Homemade FF

I built a wheel from plans on "Lou's Wheels" at http://www.monmouth.com/~lw4750 several years ago for GP2. It's been very sturdy and precise. I e-mailed Lou recently about the possibility of trying to add force feedback to a homemade wheel. Lou's would like to do it, but needs technical info. I agreed to try a few posts for him and gather info. Anyone with technical knowldge on FF who would like to participate please contact me. To be honest, I don't know if this is even possible, but hey why not try :-) Remove "edy" for e-mail response. Thanks Steve

Hi Steve, I built a wheel with the help of Lou and Walt Ottenad, and it works great. I too, would like to add FF. I understand the basic principles, but like you need more info. Perhaps you already know this, but as I understand it, FF works by the game sending information to a board on the controller, which activates electric motors to move the controls. I'm sure there wouldn't be too much difficulty in setting up motors and linkages and so on. The main problem here is that your controller requires a digital component, in order to cope with the info from the game, and software to drive it. This is where it becomes more complex for people like me with relatively limited electronics knowledge. What we need is an electronics boffin who is willing to part with their knowledge. Somewhere, some time ago, I found a site with detailed information on the subject. I'll see if I can find it again and give you the URL. Meanwhile, I hope you get some more responses, hopefully from tech-heads who can help more. But hang in there, I'm with you on this. Glenn

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> I built a wheel from plans on "Lou's Wheels" at > http://www.monmouth.com/~lw4750 several years ago for GP2. It's been very > sturdy and precise. I e-mailed Lou recently about the possibility of trying to > add force feedback to a homemade wheel. Lou's would like to do it, but needs > technical info. I agreed to try a few posts for him and gather info. Anyone > with technical knowldge on FF who would like to participate please contact me. > To be honest, I don't know if this is even possible, but hey why not try :-) > Remove "edy" for e-mail response. > Thanks > Steve

Why not just buy a cheap FF wheel, say those refurbished Saitek wheels, rip out the components and jury rig them into your system. That way you have the circuit board (including the processor that runs the FF) for not too much of a cost burden and then can go about setting up the linkages, etc using parts, etc or even layout from the production wheel. > Hi Steve, > I built a wheel with the help of Lou and Walt Ottenad, and it works great. > I too, would like to add FF. I understand the basic principles, but like you need > more info. > Perhaps you already know this, but as I understand it, FF works by the game sending > information to a board on the controller, which activates electric motors to move > the controls. I'm sure there wouldn't be too much difficulty in setting up motors > and linkages and so on. The main problem here is that your controller requires a > digital component, in order to cope with the info from the game, and software to > drive it. This is where it becomes more complex for people like me with relatively > limited electronics knowledge. What we need is an electronics boffin who is willing > to part with their knowledge. > Somewhere, some time ago, I found a site with detailed information on the subject. > I'll see if I can find it again and give you the URL. > Meanwhile, I hope you get some more responses, hopefully from tech-heads who can

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> help more. > But hang in there, I'm with you on this. > Glenn > > I built a wheel from plans on "Lou's Wheels" at > > http://www.monmouth.com/~lw4750 several years ago for GP2. It's been

very > > sturdy and precise. I e-mailed Lou recently about the possibility of trying to > > add force feedback to a homemade wheel. Lou's would like to do it, but needs > > technical info. I agreed to try a few posts for him and gather info. Anyone > > with technical knowldge on FF who would like to participate please contact me. > > To be honest, I don't know if this is even possible, but hey why not try :-) > > Remove "edy" for e-mail response. > > Thanks > > Steve

Chris, that's would help me, but the idea was to have Lou post instructions on how to do it on his web page so anyone who build a wheel could add FF to it. We suspect the cost of the FF components is low so adding it to a homemade wheel should be relatively inexpensive. Still, we could get a refurbished one to maybe see how it works. >Why not just buy a cheap FF wheel, say those refurbished Saitek wheels, rip >out the components and jury rig them into your system. >> > Remove "edy" for e-mail response. >> > Thanks >> > Steve

Sure, the components are cheap when they are produced enmass. However, this isn't just a circuit board thats thrown together, the FF wheels/joysticks/et al all have a microprocessor to that handles how the device acts. Its that processor you are going to have a hard time reproducing. > Chris, that's would help me, but the idea was to have Lou post instructions > on how to do it on his web page so anyone who build a wheel could add FF to > it. We suspect the cost of the FF components is low so adding it to a > homemade wheel should be relatively inexpensive. Still, we could get a > refurbished one to maybe see how it works. > >Why not just buy a cheap FF wheel, say those refurbished Saitek wheels, rip > >out the components and jury rig them into your system. > >> > Remove "edy" for e-mail response. > >> > Thanks > >> > Steve

I've been building my own wheels for a number of years now (see my site at http://www.gunpowder.freeserve.co.uk/wheels ) and I agree with Chris. There are several aspects to be aware of here. Many FF wheels don't use the game port at all because they don't use normal potentiometers. They use a digital position sensing system because, as well as being very accurate, the FF process needs to know the postition of the wheel/stick at all times so that the required FF effect can be applied appropriately. The processing of the FF commands received from the PC is done by a microprocessor built into the wheel. This in turn links to stepper motor driving circuitry which operates high torque stepper motors, via gears, cables or belts, to move the wheel. What I'm trying to say here is that a FF wheel is quite a complex and specialised piece of electronics and is therefore not something that the average builder can just knock up at home. The best option, in my opinion, is to buy a cheap FF wheel (I recently bought a Trust FF wheel for 55 GBP) and attempt to integrate the guts of it into a homemade wheel unit. If I ever do that with my Trust FF wheel and my own homemade wheel I'll put details of the outcome on my site. Cheers...Mark

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>Chris, that's would help me, but the idea was to have Lou post instructions >on how to do it on his web page so anyone who build a wheel could add FF to >it. We suspect the cost of the FF components is low so adding it to a >homemade wheel should be relatively inexpensive. Still, we could get a >refurbished one to maybe see how it works. >>Why not just buy a cheap FF wheel, say those refurbished Saitek wheels,

rip >>out the components and jury rig them into your system. >>> > Remove "edy" for e-mail response. >>> > Thanks >>> > Steve