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Author Topic: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.  (Read 54961 times)

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BadMouth

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Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« on: July 12, 2011, 10:05:57 pm »
WARNING: Hacking a potentiometer based wheel is infinitely easier.  It's just a matter of swapping out the pot.  When hacking an pc wheel that uses optical input, the physical stops must match up exactly with the stops in the controller config menu on-screen.  Unless you have the ability to machine adjustable stops, this is easier said than done.  I eventually got it worked out, but I could have been done a month earlier and $100 cheaper if I'd just hacked a potentiometer based wheel.

Rather than add to my old adventures in wheel hacking thread, I'm starting a new one so people won't have to wade through my gear counting and bad math.
If anyone is interested in how I got to this point, that thread is here.
This thread covers newer wheels that use an optical encoder.  Older potentiometer based wheels are easier to hack, but are getting harder to find and their ffb isn't always supported in newer games.

First up, the Logitech MOMO Racing (not to be confused with the older red Logitech MOMO wheel)
I'm yet to find a game that doesn't support force feedback with this wheel.  Some reviews of Sega Rally Revo claim it doesn't, but it works fine for me.



So.....to recap, the problem with hacking newer wheels is that they use a geared optical encoder instead of a potentiometer mounted to the end of the steering shaft.  Even if you managed to attach the encoder wheel to the end of the steering shaft, because of the gearing, you'd have to rotate the wheel many times to get one rotation on screen.  The solution is to use an optical encoder or encoder wheel that will send more cycles per revolution to the wheel's board.  The goal is to get a 1:1 ratio between the physical wheel and the one on the screen.  In the case of the black MOMO Racing wheel, after counting teeth on gears & slots on the encoder wheel, then testing with wheels printed on inkjet transparencies, I figured this to be 900 cycles per revolution.

EDIT:AFTER GETTING EVERYTHING SET UP WITH A HAPP WHEEL, WITH A 900CPR ENCODER, I WASN'T GETTING FULL ROTATION BEFORE HITTING THE ON-SCREEN STOPS.  I BOUGHT SOME TOOLS FOR TESTING AND REALIZED THAT I NEEDED AN 800CPR ENCODER.  AN 800 CPR ENCODER WORKS PERFECTLY WITH THE MOMO AND HAPP 270 DEGREE WHEEL.  (NO ADJUSTING OF THE STOPS NEEDED)

A cycle consists of one slot and one leg on the encoder wheel.  Be careful, different manufacturers use the term resolution in different ways.
Some use the term to mean cycles per revolution, some use it to mean the total number of slots and legs combined, and some use it to mean pulses per revolution (4 per cycle).  Make sure you know what you're ordering.

You can print your own encoder wheel on transparency paper (it will need to be huge), but I went the expensive route and bought a small, self contained optical encoder with a 1/4" shaft because it could be swapped right in for the potentiometer on the arcade wheel.

Just cut the wires going to the opto board on the MOMO wheel and match them up to the pins on the encoder.
(The 1.14v wire will go unused)




For the MOMO board to calibrate properly, you need to have stops in place that correspond to the stops on screen.
(in other words, the wheel must be restricted to 270 degrees)
With the 800CPR encoder, the stops on the Happ wheel line up perfectly with the stops on screen.
If the onscreen wheel can move past the onscreen stops, the wheel will get out of alignment.

Here is the rest of the MOMO wiring:


At the top, is the header for the centering sensor.  This sensor picks up a silver strip that runs down the center of the steering column.
The wheel doesn't seem to do anything with this input at all.  As far as I can tell, it makes no difference to have it unhooked.

Below that is the header for the opto board which was covered above.

To the right is the header for the steering wheel buttons and LEDs.
If the 5th pin is used for ground with any of the pins below, it will register a button press for one of the buttons on the right side of the wheel.
If the 6th pin is used for ground, the presses will register for the same buttons on the left side of the wheel.  If your hack only requires 6 buttons, this shouldn't be an issue (4 here + 2 from the shifter harness).  If you need more, you will have to solder to the board in the steering wheel (or just run leads to both sides and the separate ground for each side).  The board in the steering wheel has easy solder points.


I'm too lazy to tear apart the pedals right now (mainly because I have no reason to).  They are an easy hack.  Just swap out your 5k arcade pots for 10k ones.

For Force Feedback, you'll need a Brush Type Servo Amplifier.  They are crazy expensive new, but I snagged one off fleabay for $35.
The Happ FFB motor is 37v 6.3a (although they are usually ran off 24v), so make sure the Servo Amp can handle at least that.
The one I got is Advanced Motion Controls 30A8T http://www.a-m-c.com/download/datasheet/30a8.pdf

Ignore all the fancy things this thing can do.  You only need to hook up 6 wires.  (It isn't necessary to remove the cover unless you need to access the DIP switches....which could have odd settings from the previous owner)

(I just have the bare wires shoved in there for testing.  Properly terminate them if putting this thing in your cab)
The things at the top are tiny potentiometers to make adjustments.  They don't really have a stop, they'll just make a faint click when adjusted all the way (and keep turning).  If the current limit is turned all the way down, the motor won't get enough current to move.  I have it turned all the way up.  I started with the ref gain turned all the way down and increased it until the wheel started responding.
I'm not going to pretend that I know what half this stuff does, I'm just happy to have it working.  I'll mess around with them more when I have the wheel mounted.
EDIT:IF THE WHEEL DRIFTS TO ONE SIDE OR TURNS EASIER IN ONE DIRECTION, ADJUST THE TEST/OFFSET POT.
Fire up Model 2 emulator and let the car coast into a wall to see if the wheel jerks in the appropriate direction.  If not, reverse the ref in wires or the wires to the feedback motor.

It works, but nearly everyone who has done the Logitech to Happ hack experiences an issue where the steering wheel shaking violently if centering feedback is not turned waaaay down.  This is far from optimal, but nobody has come up with another solution as far as I know.
I believe the issue is caused by a lack of friction in the happ setup which causes the wheel to keep overshooting center and then correcting for it, but I haven't taken the time to do anything to test that theory.

« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 04:33:28 pm by BadMouth »

perriace

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2012, 07:55:57 pm »
Would you also know how to do this with a 900 degree Logitech Driving Force GT ?

BadMouth

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2012, 10:21:58 am »
Would you also know how to do this with a 900 degree Logitech Driving Force GT ?

It should work the same way, but use a much higher resolution encoder.
The driving force probably has the same gearing, pinouts, etc as the G27 that I tinkered with in the last two posts of this threas:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=112330.0
I estimated around 3,000CPR if the new wheel was limited to 270 degrees,
but I was wrong about the MOMO the first time around and I'm probably wrong about the G27.
It comes down to how many lines will pass by the sensor when the wheel is turned from lock to lock.
I don't have the equipment to test that, but I've been tempted to buy it.

My MOMO hack worked fine on my test bench, but I'm having problems with it in my cab.
The wheel becomes uncalibrated when there is a lot of shaking feedback or when it is jerked hard left.
I'm pretty sure it was caused by the disc inside the optical encoder slipping which is a problem with the encoder, not the hack.
But it may have also been caused by vibration causing the sensor to think the disc was turning when it wasn't.
(it was an older used industrial encoder)
I disassembled my optical encoder and epoxied the disc in place after roughing up all surfaces, but it didn't work when I put it back together.  ???
So now I'm deciding on whether to order a new encoder or hack a pot based wheel.  A driving force EX is already on the way.

I'd still like to figure out the G27 hack eventually so all pedals, shifter, & buttons would be seen as one controller.
There is a wheel in Japan called the Frex GP that uses a G27 pcb with a high resolution optical encoder, so it is possible.
That wheel still spins 900 degrees, so it's probably only a third of the resolution of the 3,000CPR that I estimated above.

So long answer short, yes it's possible, but I can't give you specifics and it would require a lot of experimenting and $$$ on your part to work out the kinks.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2012, 10:23:29 am by BadMouth »

Afterburner

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2012, 08:08:51 pm »
This looks like a pretty heavy mod.

I'm still confused as to why you did this.  Can you dumb it down a shade for my feeble mind?

It looks like you gutted a MOMO wheel and used the interface board so you'd have a standard USB interface with pedals and shifters but have a Happ wheel and FFB motor?

Or did you upgrade the MOMO wheel with a Happ motor and servoamp that could be driven by MAME for games that originally had force feedback?
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BadMouth

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2012, 09:01:59 pm »
This looks like a pretty heavy mod.

I'm still confused as to why you did this.  Can you dumb it down a shade for my feeble mind?

It looks like you gutted a MOMO wheel and used the interface board so you'd have a standard USB interface with pedals and shifters but have a Happ wheel and FFB motor?

Or did you upgrade the MOMO wheel with a Happ motor and servoamp that could be driven by MAME for games that originally had force feedback?

I wanted real arcade controls and real arcade ffb that would be compatible with all emulators and pc games.
Currently the only way to do that is to hack a pc wheel. 
Also, the logitech profiler software is a lifesaver when setting up various emulators, so most people hack logitech wheels.

I chose to hack the MOMO because I'm a tinkerer and hadn't seen it done using a newer wheel that uses an optical encoder.
In short, I did it to see if it could be done.  But I also plan to use it in my driving cab. 
My driving cab currently has a MOMO wheel in it, so if I get the kinks worked out, I can drop it right in without reconfiguring everything. 
(see links in my sig)

There is no support for FFB in MAME (yet). Model 2 & Supermodel make it worthwhile though.

msilveira

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2012, 06:33:39 pm »
Hello there!

Thanks for all these info! Much appreciated!

I have some info/notes to add:

1.) How to guarantee the alignment of the wheel? Some Locks must be implemented for calibration, right?
This video at 0:55


2.) I have hacked the drivers to get MOMO identified as Driving Force GT, thus, 900⁰ !

Some lame videos of what I managed to do about a year ago ( never got the wheel out of the box again since then! ):





And here is a discussion about the desired 900⁰ mod: http://www.insidesimracing.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=1451


Registry changes. Not sure if I tried to change the .INF files from the installer. IIRC, If you change the .inf files directly and try to install, It won't work, or won't install, won't recognize the wheel. Whatever reason it is, it simply didn't work. ( Haven't spent much time trying though... )
Quote

Registry changes, don't use the quote mark: ( NOT sure wether it is necessary to do all these changes... )

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{6015095D-C4AE-11D1-B59B-00A0C9971EFC}
Change value of (default) REG_SZ from "Logitech MOMO Force Game Controller Properties DLL" to "Logitech Driving Force Pro Game Controller Properties DLL"

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaProperties\PrivateProperties\Joystick\OEM\VID_046D&PID_CA03
Change OEMData from "41 00 08 10 0a 00 00 00" to "01 43 00 08 10 0e 00 00 00"
Change OEMName from "Logitech MOMO Racing USB" to "Logitech Driving Force Pro USB"
Change ConfigCLSID from "{60150961-C4AE-11D1-B59B-00A0C9971EFC}" to "{6015096A-C4AE-11D1-B59B-00A0C9971EFC}"


When the time is right, I'll put it all together :)
Long time...

bberger

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Re: Logitech MOMO Racing wheel hack w/FFB.
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2013, 12:00:38 pm »
Would you also know how to do this with a 900 degree Logitech Driving Force GT ?

It should work the same way, but use a much higher resolution encoder.
The driving force probably has the same gearing, pinouts, etc as the G27 that I tinkered with in the last two posts of this threas:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=112330.0
I estimated around 3,000CPR if the new wheel was limited to 270 degrees,
but I was wrong about the MOMO the first time around and I'm probably wrong about the G27.
It comes down to how many lines will pass by the sensor when the wheel is turned from lock to lock.
I don't have the equipment to test that, but I've been tempted to buy it.

My MOMO hack worked fine on my test bench, but I'm having problems with it in my cab.
The wheel becomes uncalibrated when there is a lot of shaking feedback or when it is jerked hard left.
I'm pretty sure it was caused by the disc inside the optical encoder slipping which is a problem with the encoder, not the hack.
But it may have also been caused by vibration causing the sensor to think the disc was turning when it wasn't.
(it was an older used industrial encoder)
I disassembled my optical encoder and epoxied the disc in place after roughing up all surfaces, but it didn't work when I put it back together.  ???
So now I'm deciding on whether to order a new encoder or hack a pot based wheel.  A driving force EX is already on the way.

I'd still like to figure out the G27 hack eventually so all pedals, shifter, & buttons would be seen as one controller.
There is a wheel in Japan called the Frex GP that uses a G27 pcb with a high resolution optical encoder, so it is possible.
That wheel still spins 900 degrees, so it's probably only a third of the resolution of the 3,000CPR that I estimated above.

So long answer short, yes it's possible, but I can't give you specifics and it would require a lot of experimenting and $$$ on your part to work out the kinks.

I'm extremely sorry for bumping this thread, but I wrote a reply to another thread specific to the Frex device. I really need to figure out the correct resolution as I have an old version using a Immersion FFB Controller and I want to swap it for a G27 PCB:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,112330.msg1399077.html#msg1399077