Quote from Funnycat :

Oh yeah, 2 days after my warranty time for the Momo Racing ran out, it looked like this:

Nice wheel! But aren't those buttons a bit small?

Quote from Tweaker :

Mind if I ask what kind of camera you have? Off topic, but these are nice photos

All pictures are made with the controversial Sony Cybershot DSC-F828, a camera that has been trashed for its purple fringing and noise at higher ISO values. Although you cannot deny the camera has certain issues, if you know the pitfalls and avoid them it's one of the best prosumer cams - ever. I also have a way more expensive Canon EOS 20D but I still tend to use the Sony because it's very easy to use and gets great pictures out of the box.



The pictures in this thread aren't really good, though ;D. Brightness isn't constant, a lot overbrightened white, incorrect color balance, bad lighting,... Maybe I'm a bit too much of a perfectionist, but like I said, I didn't want to spend too much time on it. I wasn't even intending to take pictures, but someone at the Dutch forum Gathering Of Tweakers asked for pictures, so...

Back on topic...

I took the cables going through the steering axle out again. I wasn't satisfied by it since there seemed to be a bit of wear on the protective heat shrinks of both cables where they go in the axle. So I took the shrinks off, took all wires together and put those in a new thicker heat shrink. The resulting cable is thinner than both old cables, but better protected. I also added a cable support to make sure the cable is coming as straight as possible out of the steering axle. Small improvement, but the wheel may benifit from it on the long run.

I also started working on the buttons plate. It's beginning to look quite nice. Pictures coming this weekend.

Quote from Tweaker :

Mind if I ask what kind of camera you have? Off topic, but these are nice photos

I was thinking the same thing. And while I can appreciate the minor issues of exposure, lighting, and white balance that SatCP mentioned, those pics are, by a very large margin, the best I have ever seen in a context like this.

You clearly have an excellent eye for composition in addition to mad your soldering skillz, SatCP. ;-)

lyd

Quote from lyd :

You clearly have an excellent eye for composition in addition to mad your soldering skillz, SatCP. ;-)

Yup, clearly the work of a very smart perfectionist.

i just posted my response of the 1st prototype of my mod in the general discussion thread for the G25. check it out.

Quote from SatCP :

Nice wheel! But aren't those buttons a bit small?

Well, there were bigger plastic thingys glued to them but they fell off and got lost, and the current state is ok for me

I concluded work on my G25 "Pro" mod. Last week I made several paperboard button plates to see what looked best and was most practical to use. I also got the buttons I wanted to use so I could begin on the final phase of the mod.



These are the buttons I opted for. Maybe a weird choice because those are PCB mounting buttons where chassis mounting would have been more logical. But, these buttons are short, have a nice feel to it (a similar click to the two existing buttons on the G25) and are very cheap. I couldn't find any affordable chassis mounting buttons that would be better. The buttons have about the same diameter as the two G25 buttons (9 mm). I did order crimson colored buttons, but I got wine red buttons. Obviously the manufacturer took the note "Picture may differ from actual product" very literaly. Anyway, that's not a problem. Wine red is nice too



And this is the prototype button plate made from 2 mm thick aluminium. The sides were folded to provide extra stiffness to the plate. Remaining gaps and openings were filled with polyester and after some good sanding the result was really smooth without sharp edges. A primer was applied to the plate, followed by a nice mat black finish. I chose mat black because it contrasts well with the spokes of the G25 wheel without making the heart of the G25 look too thick.

The tiny black bars coming out of the bottom are actually bolts that got painted too. That's not a problem, some acetone quickly gets rid of that. The bolts are required because I use PCB mounting buttons. In other words: there should be a PCB behind the button plate on which the buttons come. Not the most easy approach (definitely not to hide the bolt heads at the front side), but I just couldn't find better buttons. The bolts are quite a bit too long in the above picture. I forgot to shorten them before spraying, damn

Originally I intended to make a final button plate after this prototype using CNC machines and then anodising the aluminium with a nice black coating, but the prototype was already looking very good. So I decided to go further with the prototype. If the paintjob ever comes off I still might make a final button plate. For now, the prototype will do. It has a professional look to it.

There's a lot of holes in the button plate. There's room for 16 buttons. This is probably overkill, but better too much than not enough. Since this was intended to be only a prototype I wanted to max out the number of buttons to see what was practical and still looking good. Some will probably think it's too dense with all the buttons, I actually liked it. I didn't feel any need to bring down the number of buttons. By using two colors for the buttons I could make groups to make it appear less dense.



Here you can see how the button plate will be mounted to the G25 wheel. The plastic Logitech logo piece grips through the 6 holes in the G25 wheel into the 6 holes of the button plate. No way it can move once it's mounted. The folded sides are only 15 mm high so they don't obstruct the paddles.

If you wondered what the cut-out parts in the previous picture were for: the 2 G25 buttons sit in these openings.

That doesn't look to bad, don't you think? I'm glad I stepped away from my first thoughts to drill holes in the G25 wheel for the buttons. With my current approach I didn't toch the nice stainless steel spokes.

While I had already made several paperboard models, this was the first time I could actually operate the buttons and feel whether or not they were good to use. The four red buttons above the middle are very easy to reach with your thumbs. You can still operate the paddles while pressing them. This was one of the goals of the mod: to have more (now six instead of two) buttons you can operate without moving hands.

While I still had the wheel apart I took the time to place small rubber strips on the backside of the paddles where they go into the steering axle. This simple mod fixes the bouncing when you let go the paddle rapidly and prevents the movement of the other paddle if you operate one. For the other buttons one has to move his hand, but the buttons have enough spacing to find them blindly. I'm really surprised with how good the overall feeling is.

Then it was time to connect everthing and put the wheel back together. Connecting the wires wasn't exactly a pleasant job because there are a lot of wires and they all seem to lead to their own life. Everytime you thought you had the wheel good on the steering axle it turned out there was a wire in wrong position blocking the mounting. But eventually I got the whole thing back together

So ladies and gentlemen... May I present to you: the G25 "Pro"...

You are a freak man Awesome work

Now you can send it to me, check PM for address

Very nice... Allow me to persuade you to do the G25 Xtreme... These buttons, +Axis operated handbrake, + LCD display

Quote from TagForce :

Very nice... Allow me to persuade you to do the G25 Xtreme... These buttons, +Axis operated handbrake, + LCD display

An LCD display is not an option. I'd spend way too much time on that for something I can already see on-screen. But an axis operated e-brake is something I have been thinking about. Thanks due this mod I now have extra axes from the DFP electronics (accelerate/brake) that are left ubnused for the moment.

Anyway, that's for later... Much later. I don't use the handbrake very often, so it doesn't get high priority.

Another thing in planning are better positioned pedals.

I must admit that is way too cool, very very impressed!

TBH, I think you've added wayyy too many buttons. Will you really need that many? :o

It would be cool if some areas of the buttons were replaced by LEDs or something. Having a row of LEDs along the top would be really neat to have function with OutGuage.

But it is your project, so continue on

Although that surely looks kinda cool, I would've just gotten a cheap USB controller from Leo Bodnar ($30) and simply wire the buttons to that! This is very well done though, don't get me wrong..

Quote from Tweaker :

TBH, I think you've added wayyy too many buttons. Will you really need that many? :o

No I don't... As I wrote, this used to be the prototype. The goal of the prototype was to put as many buttons on it as possible and then find out which buttons should remain and which could go. Especially the top row could do with less buttons.

But I liked the prototype so much (the looks, not necessary the amount of buttons) I changed plans and used the prototype as final product. That saves me a huge amount of work

If the protype ever becomes damaged (paint comes off for example), I'll make a "real" final one using CNC machines (the prototype was completely hand made). Then I can leave out the buttons I don't use anyway.

Quote :

It would be cool if some areas of the buttons were replaced by LEDs or something. Having a row of LEDs along the top would be really neat to have function with OutGuage.

There have been ideas along that line, but in the end I ditched them. Why should I add LED indicators for something I can already see on my monitor? Traction control light, visual rpm counter, shift indicator,... the sky is the limit, but it all is already displayed on screen. So why bother

My goal wasn't to make the G25 look very realistic, my goal was to add buttons to make it more usable to my own needs while still maintaining a professional look. I think I succeeded in that.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Although that surely looks kinda cool, I would've just gotten a cheap USB controller from Leo Bodnar ($30) and simply wire the buttons to that! This is very well done though, don't get me wrong..

I know, many people suggested that. But I did not have a gamepad laying around, however I did have a DFP doing nothing but collecting dust, so...

I'd rather recycle some hardware than to buy new stuff.

Besides, I already had the DFP while I was thinking about modding the G25. So I could look inside it and see if it's internals would fit inside the G25 housing. If I had chosen a gamepad, I'd first have to buy it before I could see whether or not I could fit it in. Another advantage of using the wheel's electronics is that it was designed to be used in a wheel: it has the ability to address many buttons through few wires (8 wires for 16 buttons - just to make sure everything fits in the tiny hole of the steering axle). A gamepad is probably designed differently. Besides, I've seen the internals of a few gamepads and they often use one large PCB stretching from the left to the right. That's a quite large PCB. I doubt I could make it fit inside the G25 as I did with the DFP's board. I *could* cut the board to remove the button areas, but on the internals I've seen the electronic components are spread all over the PCB. I'm not saying it's not possible. Maybe it would have been a lot easier than my approach, but I had several reasons to do it my way and the most important thing is the result

Thats a really nice project dude You ever thought about getting some extra money with this modding stuff? Im not sure if it would worth the work but what i can see is really impressive