which ever we want. I vote for the programmable button->keyboard presses technique though.... if only a wheel manufacturer would produce a programmable wheel! and to make it the ultimate sort of wheel, we could have detachable/swappable shifter units, so we could swap the h-shifter unit with a sequential unit when we're in our touring car sims. or plug in some paddles on the wheel for in F1. and a clutch pedal of course. and a plug-in hand clutch paddle, which would just be an analog paddle like on a GP1, for those of us who would prefer to use left foot braking while still having a clutch. or for in a motorbike sim or kart sim. etc. etc. and with really good FF too, of course:) not just resistance to turning the wheel, but the wheel itself should be able to move in and out, to simulate the chassis bumps of driving over a rough road. and ff on the pedals too... for proper brake fade, broken accelerator return springs, etc... man, this wheel would rule:) I look forward to an h-shifter someday. then i can go straight into reverse or 1st when i spin, or i can change directly into 1st while at full speed.... :) or even reverse! Shall we all get together and jump up and down at the wheel manufacturers and sim programmers to get something started?:) Grant Reeve. /feeling silly after that rant and rave.

Sorry, Dan, but I think you are thinking of drum brakes when you state that overheating caused them to fail. All of these cars used very efficient disc brakes and overheating as such was not a cause of concern insofar as brake opeartion was concerned. By 1967, F1 cars had been using disc brakes for 10 years. "Heel and toe" ,and also "double-shuffle" (or "double de-clutch") mean the same now as they did then. I still practise the method as one of my cars (circa 1966) has no syncromesh on 1st.gear and it's on the way out on 2nd.! Only by "heel and toeing" can I safely brake and make a smooth down-change at the same time. If the syncro was operative, there would be no necessity to "heel and toe" or "double de-clutch".

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> Then theres > the fact that the brakes in those days would stop working if overheated and > you have a very good reason to engine brake.The technique alot of the drivers > used back then was called Heel and Toe but its different then what it means > nowadays.Back then they would use their right foot to control both the brakes > and throttle.They had a really hard time as they had to double clutch and > blip the throttle every downshift.Hope this helped:) Dan

-- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/

Correction. That should have read "almost 10 years"! Cooper led the charge, in 1958/59, if I'm not mistaken. (Jaguar had introduced disc brakes several years before, on their Le Mans-winning 1955 cars). > By 1967, F1 cars had been using disc brakes for 10 years. -- Regards, Bruce. ---------- The GP Legends Historic Motor Racing Club is located at:- http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/legends/

> Your comment about FFB pedals has my head turning.Can you tell me > what you mean by that or were you just joking??I am thinking of adding some > sorta piston to the brake to add feel to it as right now that really annoys > me. well, if i was to want to model brakes properly, then there would haev to be FF on the brake pedal - so then i could do things like air bubbles getting in the brake lines and causing the pedal to go all soft and spongy, or even brake line failure where pushing the pedal results in no responding force at all. The only use for FF on the accel that i can think of is modelling the pedal return spring. then i could have that spring break one day and the accel pedal would just go floppy and cause hell trouble:) but that's getting over the top, so just FF on the brake pedal would be fine. Then people in the sim can sit there and fiddle with the simulated braking system to have larger brake cylinders, or more or less brake pedal ratio, and would get corresponding amounts of force and movement from the pedal. but using FF on the wheel and both pedals would allow for a very cool feature: when watching replays the wheel and pedals could turn/move themselves to match the replay! would that be weird or what? you could get some unknowing poor sod in and show them the "ghost that races cars on my computer" while pointing them at a replay. Grant

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> Who has time to*** with the keyboard when you're > trying to brake, apex, then NAIL THE BASTARD. > Wheel, joystick, gamepad my ass. > Can't you guys click a button fast enough to > put you in 2nd gear or 1st( good for starts ONLY ) > unless gear ratios come into play ?

Uh, no one wants to "dick" with the keyboard. The point is that allowing different keystrokes for different gears would make an "H" gearbox easy to design.

> I think it's the opposite...The switches are the "messy" > part, where the electronics would be miles ahead in terms > of reliability and flexibility. The purpose of electronic > cicuits is to eliminate the need for "messy" wiring. Absolutely true if you are talking about producing some considerable volume of these. I'm a mechanical engineer working in a sea of EE's, so I naturally think that electronics are messy :) I was talking more about someone home-building a shifter. The electronic design part would be far beyond the average person (the problem even stumped a EE that I work with). On the other hand, any mechanically-inclined person (with too much time on their hands) could yank some switches out of an old keyboard, mount them inside some kind of shifter, and patch the whole thing into a keyboard connector > > Exactly. Or, better yet, if sims would allow you full > > flexiblity in mapping the gears to keystrokes, you could > > just patch the switches at each gear position on the > > shifter directly into the keyboard cable. That would > > eliminate the need for any other messy electronics, and all > > you would have are switches.

> > GPL needs to allow mapping of each gear to a different > > keystroke. (clip)

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> i've got a solution that is fairly simple for both programmer > and hardware person. Using 3 of the joystick button wires, you > can get 8 possible combinations: > button > 1 2 3 gear > off off off neutral > off off on 1st > off on off 2nd > off on on 3rd > on off off 4th > on off on 5th > on on off 6th > on on on reverse

This is a great idea! It would work perfectly. As you said, though, using up 3 button inputs would be a drawback. You are right, I didn't consider neutral (not used to having it available). That will take another switch or two. Here is my idea - put a switch mapped to the neutral keystroke at each end of the neutral area. You would have to move the stick to one end or the other to actually trigger neutral (as seen below), but that shouldn't be to much of a problem, should it? 2 4 6 | | | | | | N-switch ==> ]-------------[ <== N-switch | | | | | | | | R 1 3 5 Options, options, options! That is what we need. GP2 was one of the best in this department. CPR was really bad, because of the limitations of DX5 I guess. (clip) It's possible to do now if someone can figure out the circuitry. It shouldn't even be that difficult. I'm sure they've already got something in the works. Hey Trev, how does you shifter operate? -- Pat Dotson IMPACT Motorsports www.impactmotorsports.com/pd.html

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> > > GPL needs to allow mapping of each gear to a different > > > keystroke. > (clip) > > i've got a solution that is fairly simple for both programmer > > and hardware person. Using 3 of the joystick button wires, you > > can get 8 possible combinations: > > button > > 1 2 3 gear > > off off off neutral > > off off on 1st > > off on off 2nd > > off on on 3rd > > on off off 4th > > on off on 5th > > on on off 6th > > on on on reverse > This is a great idea! It would work perfectly. As > you said, though, using up 3 button inputs would be > a drawback. > > building a h-box to activate these certain combinations of > > buttons in each gear slot is dead simple. > > an advantage of my button technique is that it lets the computer > > know that we are in neutral while we have the shifter out of > > gear. but this is probably easily done with the keyboard technique > > too? > You are right, I didn't consider neutral (not used to having > it available). That will take another switch or two. Here > is my idea - put a switch mapped to the neutral keystroke > at each end of the neutral area. You would have to move the > stick to one end or the other to actually trigger neutral > (as seen below), but that shouldn't be to much of a > problem, should it? > 2 4 6 > | | | > | | | > N-switch ==> ]-------------[ <== N-switch > | | | | > | | | | > R 1 3 5 > > If a game could be configured to use the usual way, programmable > > keys, or specifiable button combinations, then we could do which > > ever we want. > Options, options, options! That is what we need. GP2 was > one of the best in this department. CPR was really bad, > because of the limitations of DX5 I guess. > (clip) > > I look forward to an h-shifter someday. then i can go straight > > into reverse or 1st when i spin, or i can change directly into > > 1st while at full speed.... :) or even reverse! > It's possible to do now if someone can figure out the > circuitry. It shouldn't even be that difficult. > > Shall we all get together and jump up and down at the wheel > > manufacturers and sim programmers to get something started?:) > I'm sure they've already got something in the works. Hey > Trev, how does you shifter operate? > -- > Pat Dotson > IMPACT Motorsports > www.impactmotorsports.com/pd.html

Hi Pat, we have three different "H" pattern gearshifters in the works, not sure what one we'll go with yet though, next is the clutch for GPL :). Trev

> Well I am not a real life race car driver but I know alittle about > how they shifted gears in the GPL era.Now todays race cars actually > have airplane grade brakes coupled with heavy downforce and they > stop on the dime. If they had airplane-grade brakes, they'd be out of brakes by the end of the parade lap... Think about the constraints on "airplane-grade" brakes. First: lightest weight consistent with getting the job done. What's the job? Stopping the airplane A SINGLE TIME in a four hour period (or, in a 15 minute period for repeated touch-and-goes)... I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want airplane-grade brakes on MY racecar; on my airplane, now that's another story... ---Jim

> The only use for FF on the accel that i can think of is modelling > the pedal return spring. then i could have that spring break one day > and the accel pedal would just go floppy and cause hell trouble:) > but that's getting over the top, so just FF on the brake pedal would > be fine. Thrustmaster's way ahead of you on this one. They supported the feature you're asking for years ago with the original T1 control set... :-) (I have and enjoy using several Thrustmaster products, so NB the smiley.) ---Jim

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> When I said that peoples thoughts today on Heel and Toeing it is > different then what they did back then,I should of elaborated.Most > people that I hear talk of Heel and Toe think that the brake and > clutch is done with the left foot while the right foot only works > the accellerator.Back then the right foot worked both the brakes and > the accellerator while the left worked only the clutch.Maybe the > problem is that the people I know dont have any idea what Heel and > Toe really means:) Dan

H&T is *still* left on the clutch and right on throttle and brake. In many formula cars, you couldn't get your feet over to the pedals for the "other" foot without releasing the belts and getting out of the car... ---Jim