Controller Hack & Rumbler Test
Today I rigged up a controller to test the rumblers in the seat. I figured that anything I do with the hand held controller will be leveragable to the wheel, and there will be times when I want to use a hand held controller anyway. If I'm using a controller, it might as well make the seat rumble. I needed to get the rumble signals from the controller. I also need the controller to "plug" into the chair circuit. Telephone hardware proved to be a good fit. The current is low and hardware is cheap.
Getting the signals from the controller was very straight forward. I brought the phone wire through a hole in the controller where the second expansion pack goes. I tied a knot is the wire to keep it from tugging on the solder joints. I then soldered the black to black, red to one of the motors red, and the green to the other motors red. The black is ground and so I only needed one connection.
I picked up a 2-to-1 phone plug at the local dollar store. This will allow me to connect both the wheel and a controller at the same time. I'll just leave them both plugged in. I wired the two relay commons from my custom circuit to the black, one primary to red, and the other to green. I also hooked up a benchtop 5vdc supply to the contact side of the relays going to the motors.
Good news and bad. It worked. Both sets of motors rotated. I could definitely feel both sides, and one is stronger than the other. I'm very pleased with how much vibration is transferred through the chair. One stick came loose and I'm going to go in and put on a lot more hot glue all over the place. The bad news is the relays chatter loudly when activated. This is especially the case with machine gun fire. I suspect the controller is providing variable voltage to the motors, which is going above and below the turn-on voltage of the relays. I'll let it run for a few weeks and see if it wears out the relays. If not, I'm good and will just move them to the front part of the cab (so I don't hear them as much). I might also put in a capacitor to see if it smooths things out. I'm not an Electrical Engineer, most of this stuff is trial and error for me.
One thing I have decided is that I don't want my custom circuit mounted in the chair. Maintenance is going to be a pain back there. I'll bring it to the front compartment and run some 5 conductor wire back to the seat. This will minimize my chances of having to crawl back there or worse yet, have to remove the chair, to fix a bad relay.