Force feedback wheel first test drive

The decision to build a racing simulator with servo motor based force feedback has yielded first tangible results. The picture below shows the current setup of a force feedback wheel with a 36 Nm (peak) motor equipped with a sin/cos encoder. The system is being driven by IONI Pro HC and a STM32 Discovery based interface.

Simulator direct drive wheel is operational but lacks buttons

Simulator direct drive FFB wheel is operational but currently it lacks other controls. Mechanical parts design and tooling was implemented by Aki.

The first test drive on iRacing put a wide smile on our faces immediately and gave more motivation to make faster progress on it :)

The plan is to experiment with wheel effect calculations, such as friction, inertia, damping and spring, inside the drive firmware to take full advantage of high resolution feedback devices. Also it’s a good platform to test how far IONI can be pushed in output current ratings in this kind of system.

6 thoughts on “Force feedback wheel first test drive

  1. Good day Tero,

    Thanks for the good news.

    I think IONI and the firmware developed with exclusive features for these kind of direct drive FFB sim steering systems like what you said will give sim racers who use IONI based direct drive FFB wheel much more immersive feeling and more precision feedback.

    Hope to drive with this IONI based FFB sim steering wheel. :)
    Great job!

  2. Start by not putting your thumb inside the wheel. It is a bad habit in general and can be painful at 10Nm or more!

  3. Now thats a big ass motor..

    You should try out rFactor2, it has the best FFB in the market.
    Remember to edit “Steering torque capability” in the controller.json file if you are going to try rf2..

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