DIY Home Steering Wheel

[Generic Eric]

With the talk of shaft extensions, I thought I would look over the 'net for some DIY examples.

This is a push pull yoke, but this seems like a good example that would fit here for the single axis.

[Generic Eric]

Another push pull yoke @ kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/irisdynamics/affordable-force-feedback-flight-sim-control-yoke

[Howard_Casto]

The second one got my attention until I saw the massive box sticking out of the thing, and the price.  I guess to sim enthusiasts the term affordable is subjective. 

Also I'm sure they know what they are doing more than I do  but I'm trying to figure out why they need a raspberry pi AND an arduino AND a teensy.  That's half of the cost right there. 

If you don't care about force-feedback (most of us do) making a wheel is really easy. 

It usually isn't cost effective though... we can find a used arcade wheel or a good pc one for a better price.

Just in case though I'll give you a rough idea of how to do it.

Hardware store parts list:

Foot to foot and a half long metal pipe with threads on both ends (diameter doesn't matter that much, but all your other parts will be based on it).
End cap to fit the pipe.
Flange to fit the pipe, it should flange out to around the size of a standard automotive steering wheel mount. 
Metal sleeve that fits snugly over the pipe (larger pipe would work). 
Bearings that fit over the pipe snugly.  It's the same kind we use for trackballs, only larger. 
Bungee cords (a variety pack works best). 
Various bolts and connectors, anything you think you might need to mount the thing.  Get at least one heavy duty bolt that'll go through your pipe when drilled with about two inches left over and several nuts to go on it.
A large L bracket.

Tools required:

Screwdriver.
Drill. 
Something to cut wood (jigsaw is probably fine but a circular saw would be better).
Various hole saw bits and/or spade bits depending upon the diameter of your pipe and bearings.

You will want to assemble it like this:  (Bad ascii art incoming). 

|---|=|=|--o

Going from left to right, the first vertical bar is the flange, this just screws on so no problems there.  You'll want to either drill through the connector or lock tight it to keep it from unscrewing while playing though.  The next bar assembly is a bearing, followed by the sleeve with that bolt drilled though it (=|=) and the other bearing.  When mounted the sleeve will keep the shaft of the wheel from sliding in and out.  That heavy duty bolt holding it on is going to get a lot of use.  You want to use all the nuts you picked up to mount it so that an inch or so is sticking out of the bottom and an inch or so is sticking out the top. 

On the top we attach two bungee cords one pulling to the left and one pulling to the right.  This will be our spring mechanism.  Why not use springs?  Well the springs we have access to are costly and loud so bungee cords are a cheap, quiet solution.  Now the bottom of that bolt will act as your stop.  Once you've got your range of travel figured out you'll put wooden or metal stops on either side of the shaft that hit the bolt when the shaft is in it's maximum positions.  Like I said, use a heavy duty bolt! 

The little circle on the right represents your end-cap and pot.  How you mount it depends upon the pot itself but remember that it needs to turn the same amount as the physical wheel with the same stops.  In terms of putting it into the end cap, drill a hole the same size as the shaft on the pot and then fill one half of the hole back in with some epoxy or anything really.  (It isn't really structural).  That oversized L bracket will be used to mount the pot to your base, just drill a hole in it the right size and used the nut on the pot to secure it. 

As for mounting the shaft itself, metal is better, but it's super costly and out of most of our skillsets.  Two 2x4's will work just as well.  Using a hole saw drill through one of the sx4 sections with a bit the size of the bearing, but only drill in the thickness of the bearing.  Basically your bearing should fit snugly in this recess.  Now switch to a bit slightly larger than the diameter (about a 1/4 of an inch or more) of the pipe and drill the res of the way through.  Repeat for the other 2x4, bookend the bearings in them and after making sure everything moves freely screw the 2x4's to whatever base you've built.  Use heavy duty screws as this lumber holds the entire assembly in place!

Whew!  Ok I think that's a decent design.  Not bad for thinking it up on the spot eh?  ;-)

Sorry I don't have pics, but I've never built one, like I said, not exactly cost effective.  It's based on what I've seen done on the net though, with some various improvements by yours truly. 

[twistedsymphony]

Also I'm sure they know what they are doing more than I do  but I'm trying to figure out why they need a raspberry pi AND an arduino AND a teensy.  That's half of the cost right there. 

That's a big WTF from me too... Honestly if you're using an arduino in an official product to me that just says to me "I don't know how to use a micro-controller"

it's one thing if you're building a hackable product designed to interface with an arduino that your users already own... it's another thing if that's part of your device's vital control backbone.

The arduino is great for prototyping, I have a couple of them that I use all the time for just that purpose, or if I need to build something quickly and plan to disassemble it once it's served it's purpose.... however if I'm building something that I plan to have stick around for a while I'm going to be using a PIC or an AVR... that's ONE PIC or ONE AVR... AND THATS IT.

Beyond that an R-Pi has absolutely NO business being in that device at all.

Arduino and R-Pi  are great for home built projects but they have no business functioning as the logic board for anything produced in quantity.


-------------------------


As for a DIY wheel setup, Personally I'm a big proponent of "don't reinvent the wheel" (no pun intended). I mean you can get a whole steering column, wheel and and mounting brackets from a real car from a pick-and-pull for $50... you'll spend more than that on raw materials doing it DIY and you'll probably end up with something that LOOKs pieced together compared to real car parts.

[Generic Eric]

Thanks for the replies.

I have some layouts and sketches from LEW's Wheels from way back in the day.  They are similar to the videos I posted.

I'm looking forward to building them one day along with a dash and seat. 

In the mean time, I'd like to see a dialog around building DIY wheels and learning what it would take to apply FFB to them.   

[twistedsymphony]

for FFB  there are three ways I can think of to hook a motor to a shaft by gear or by belt or by chain.

Chain would probably be the easiest and cheapest since bicycle parts are cheap and easy to source (just buy some old 10-speed from a yard sale) and that would give you a lot of gearing options to play with and get the tension right.

the biggest problem with both gears and chains is backlash so when you have things change directions you'll be able to feel the "slop" in the system... most chain systems are designed to only be run in 1 direction because of this. with gears you can get rid of this if you get the tooth spacing right but you typically end up wearing down the teeth faster and putting more stress on the system as a whole. (this is why cars often have gear noise in reverse, the reverse gears are cut differently in order to deal with the change in direction)

This is probably why most arcade systems use belts for FFB, the transition when changing direction with a belt is a lot smoother and more natural than other systems and the elasticity of the belt helps with that a lot too... it will probably also last a lot longer in that type of setup.

lots of pulleys and belts from automotive accessory drives you can use for this task... the hardest part is keeping everything aligned if you have the pulley's misaligned at all you can very easily end up with the belt jumping off the pulleys frequently. One way to reduce this is to use crowned pulleys like this example:


of course you could always steal the pulleys from an arcade setup too

[Howard_Casto]

Well the physical attachment of the motor isn't the issue usually. Rather it's the programming. I've yet to see a homebrew interface/library that actually implements FF properly.  If somebody knows one then by all mean post it, because I've been looking for one. 

[BadMouth]

Well the physical attachment of the motor isn't the issue usually. Rather it's the programming. I've yet to see a homebrew interface/library that actually implements FF properly.  If somebody knows one then by all mean post it, because I've been looking for one.

It's probably a pretty tall order.

Nearly every ffb wheel device anyone is familiar with use an Immersion chip and Immersion's technology for creating the effects.
Logitech and the other PC wheel manufacturer's license it, even though you don't see any Immersion logos.
Not sure about the Sega arcade stuff.  They might be one of the few that don't.

Is my thinking correct on these?
It's not just a matter of sending "left" or "right" commands to the wheel.
The hardware in the wheel itself contains a catalog of effects which can be triggered.
Someone would have to emulate or replicate what the Immersion chip is doing in order to recreate the same feel.

Simpler than that?  Worse than that?

[twistedsymphony]

Well the physical attachment of the motor isn't the issue usually. Rather it's the programming. I've yet to see a homebrew interface/library that actually implements FF properly.  If somebody knows one then by all mean post it, because I've been looking for one.

It's probably a pretty tall order.

Nearly every ffb wheel device anyone is familiar with use an Immersion chip and Immersion's technology for creating the effects.
Logitech and the other PC wheel manufacturer's license it, even though you don't see any Immersion logos.
Not sure about the Sega arcade stuff.  They might be one of the few that don't.

Is my thinking correct on these?
It's not just a matter of sending "left" or "right" commands to the wheel.
The hardware in the wheel itself contains a catalog of effects which can be triggered.
Someone would have to emulate or replicate what the Immersion chip is doing in order to recreate the same feel.

Simpler than that?  Worse than that?

I don't think that's right... well, I don't doubt that the immersion hardware is able to handle effects and things of that nature but most of the arcade hardware (and even some home console FFB wheels) that I've played around with (such as the GameCube Wheel) don't work like that.

For instance the HAPP FFB board had inputs for intensity and direction... THATS IT, the hardware just exists to scale that information across the 24V that the motor requires to function.... everything else is taken care of in-game (either built into the PCB or in code). This isn't old tech either, this exact hardware is used by Atosmiwave drivers such as Faster than Speed (I own a complete setup).

I don't see any real reason to use hardware to accomplish effects when they can be taken care of in software with nothing but the results (intensity and direction) being sent out.


EDIT:
Thinking about this a bit more you could probably reverse engineer the immersion effects by recording the voltage levels that are output to the motor when each effect is triggered (you can trigger them discretely through the windows driver). I would also disconnect the position sensor from the wheel and setup an arduino or similar device to output voltage sweeps on the position pot inputs to see how it affects the effects.

[Howard_Casto]

A chip isn't needed no, but I bet it would help.  There are 5-10 styles of effects (depending upon how you count them) and if I understand what I've read correctly, DirectInput basically sends a command that says something like "play a constant force effect with a direction of 90 degrees and a magnitude of 10000" to the hardware/driver and then the interface has to figure out what the hell to do with it. 

You can get away with supporting one or two effects, but if you want your wheel to work with any old game you play, you really need to support most or all of them.  Now for most effects the actual math and requirements aren't too bad.  I mean constant force on a wheel only needs to support two directions an a voltage step. (Actually you really need to use some math to make the effect weaker the closer the direction is to being vertical, but whatever)  Ramp effects, again not that bad.... increase the voltage by this many steps over this period of time.  Also a pulse width modulation should be doable... just swap the polarity periodically. 

But sine-wave effects and spring effects... man I don't know.  Sine waves are bad enough, but a direction can be applied as well.  Even assuming you get the math right, would your typical consumer-level AVR be fast enough to smoothly and quickly produce the wave?  And spring effects... how would you do that?  Constantly check the wheel position and attempt to fire the motor to move it back?  How would you keep the motor from going nuts if you move the wheel around a lot?

And of course hardware has to support multiple effects layered on top of each other.  I limit myself to 10 when writing software but I think you are supposed to officially support a ridiculously high number... 255?  Now in theory a simple "OR"  function should blend them, but you've still got to have enough processing power to keep track of them all on the avr. 

I suppose someone could write a driver and have this taken care of on the pc end (which would help with hardware limitations), but honestly if you want to make something future-proof you need to use a full-on HID interface. 

[twistedsymphony]

A chip isn't needed no, but I bet it would help.  There are 5-10 styles of effects (depending upon how you count them) and if I understand what I've read correctly, DirectInput basically sends a command that says something like "play a constant force effect with a direction of 90 degrees and a magnitude of 10000" to the hardware/driver and then the interface has to figure out what the hell to do with it. 

You can get away with supporting one or two effects, but if you want your wheel to work with any old game you play, you really need to support most or all of them.  Now for most effects the actual math and requirements aren't too bad.  I mean constant force on a wheel only needs to support two directions an a voltage step. (Actually you really need to use some math to make the effect weaker the closer the direction is to being vertical, but whatever)  Ramp effects, again not that bad.... increase the voltage by this many steps over this period of time.  Also a pulse width modulation should be doable... just swap the polarity periodically. 

But sine-wave effects and spring effects... man I don't know.  Sine waves are bad enough, but a direction can be applied as well.  Even assuming you get the math right, would your typical consumer-level AVR be fast enough to smoothly and quickly produce the wave?  And spring effects... how would you do that?  Constantly check the wheel position and attempt to fire the motor to move it back?  How would you keep the motor from going nuts if you move the wheel around a lot?

And of course hardware has to support multiple effects layered on top of each other.  I limit myself to 10 when writing software but I think you are supposed to officially support a ridiculously high number... 255?  Now in theory a simple "OR"  function should blend them, but you've still got to have enough processing power to keep track of them all on the avr. 

I suppose someone could write a driver and have this taken care of on the pc end (which would help with hardware limitations), but honestly if you want to make something future-proof you need to use a full-on HID interface. 

I think you're over thinking it

I did something similar to this in college... we programmed RC cars to follow a white line on the ground using photo sensors and had to control the steering and wheel speed to prevent the car from ever having a wheel touch the white line.

At the end of the year the best students were invited to a competition to improve their algorithms and given a ridiculously challenging course including elevation changes. I wanted to win so I ditched the variable speed control for the rear wheels and hooked them directly to the battery via relay to ensure I was going top speed 100% of the time... then I built the best damn line algorithm possible to make sure it never crossed that line.

I do have a point to all this.... the techniques are very similar: I know where the position of the wheels are and I know where I want them be and how fast they need to be there. I have to run calculations to figure out the intensity and direction and I also have smooth it out to keep from "bouncing" or over-correcting... if you boil it down it's very similar to how FFB works. you can imagine the line on the ground is the game telling the FFB board where the steering wheel "should" be and then the calculation are the board determining where the wheel currently is and how to best move it to be on top of "the line".

The base calculation is pretty much linear, you increasingly add intensity the further "off course" you go but that alone doesn't work. you basically need to then run the result through a derivation algorithm to smooth it out, otherwise it will be constantly over-correcting/overshooting and your wheel will bounce back and forth until the end of time.  We did this using a Motorolla HC6811 Microprocessor I'm not entirely sure how this stacks up to a modern PIC or AVR but it's pretty old tech so I wouldn't be surprised if an AVR could handle it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_68HC11


---------------
That's of course on the motor control side/hardware size...

As for layering effects, the software side (the code producing the "line" that the hardware follows) I would see it working just like layering audio... if you consider the effects as wave forms and then add the wave forms together to create the output...  Once you've got the process down increasing the number of "layers" is a matter of memory space and processing power more than anything else.


If you're interested I could try to dig out my old backup CDs and see if I could find my algorithms.

[Generic Eric]

If you're interested I could try to dig out my old backup CDs and see if I could find my algorithms.

@HowardC

Please say yes, at least say hello

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah this sounds like a good group project.  I know my limitations and "deh mathz" isn't my strong suit.  Also from my conversations I think SavannahLion might be better with AVRs than me... I'm just a beginner.  Basically I'm good at the FF stuff specifically. 

As for the hardware end, I don't think it'd be too bad.  If that chip you linked to worked then I bet a teensy 3.0 would handle things and honestly it's cheaper than getting a board produced these days.  You'd need what... an amp or maybe some transistors to step up the power and some pots and stuff?  I'm sitting here wondering if pc wheels adjust the power via actual power manipulation or via pulse width modulation.  I suppose you could use either but I don't know a lot about motors.

[Xiaou2]

Personally, I dont get the whole effect thing.   Did Race Drivin have 'effects?   Nope.   But it was one of the best physical driving sims ever made.

 The shaft for the wheel goes right through the motor itself, as far as memory serves me.  The Motor is heavy duty, and huge.  Probably weight 30 to 40 lbs.   At full power, its a bear to resist... and probably would hurt a small childs arms.    Though, most Op's never turned it to anywhere near max.

 The motor is very precise... and it can stop and stay in certain spots as it pleases.   It uses a 10 turn pot, and uses a worm shaft like mechanism to limit the rotation.   As the shaft rotates, it moves a "stopper bar" up and down the length of the shaft.  Once the bar hits the end of the spiral, the bar slams into a rubber post or something.  Quite ingenious.


 I have not bought a FFB wheel in ages, so maybe Im not getting what can be accomplished in my mind clearly..  but it seems like what they are trying to do... is similar to what they do with gamepads..  and gamepad rumble really isnt that good.   Not very realistic to say the least.

 I think the main issue, is getting a great high power ffb wheel... that will work great with mame and or elder console games.  I could care less about many of the new games... as they rarely are any challenge anyways.  All fluff and no nutter. 


 As for the 2nd yoke... it appears they are doing a lot more than trying to move something left to right.  They are probably trying to do the same kind of thing that Race Drivin does.  Ability to directly hold and or move to precision spots... and vary the amounts of force to boot.  Rather than some resistance bands or other less accurate means of representation.

 Im not saying you couldnt do decent job with a cheaper setup..   but like many things..  if you dont go for the gusto.. you get the el-crappo  "Generica".


 Anyone whos played Datona Usa, whom them plays a game of Race Drivin right afterwards.. could easily tell you that one out classes the other.   They just probably wouldnt know why.

[Generic Eric]

It doesn't matter to me, because I haven't worked with either, but Teensey 3.1 is teh hotness (3.0 has been outmoded). 

So, if we can, can we start with the latest tech since the price point is the same?

[Howard_Casto]

Eh they are essentially the same thing.  The guy that makes them keeps putting as much as he can in newer revisions as the price of products come down.

[Generic Eric]

Eh they are essentially the same thing.  The guy that makes them keeps putting as much as he can in newer revisions as the price of products come down.

Cool.  If its not a big deal, its not a big deal. I'd really like to see this happen. 

Here is some linkage in case Lew's Wheels didn't ring a bell.
www.thenorwaypits.com


Just so everyone has the right frame, this is from WAY back

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I remember lew's.  Take a look at those instructions I posted, your end result will be more or less what's in that pic only it uses more off-the-shelf parts so hopefully it'll save a little bit of money. 

I don't know if I'm up for another big project, especially while I'm working on my own rig, but hey if somebody wants to tackle this I'll help wherever I can. 

[twistedsymphony]

Please say yes, at least say hello

alright, I'll look for it tonight.

Personally, I dont get the whole effect thing.   Did Race Drivin have 'effects?   Nope. 

Yes, it did. I think you're mistaken as to the definition of force feedback in the context of this discussion.

The definition we're using is basically: any programmable system that is capable of moving or attempting to move the steering wheel in a driving cab by applying a specified force and direction.

Hard Drivin/Race Drivin did absolutely use force feedback and force feedback effects, it simply used a different setup than more modern force feedback games.

The shaft for the wheel goes right through the motor itself, as far as memory serves me.

This is not at all useful to this discussion a mimicking that setup with DIY would be very difficult to accomplish as you would be required to weld or somehow link the motor output shaft to the steering column which severely limits the flexibility, cost and serviceability of the setup. There's a good reason why this has been abandoned by newer force feedback systems.

I have not bought a FFB wheel in ages, so maybe Im not getting what can be accomplished in my mind clearly..  but it seems like what they are trying to do... is similar to what they do with gamepads..  and gamepad rumble really isnt that good.

NOPE you're completely incorrect... the force feedback produced by the systems we're talking about is comparable to Hard Drivin/Race Drivin it just uses newer parts and is far more accurate.... none of what we're talking about is at all similar to the "rumble" effects on a gamepad. You must not have used a decent wheel for a long time as I haven't seen rumble wheels on the market since before the turn of the century.

Anyone whos played Datona Usa, whom them plays a game of Race Drivin right afterwards.. could easily tell you that one out classes the other.

As someone who used to service both a Race Drivin and a Daytona USA (among other racing cab) I can tell you that power wise the Daytona FFB motor is every bit as powerful and accurate as the one used by Race Drivin (arguably more so, in-fact)... Whether or not Sega actually leverages that accuracy in their game codes is a question for another discussion but I would argue that every Daytona unit you've played was either broken or had the intensity turned way down... which is surprising as the Race Drivin FFB was far more prone to failure than the system used by Sega.

I think the main issue, is getting a great high power ffb wheel... that will work great with mame and or elder console games. 

Console games before the PS2 didn't offer FFB but that's beside the point as getting outputs from the games is completely off topic for this thread and has nothing to do with the building of hardware and associated drivers.

It doesn't matter to me, because I haven't worked with either, but Teensey 3.1 is teh hotness (3.0 has been outmoded). 

So, if we can, can we start with the latest tech since the price point is the same?

I've never used a Teensey... is it worth picking up?

I used to be a PIC chip guy and my only experience with AVR is Arduino... (I do own an AVR Dragon programmer... never had the opportunity to use it though)

[Generic Eric]

It doesn't matter to me, because I haven't worked with either, but Teensey 3.1 is teh hotness (3.0 has been outmoded). 

So, if we can, can we start with the latest tech since the price point is the same?

I've never used a Teensey... is it worth picking up?

I used to be a PIC chip guy and my only experience with AVR is Arduino... (I do own an AVR Dragon programmer... never had the opportunity to use it though)

I can not speak with authority.  I'm keen to see an easily accessible device used.  That Teensy 3 is $19.95

At the end of this I'd like to see a design that is accessible to people with parts that can be picked up at local stores or popular websites like mcmaster, mouser, digikey and vxb.com and www.pololu.com or parts that can be picked up at a big box retailer. 

I'm sure I'm only thinking about one square in the logical diagram, but the cheaper point of entry the better.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah teensies are awesome sauce.  First off the guy that designs them is a hobbyist like us, not a flat out "arduino" nerd, so his boards concentrate on giving you as much bang for your buck as possible, not blatantly copying the arduino and requiring you to purchase 300 dollars worth of shields to do something useful.  He does make sure to make every one arduino compatible though programming wise, for the beginners.   One of mine got damaged in shipping and I contacted him personally, I had no trouble getting an exchange. 

Secondly they are twenty bucks, have a usb bootloader and  a wide array of I/O pins.  It's literally the most value you can get out of any avr on the market today, even those that cost twice as much.

If someone were to base a ff wheel out of a teensy, going by what you said in regards to the FF calculations at least, all one would need is a motor controller add-on board and dx.com has a wide variety for well under 20 dollars.  So for around 50 bucks + the cost of a power supply it would completely take care of the electronics end of things. 

http://www.dx.com/s/motor+controller

[Xiaou2]

As someone who used to service both a Race Drivin and a Daytona USA (among other racing cab) I can tell you that power wise the Daytona FFB motor is every bit as powerful and accurate as the one used by Race Drivin (arguably more so, in-fact)... Whether or not Sega actually leverages that accuracy in their game codes is a question for another discussion but I would argue that every Daytona unit you've played was either broken or had the intensity turned way down... which is surprising as the Race Drivin FFB was far more prone to failure than the system used by Sega.

 Ive serviced both Daytona Usa, Hard / Race Drivin sitdown, seen the tiny motors in Rush, and serviced a lot of other drivers / mechs that are similar.

 While Daytona USA (orig), was one of my fav. racers..   Its FFB wasnt even close to the power output of the Race Drivin setup.  Maybe half that power max.

 Its not just the motor strength..  as RD is directly effected..  where as DT is a belt slip, as far as memory serves me.    This means that a lot of the power is simply wasted and lost.

 Also, Daytona's wheel..  or for that matter, I do not think any of the typical wheels out there, can 'Drive themselves'  with the level of accuracy that the Race Drivin wheel could.   For example, RD could stop at some odd angle, like 30 degrees.. and holding itself there.  No user interaction needed.


 As for serviceability... I didnt have to service the FFB on DT, only the pots and wretched gear shifter that ATE switches constantly.   With RD, I never had to touch the wheel in the arcade, in the 3yrs I was there.  I replaced the pots on the gas & shifter once.  Most of that games problems were board issues.   I repaired it less than the Daytona actually.   But that cant be said for another location, where the boards were flaking out.

 I did finally run into a RD wheel that needed some work.   The guy left the auto-drive attract mode on all the time.. and the brushes wore out.   He had a new set made, I cleaned the motor via the open / shut access ports, and installed them.   Rock solid ever since.   And besides the gear shift pots going once every 6yrs? ...  never had to touch that either.    On DT, I was in the shifter once or twice a month changing bad switches out.

 If you really have never felt full force on RD, clean the motor of the carbon dust, then crank it to full power in the service menu.  You will be in for a real shock.   The motor is like a 9" diameter beast..   something you might see inside of an industrial machine, washing machine..etc.    As for connectivity...  a simple shaft connection is easy to do, even with full-through motors.   Its pretty much like what you see with a buffer that has two ends.  A simply coupler is easy enough to do the job.


 As for why they dont make them like that anymore... its due to costs.    As times progressed, they started cutting every corner they could.   Eventually, a lot of MFG. decided to use  Happ's generic controls, rather than design, machine and test all customized mechanisms.   Sad indeed.

   

[twistedsymphony]

Yeah teensies are awesome sauce.  First off the guy that designs them is a hobbyist like us, not a flat out "arduino" nerd, so his boards concentrate on giving you as much bang for your buck as possible, not blatantly copying the arduino and requiring you to purchase 300 dollars worth of shields to do something useful.  He does make sure to make every one arduino compatible though programming wise, for the beginners.   One of mine got damaged in shipping and I contacted him personally, I had no trouble getting an exchange. 

Secondly they are twenty bucks, have a usb bootloader and  a wide array of I/O pins.  It's literally the most value you can get out of any avr on the market today, even those that cost twice as much.

If someone were to base a ff wheel out of a teensy, going by what you said in regards to the FF calculations at least, all one would need is a motor controller add-on board and dx.com has a wide variety for well under 20 dollars.  So for around 50 bucks + the cost of a power supply it would completely take care of the electronics end of things. 

http://www.dx.com/s/motor+controller

Most of the FFB motors I've seen aren't stepper motors they're just big DC motors and the motor control just uses a big honkin mosfet to manage the output voltage and a big honkin heat-sync to manage the heat. So for something like that you'd need either an analog output or some kind of external D to A conversion...

I'll see if I can get some high resolution pictures of the HAPP FFB board (I feel like I did that already but I can't remember if I posted them, or if so where)... it's pretty much the purest example of a FFB motor controller I've seen.

[Generic Eric]

Yeah teensies are awesome sauce.  First off the guy that designs them is a hobbyist like us, not a flat out "arduino" nerd, so his boards concentrate on giving you as much bang for your buck as possible, not blatantly copying the arduino and requiring you to purchase 300 dollars worth of shields to do something useful.  He does make sure to make every one arduino compatible though programming wise, for the beginners.   One of mine got damaged in shipping and I contacted him personally, I had no trouble getting an exchange. 

Secondly they are twenty bucks, have a usb bootloader and  a wide array of I/O pins.  It's literally the most value you can get out of any avr on the market today, even those that cost twice as much.

If someone were to base a ff wheel out of a teensy, going by what you said in regards to the FF calculations at least, all one would need is a motor controller add-on board and dx.com has a wide variety for well under 20 dollars.  So for around 50 bucks + the cost of a power supply it would completely take care of the electronics end of things. 

http://www.dx.com/s/motor+controller

Cool.  So could it drive this guy?  It is a 270 deg Force Feedback Happs wheel.  Its the only arcade one I have.

[Howard_Casto]

.....
 Also, Daytona's wheel..  or for that matter, I do not think any of the typical wheels out there, can 'Drive themselves'  with the level of accuracy that the Race Drivin wheel could.   For example, RD could stop at some odd angle, like 30 degrees.. and holding itself there.  No user interaction needed.
 

I can't really speak for some of the other stuff you are talking about, but the statement I quoted above particularly hit me as you being out of touch on this one on the pc end of things (which again is what we are discussing).  Right now I can set the 40 dollar on ebay, 12 year old FF wheel, badmouth game me to stop and quickly move to 30 degrees and stay there with a simple spring effect with the appropriate offset.  If properly calibrated it's accurate to within a degree or so.  Again though, it's a cheap wheel... when you go to the more expensive ff wheels you can do things accurate to within a fraction of a degree. 

As a matter of fact, I can hook up this wheel to outrun in mame right now and use the deluxe outputs that normally tilted the sled to "drive" the wheel via a spring effect.

Eric:  is that AC or DC?  If it's DC then yes, we could probably find a motor controller to drive it.  If it's AC then it would be a bit more convoluted, but still possible. 

twisted:  That was probably a bad search on my part.  There are legitimate motor speed controllers mixed in with all of those steppers.  I just meant that you didn't have to build something... there are some in there that are exactly that... big old mofset with a big old heat sync ready to be controlled via 5v.  Some have digital to analog converters built in as well, so we'd be covered in either case.

[Generic Eric]

Eric:  is that AC or DC?  If it's DC then yes, we could probably find a motor controller to drive it.  If it's AC then it would be a bit more convoluted, but still possible. 

I'll check tonight.  I didn't see the part number until after I posted the PIC

[twistedsymphony]

there are some in there that are exactly that... big old mofset with a big old heat sync ready to be controlled via 5v.  Some have digital to analog converters built in as well, so we'd be covered in either case.

Nice! I'll have to give it a closer look later.

Also for reference (I think I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating) I have a bunch of different FFB parts kicking around:
- 3 complete San Fran Rush machines
- All of the electronics (except the steering wheel assembly/motor) from Faster than Speed (which is Atomiswave and uses the Happ FFB parts)
- 2 complete 2-board Immersion PCB sets from Need for Speed
- a bunch of random NAOMI parts
- an official Xbox 360 console wheel

so if anyone needs to me to take a closer look at any of those parts for reference purposes I can do so.

[BadMouth]

Eric: It's 24v DC.  Any 10A motor controller can probably handle it, although I'd want one with a decent heat sink.

The problem still remains of what is going to send the signal to the motor controller.
That is what all this talk of teensy boards and ffb programming are about.

Using a Logitech PCB with a Happ wheel has the issue of the centering feedback flinging the wheel past center and overcorrecting, causing the wheel to shake violently back and forth when left unattended.

If we had an interface we were programming ourselves, issues like that could be overcome.

[Howard_Casto]

Eric: It's 24v DC.  Any 10A motor controller can probably handle it, although I'd want one with a decent heat sink.

The problem still remains of what is going to send the signal to the motor controller.
That is what all this talk of teensy boards and ffb programming are about.

Using a Logitech PCB with a Happ wheel has the issue of the centering feedback flinging the wheel past center and overcorrecting, causing the wheel to shake violently back and forth when left unattended.

If we had an interface we were programming ourselves, issues like that could be overcome.

Yeah that's what I was talking about with twisted.  Directional effects I'm probably competent enough to program on the avr end of things... but spring effects (which is what that is... stopping at a certain angle, in this case the center) I'm not sure.  On the pc end it's simple... set the value and the wheel pcb does the heavy lifting... but in this instance we are programming the heavy lifting. 

[Howard_Casto]

...
- an official Xbox 360 console wheel

so if anyone needs to me to take a closer look at any of those parts for reference purposes I can do so.

The 360 wheel, while software-wise is worthless, has some interesting hardware designs a person might want to copy.  I think it used a full on optical pot module, which is a design element a person would want as it means zero maintenance and no risk of breaking the pot via over-steering.  I think the gearing system was particularly good as well. 

Just don't copy the heat sink or power supply as those things tended to catch on fire. 

[twistedsymphony]

The 360 wheel, while software-wise is worthless, has some interesting hardware designs a person might want to copy.  I think it used a full on optical pot module, which is a design element a person would want as it means zero maintenance and no risk of breaking the pot via over-steering.  I think the gearing system was particularly good as well. 

Just don't copy the heat sink or power supply as those things tended to catch on fire. 

ooooh... I do like optical encoders now that you mention it... it strikes me as weird that they don't do that with arcade machines... I'd figure non-mechanical non-wear parts would be worth the extra cost in that setting.

hall-effect sensors are cool too, but probably too inaccurate for a FFB wheel.

[Generic Eric]

...
- an official Xbox 360 console wheel

so if anyone needs to me to take a closer look at any of those parts for reference purposes I can do so.

The 360 wheel, while software-wise is worthless, has some interesting hardware designs a person might want to copy.  I think it used a full on optical pot module, which is a design element a person would want as it means zero maintenance and no risk of breaking the pot via over-steering.  I think the gearing system was particularly good as well. 

Just don't copy the heat sink or power supply as those things tended to catch on fire. 

Something like the opti whiz / opti-pac or Rablack97's interface I can't find a link to?  Or something different?
Derp

Mouse hack?

[Howard_Casto]

Nah man, that's the cool part.  They've got some kind of converter going on.  Physically it's a encoder wheel, but it shows up and wires up like a regular pot.  If you are doing ff though then your AVR will control the inputs as well, or else it can't read the current position of the wheel and FF won't work properly.

[Generic Eric]

The motor says 90VDC, 2174RPM 1.51AMPS 67 in/oz TORQUE

BTW, I think patents for software are dumb.  Why not patent English?

[brad808]

Using a Logitech PCB with a Happ wheel has the issue of the centering feedback flinging the wheel past center and overcorrecting, causing the wheel to shake violently back and forth when left unattended.

Just wanted to comment on this and say that mine is still working perfectly. I was just playing on it tonight. It's been working perfectly for over a year now at least. I find it hard to believe that other people had such a hard time with it.

[Generic Eric]

The motor says 90VDC, 2174RPM 1.51AMPS 67 in/oz TORQUE

BTW, I think patents for software are dumb.  Why not patent English?

Search of the part number on the motor yields http://forums.arcade-museum.com/archive/index.php/t-46634.html Identifying it as a San Fransico Rush steering assembly with comments from our good friends Kenlayton and Yotsua

I found it here at happs.   http://na.suzohapp.com/amusement_products/arcade_game_parts/50-8593-50  It goes without saying that Happs is expensive, but I know I didn't pay more than a 5th of that.  Hopefully the motor isn't shot!

[Generic Eric]

I'm derailing my own thread.

What are the challanges of picking 1 motor out now?  Can this project be made to support more than 1 motor?  Because it doesn't have to be this one I happen to have from SF Rush.  The cheaper the better.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I think the "challenge" would be that nobody has decided to work on this yet.  We are just spit-balling here.  Like I said, if somebody wants to try and write some avr code I'll do my best to help them, but I'm not a avr expert by any means and until we have a teensy or whatever that shows up as a FF enabled HID joystick and will actually send some data to a motor you've just got a collection of parts. 

Unless you want to pay waaaay to much for happs interface board or hack up a Logitech wheel that is. 

[Generic Eric]

Point taken

[Generic Eric]

The motor says 90VDC, 2174RPM 1.51AMPS 67 in/oz TORQUE


BTW, I think patents for software are dumb.  Why not patent English?

I looked at a SF Rush manual and by no way saw 90 VDC.  The troubleshooting section said to look for voltage around 25V.

Anyway