Is it possible to modify my Logitech Driving force EX to rotate to atleast 360 or more degrees?

I have been playing LFS with 180 degrees for a while now and it just doesn't feel precise being able to keep one hand on the wheel, and one on the homemade shifter at all times while still being competetive. (new wheel isn't an option at the monent:schwitz

I am considering re-gearing the wheel, or buying a pot and removing the wheel turn limiter by force, but I ahve no clue as to the type of potentiometer I would have to get.

I've recently geared up for my own DIY project, and I've had to do alot of research for it.

Usualy good wheels use an optical position sensor for the wheel position. Infact even my InterAct V3 had one, and that was an el-cheapo wheel.

Before you consider looking into pots you need to know several things.

1. is it a pot or optical? If it's optical, there's nothing you can do.

2. what is the impedance of the existing pot, the one you use has to match.
Get a multimeter and you can easily find out the impedance. You do this by turning the pot untill the impedance from one pole (end connection) to the center connection is highest.
(my wheel that has a pot is a 20k ohm pot for the steering, its also only a 180º turn)

3. Gears or no gears.
some have gears, some don't.
If your wheel doesn't have a gear set, you'l have to buy a multi turn pot to get over 310º steering (most pots stop at 310º), they are expensive, and if you don't figure out a way to put some kind of stop in there, the pot's built in stop won't last long.
If you have gears, than you might be able to swap a couple to change the wheel turn ratio to pot turn ratio. sometimes the stop comes after the gears so you might not need to break anything.

One last thing, make sure you are 100% commited to the task, chances are, once you start, you can't go back.
this means you could end up without a wheel if you can't finnish the project and can't go back to stock.

One tip is to take it apart once, and put it back together as is, this way you get used to how it goes together and if anything goes wrong with the modification, you still know how the original went.

Oh, and if it's force feed back, DON'T modify it, chances are the force feed back won't work after.

from reading a thread a few minutes earlier, it seems you were just the guy I wanted to respond, and you did ...thanks for the infoIi guess I won't mod it afterall since its force feedback but what is the point of modding a wheel's rotation if you can't have force feedback. oh and from your posts, here are my answers yes it has a pot and yes it has gears, I do not know the impedance.I guess im not up to the task either, as i can't go a day without some LFS time.

No problem at all.

I'm still learning alot about the electronic part of building/moding my pedals and wheel. So I can't 100% garantee there isn't a way to mod a FFB wheel. But I do know I woulden't try it myself.

one thing you could do is buy a cheap wheel ($20 or less)and pedal set and try moding that. you won't have force feed back, but it would be good practice, and you could possibly use one of the pedals from it after as a clutch pedal. Or even use the wheel if you like the finnished product. Thats what I did.

I've basicaly canabalized a steeringwheel and pedal set and a joystick and I've come up with a three pedal set and a wheel that all work well. The only thing left is getting an 8 button game pad to make a shifter.

I still cannot understand why you would sacrifice force feedback in a simulator like LFS. dO.ob

I think all Logitech wheels use an optical encoder which can theoretically keep turning foreveryour issue would be rewiring/programing the wheel to accept multiple turns and adding somekind of end stop to stop the calibration getting messed up. TBH I think it would be time consuming and probably not get anywhere, certainly no quick fix.

Quote from Ricerguy :

I still cannot understand why you would sacrifice force feedback in a simulator like LFS. dO.ob

Unfortunately, I didn't have force feedback to begin with.

But I've been watching the DIY projects for a while now, and someone is working on a chip that alows you to build your own FFB wheel and pedal set. The wheel is the only thing FFB supported. But it's still going to be a big hit for the DIY people. I'm actualy thinking of getting one, I love building my own stuff.

@ajp71
As far as I know, the optical system only has notches in the wheel portion for 300º of rotation, so you'd have to do some pretty tricky cutting to get it to register a whole 360º turn.
Then you'd have to write your own drivers to alow the controler to report more than 300º. Thats if the chip in the wheel even alows more than the set range it was designed for.




EDIT:
Here's the link to the site where you can get the NON FFB controler for DIY. The FFB one isn't finnished yet.
http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/

Quote from ajp71 :

I think all Logitech wheels use an optical encoder which can theoretically keep turning foreveryour issue would be rewiring/programing the wheel to accept multiple turns and adding somekind of end stop to stop the calibration getting messed up. TBH I think it would be time consuming and probably not get anywhere, certainly no quick fix.

Sound familiar to what I said the other night Ricerguy lol?
hahaha I told you!

Quote from ajp71 :

I think all Logitech wheels use an optical encoder which can theoretically keep turning foreveryour issue would be rewiring/programing the wheel to accept multiple turns and adding somekind of end stop to stop the calibration getting messed up. TBH I think it would be time consuming and probably not get anywhere, certainly no quick fix.

If i'm not blind whenever i open up my MOMO, i think the optical sensor actually sits on the FFB motor's shaft, which means it spins around madly as hell...

I have a different question. How to convience Logitech drivers i have a driving force PRO when in fact i have a MOMO Racing? I guess setting the FFB stop at 450° would mean the MOMO would only do 135°. Regear it to do 900° and that's it :> I managed to make it appera as a Driving Force and full lock meant 180° in the driver's display.

@Dragon Commando, I've not been following any of these posts and i'm too much of a lazy git to go find them so forgive me if this is complete bollocks.

But, not so long ago i was trying to build a flight yoke for FSX/FS2004, and after a lot of experimenting i found using an optical mouse gave me so much more precision over any of the pots i had. The idea was to fix the mouse under the (moving) shaft of the yoke and use the inbuilt 'mouse as yoke' facility in flightsim. LFS has 'mouse as steering input' too, so it should work fine. Then it's just a case of binding a button to disengage/engage the mouse inputs when you need to use it for pointing and clicking at stuff. This should give you as much rotation as you'll ever need and be so precise you'll never miss an apex again (or a runway)

Quote from Mazz4200 :

@Dragon Commando, I've not been following any of these posts and i'm too much of a lazy git to go find them so forgive me if this is complete bollocks.

But, not so long ago i was trying to build a flight yoke for FSX/FS2004, and after a lot of experimenting i found using an optical mouse gave me so much more precision over any of the pots i had. The idea was to fix the mouse under the (moving) shaft of the yoke and use the inbuilt 'mouse as yoke' facility in flightsim. LFS has 'mouse as steering input' too, so it should work fine. Then it's just a case of binding a button to disengage/engage the mouse inputs when you need to use it for pointing and clicking at stuff. This should give you as much rotation as you'll ever need and be so precise you'll never miss an apex again (or a runway)

how dare you fill my head with more ideas! Is it possible for you to give me some more info on building such a device with an optical mouse instead of all this pot talk?

Quote from DragonCommando :

Unfortunately, I didn't have force feedback to begin with.

But I've been watching the DIY projects for a while now, and someone is working on a chip that alows you to build your own FFB wheel and pedal set. The wheel is the only thing FFB supported. But it's still going to be a big hit for the DIY people. I'm actualy thinking of getting one, I love building my own stuff.

That's really aiming at DIY high end hardware though, expect costs in excess of a G25 by the time you've factored in the costs of the chip FF motors, encoders and a wheel. The resulting product would be as good as the ridiculously expensive wheels though, far better than mass produced crap that Logitech make but if a DFP or Momo is out of reach forget it.

Quote :

@ajp71
As far as I know, the optical system only has notches in the wheel portion for 300º of rotation, so you'd have to do some pretty tricky cutting to get it to register a whole 360º turn.
Then you'd have to write your own drivers to alow the controler to report more than 300º. Thats if the chip in the wheel even alows more than the set range it was designed for.

I expect it's a standard encoder used in other hardware and does have notches for 360 degrees and will keep outputting. You'd have to change the physical chip though, simple programing won't allow you to increase the range of the input signal coming into your PC.

Quote from Primoz :

If i'm not blind whenever i open up my MOMO, i think the optical sensor actually sits on the FFB motor's shaft, which means it spins around madly as hell...

No idea about a Momo but it doesn't on a DFP and FF GP.

Quote from Ricerguy :

how dare you fill my head with more ideas! Is it possible for you to give me some more info on building such a device with an optical mouse instead of all this pot talk?

You need to take the optical encoders out of any non-optical (roller ball mouse) and use them somehow in your controller, if you can get them to work they'd be a cheap solution.

Thanks, i guessbuying an optical mouse and a roller ball mouse would be more fitting to my current budget than any new wheel. I guess with more info on how to would be welcome

You want a roller ball mouse (which has an optical encoder inside it) not an optical mouse.

Quote from Ricerguy :

how dare you fill my head with more ideas! Is it possible for you to give me some more info on building such a device with an optical mouse instead of all this pot talk?

Lol, ok, but i'll need a disclaimer first:- *cough*
everything i'm about to say is mere supposition on my part, i'm unfamiliar with the internals of the wheel in question so therefore any advice is based purely on guess work and if i'm correct about anything then it's purely by chance. I therefore cannot be held responsible if your modded controller catches fire and burns your house down. Also i can give no assurance whatsoever that any of these mods will actually work.

Ok, as far as i know the potentiometer in your wheel will be attached directly to the shaft that comes from the wheel. If not then it'll have a simple gearing mechanism. As far as i know there are no pots that turn 360 degrees, so most manufacturers get the extra 900 degree rotation (for e.g) with these gearing mechanisms.

Most small rotation wheels will have the pot directly attached to the shaft and a physical stopper, i.e a bit of plastic that prevents the shaft turning more than the pot can cope with.

So, to get around this problem you've got two choices. You can either try to attach the pot to the gearing system of the forcefeedback mechanism (if it has one) or getting rid of the pot all together and using an optical mouse, or even just the optical sensor from the mouse if space is tight in the wheel casing.

It's fairly straight forward using the mouse method. You'll have to remove the pot and hack away the lump of plastic that limits the wheels rotation. Then somehow secure the mouse (or the innards of the mouse) over the shaft of the wheel. (just make sure you get it the right way round, i.e so left is left and right is right) and as close to the shaft as possible. Then as the shaft spins the mouse simply thinks it's being moved over a flat surface, and therefore you've got complete control, providing you've set it up in LFS to use mouse as steering .Obviously you'll need to drill a hole in the casing for the mouse cable. And thats about it....except

There are a couple of things to bare in mind though. You'll need another mouse for your normal mousing stuff (pointing and clicking) and you'll have to, repeat HAVE TO bind a button to engage/disengage the 'mouse as input'. Otherwise, as happened to me with a prototype i built, id be happily flying along, then need to point and click something so i'd grab my real mouse and move it and the steering would go to hell and i'd crash a lot. However, the really tricky part is getting everything centred. In Flightsim there is a button to centre the controls automatically which i bound to a key on the yoke, i'm not sure if LFS has this return controls to centre ?

Another thing to consider is the forcefeedback, does that limit the rotation or not ? does it have any feedback once it's gone past a certain rotation ? It' not something i could answer without having a look at the wheel itself.

I'm not sure if any of the above makes any sense, i've not had a ciggy for a while and i'm finding it a bit hard to concentrate right now, maybe a picture would be easier to understand.

I must point out that i ditched this idea simply because i managed to get a CH Yoke fairly cheaply, and i'd always forget to disengage mouse input before pointing and clicking at stuff, which became a touch irritating after a while. But i'm planning to build a full scale cockpit at some stage in the future so i'd certainly look into using this method again and try to sort out its weak areas.

I've thaught about using a mouse, but I've always considered it more of a hassle than a real option. But then again, I have the parts I need already available, if you don't it might be worth it.

It would give you unlimmited wheel turn because you could change the mouse sensitivity (in windows) and that would change how far you have to turn the wheel to get to lock. And I think you can have more than one pointing device in windows, so you could integrate the electronics and still have a mouse and wheel attatched at the same time, as long as they are USB. This could also give you the ability to recenter it because both mice will move the same cursor. so all you'd have to do is put the wheel at center and than move the mouse to calibrate the steering center so they line up. Problem is though, if you move the wheel so that the mouse would go off screen, it will completely offset the steering wheel. So you'd need to figure out a way to stop it to prevent that.

Basicaly, its easier to modify a wheel than it is to use a mouse, not in the actualy construction, but in the end use of it. Because the wheel can be calibrated easily, but lineing up the wheel at the start of every race would be a hassle I woulden't want to go through.

Quote from DragonCommando :

but lineing up the wheel at the start of every race would be a hassle I woulden't want to go through.

Yeah thats the biggest issue with it. If there was some app that lets you have 2 mice that operate completely separately then it'd be easy, but i don't know if it can be done ?

Im using a laptop so no need for too many mice and also no need to hack away at the wheel either it works perfectly fine with the cover off, if i can come up with a suitable solution to the two main problems which come to mind then it would be a very easy modification, firstly how would the ball of the mouse not slip on the axel of the wheel (its very smooth plastic) secondly that calibration thingy...sounds like a pain but i guess it's worth it.Something also just came to mind in lfs when i select a controller i chose between mouse or wheel, if i choose mouse i cannot use FFB?

unfortunately, force feed back will only effect the wheel if the wheel is selected as the control. so no FFB if you use mouse.

Thats why I say it would be good if you where making a wheel, but I woulden't do it to an existing wheel.

I would just stick with what I've got if I where you.
That seems like an old, posibly rare wheel, so i wouldent modify it with something like that.

Like I said, you could look for a cheap wheel and try modifying that, and you might even end up with a third pedal that way.

Quote from Ricerguy :

Im using a laptop so no need for too many mice and also no need to hack away at the wheel either it works perfectly fine with the cover off, if i can come up with a suitable solution to the two main problems which come to mind then it would be a very easy modification, firstly how would the ball of the mouse not slip on the axel of the wheel (its very smooth plastic) secondly that calibration thingy...sounds like a pain but i guess it's worth it.Something also just came to mind in lfs when i select a controller i chose between mouse or wheel, if i choose mouse i cannot use FFB?

SImple test if you have an optical mouse, go get a tin of beans or something, rest the mouse on the tin and rotate it, the pointer moves easily.

However, the point about which controller LFS recognises is a good one. How would you use the pedals and buttons from the wheel and the mouse as steering at the same time ? In my defense i only ever used this method in FS2004 never in LFS hmmm the next alternative is save up the pennies/wash cars/mow lawns/mug little old ladies and go find a cheap DFP

Can't the mouse be turned into a controller and used as a steering axis?

EDIT: whoa two posts at the same time, how does the forum know which to put first?

I think the best chance you have is to save money and buy a good wheel with more than 360º rotation.

I've never used a DFP but I have used a G25. If the wheel is basicaly the same than the DFP would be a good buy since they are cheap on Ebay.

I guess i have to give up then , oh well with school starting back soon and all...I probably won't have time for LFS either. Thanks anyways everyone

Quote from ajp71 :

You want a roller ball mouse (which has an optical encoder inside it) not an optical mouse.

Couldn't you also implement the sensors that are in the little scroller on the mouse in a custom wheel? Don't those work optically somehow?