My brake mods, my little review

Nixim brake mod http://www.nixim.com/pedmod.html

What is it? - Basically it is a small rectangular block of rubber that fits in your brake pedal spring..

How long does it take to do, is it easy to fit? - It takes about 30 minutes to take apart and is pretty simple to do yourself, if you need advice, just ask me.

What is it supposed to do? - It changes the G25 brake pedal into a progressive pedal, which means the harder you press it, the harder you brake, just like a real car.

Does it work? - Yes, without a doubt, although you will need to train yourself to drive in a sim completely different to what you are used to, which will take some time.. i.e. like you brake in real life...

Do I need to change anything? - Yes, to brake with this mod, it takes a LOT more pressure to reach 100% braking, so you can now stab the brakes etc, and still get only 50% braking.. This means you will need to secure your pedals, a carpet grip simply won't hold it anymore... also, you will need to adjust your braking points, because you can now brake MUCH later and with more control. This also means you might want to change your sets accordingly, e.g. if in lfs your car has 1200 brakes, now you can set this to MUCH higher, as you have more control over the whole braking phase, although this in conjunction with the leo g25 adaptor brake mod will make this effect even more pronounced. Basically, it's similar to the difference from the momo to the g25

Do I need to configure LFS/Windows? - Yes, I use dxtweak 2 to set the initial brake point to when you feel the pressure from the mod, so you "feel" the point when the brakes discs are touching the wheels, and I also set atm the 100% brake as you have to push very hard to reach full braking, although this will change when my pdeals are fixed to the floor

How much does it cost? - I think I paid £15 with postage to anywhere in the world.

Conclusion - This mod turns the g25 brake pedal into something costing at least a few hundreds of pounds more. It won't instantly turn you into a better driver though, as it will take time to get used to, but when you do get used to it, it will feel more natural and you will brake alot more smoother than you thought possible.

Leo Bodner's G25 adaptor http://leobodnar.com/products/DFPG25conn/

What is it? - It is a usb adaptor that you attach just your pedals to.

What is it supposed to do? - It increases all your pedals resolution from 256 to 1024, providing much smoother braking.

Does it work? - Yes, without a doubt. You will instantly get much more control over throttle, clutch and most importantly braking. Another side effect I have heard is that because it separates the pedals from the g25 wheel, you also get more responsive wheel input.

Do I need to change anything? - Nope, nothing, except your braking points, because you can now brake MUCH later and with more control. This also means you might want to change your sets accordingly, e.g. if in lfs your car has 1200 brakes, now you can set this to MUCH higher, as you have more control over the whole braking phase, although this in conjunction with the nixim brake mod will make this effect even more pronounced. Basically, it's similar to the difference from the momo to the g25


Do I need to configure LFS/Windows? - Yes, when you first plug this in, windows will find a new device "G25 brake pedals", completely seperate from your wheel. Then you need to calibrate this. You will now find that your pots (potentiometers) are nowhere near as accurate as your logitech drivers made you think they were. You might have to adjust the calibration to suit your pots, i.e. I had 86-940 (can't remember atm) for the full pedal travel on brake and accelerator, but my clutch was full, I guess from use...

How much does it cost? - £19.99 delivered to anywhere in the world

Conclusion - This turns your whole g25 setup into a MUCH more accurate device. I would recommend this above the nixim brake mod as this will instantly make you faster without changing your driving style too much. You can brake later, and much more control over the throttle, and basically turn your g25 into a much higher end device for £20. When you consider the g25 costs at least £150, this is a steal

Ohh.. the thing that changed the resolution from 256 to 1024 looks like something I'd consider buying after a review or something

(edit, if the website worked -_-)

Aye mate, looks like it is down atm I did this review for my teammates when I bought it, and just copied it here for you guys, so a pretty honest review

I have had the Nixim brake mod for a while now and like the feel too.
But ,the end of the rubber block is being cut in to by the inside of the red shroud.
Spoke to Nixim ,who also had the same problem ,but said it wouldn't get any worse ....and no replacement offered.

I was interested in Leo's box, was waiting for a review because to me it sounded dodgy - seems if I do ever get into sim-racing again i'll need to pick one up...

Quote from Jakg :

I was interested in Leo's box, was waiting for a review because to me it sounded dodgy - seems if I do ever get into sim-racing again i'll need to pick one up...

I got one of these Jakg, Plugged it in and calibrated it very easily, anyway I can say that it makes the G25 pedals noticably smoother, building up the accelaration out of a corner seems much nicer and easier to control, transition between braking and throttle seems smoother, as well as the braking itself being more consistent. It's not going to make you become a Gregor Huttu or Bawbag though unfortunately......damnit I want my money back . I may try the Nixim pedal mod......but what I'd really like is a mod that makes the pedal lenghts adjustable so I can practise heel and toe, the standard set up makes this very awkward.

Oh and Off Topic Jakg, remember my homebuild PC fetish a couple of months ago? Well it was and still is an effing disaster....it still has never completed POST lol....meh one day soon i will get into fault finding mode....bah...should have bought a ready made

Quote from AlienT. :

but what I'd really like is a mod that makes the pedal lenghts adjustable so I can practise heel and toe, the standard set up makes this very awkward.

I have the nixim mod too, and it really made heel&toe much easier than with the stock pedals! So for anyone interested in heel&toe I'd definitely recommend it. However I'm not quite sure that I've installed it correctly.. I read somewhere that the travel distance of the brake should be halved, but in my case it's not. My deadzone is much smaller than that. I also can't really fully depress the pedal, even if I apply full force. This means that when I heel&toe the force on the brake pedal goes down for a split second as I flip my foot over. Which isn't exactly ideal.. Did I do something wrong?

I'd never heard of Leo's mod before, and frankly I'm a little sceptical. How can increasing the resolution in any way help..? I've never considered the pedals to be particularly unsmooth. Could someone say a little more about how they make a difference in actual gameplay?

Unfortunatly, I brake with the clutch pedal - feels more natural, having the accel/brake pedal a bit farther apart (for single-seater racing, that is).

But I might pick up the 256-1024 thingy

since all pedals are identical apart from the spring you could just put the brake spring and nixim rubber on the clutch

Sold! I will give this a try, much cheaper than a set of uber pedals. Leos pedal thingy makes subtle but noticable difference Gnomie......you know when you move your foot on the pedal during calibration etc how the onscreen pedal indicator bar maybe jerks slightly or appears to very briefly lag well when you move the pedal? well this is much smoother with el Leo gadgit, it's also easier to maintain a more accurate certain ammount of throttle/brake. I would liken the effects of the mod to taking a valium if you were having a fit of the DT's.

Quote from Gnomie :

I have the nixim mod too, and it really made heel&toe much easier than with the stock pedals! So for anyone interested in heel&toe I'd definitely recommend it. However I'm not quite sure that I've installed it correctly.. I read somewhere that the travel distance of the brake should be halved, but in my case it's not. My deadzone is much smaller than that. I also can't really fully depress the pedal, even if I apply full force. This means that when I heel&toe the force on the brake pedal goes down for a split second as I flip my foot over. Which isn't exactly ideal.. Did I do something wrong?

I'd never heard of Leo's mod before, and frankly I'm a little sceptical. How can increasing the resolution in any way help..? I've never considered the pedals to be particularly unsmooth. Could someone say a little more about how they make a difference in actual gameplay?

Quote from AlienT. :

Leos pedal thingy makes subtle but noticable difference Gnomie......you know when you move your foot on the pedal during calibration etc how the onscreen pedal indicator bar maybe jerks slightly or appears to very briefly lag well when you move the pedal? well this is much smoother with el Leo gadgit, it's also easier to maintain a more accurate certain ammount of throttle/brake. I would liken the effects of the mod to taking a valium if you were having a fit of the DT's.

I like the comparison!

Hm.. I will have to give this some thought.. As I said I've never really noticed a problem with the brake "resolution" as it is now. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't notice a difference with Leo's mod.

By the way, installing this would mean I would be using all my six USB ports..

my brake adapter has arived i'll write my opinions when i test it tomorrow.

Well the Nixim piece of rubber has arrived and easily installed. I have so far only tried it with iracing where anyone with a G25 knows the issues with breaking.

At first not sure what to think of it really, somehow I have managed to take .25 secs of my infineon IRL time in the skippy but the break pedal feels well terrible at first anyway. I have taken the castors of my chair and have booked myself in for 100 sessions at the gym with a specialist 'one legged trainer' so I can build up my breaking leg to a suitable level of strength. I'm thinking Roberto Carlos would have trouble pushing the break pedal to the floor now.
Anyway with a bit of playing around with the break pedal calibration and the hire of a hydraulic ram, HPU and the necessary fittings to assist with breaking I seem to have it sorted (only kidding about the hydraulic ram).

Conclusion.
This takes some getting used to, the pressure needed to push the pedal to the floor is probably too much unless you have very well secured pedals and seat to (meh I need a sim cockpit)
It is easier, after much practise and fiddling with calibration, to know when you are reaching threshold breaking. Trail breaking I am finding more difficult at the moment.
FACT...my breaking distances are shorter in iracing.
You could easily make this mod yourself, a piece of high density rubber cut to fit inside the brake pedal spring. I'm sure you could cut a piece from a 'bouncy ball' for instance, I would say it is approximately 15x12x50mm, but unfortunately that is a guess as I forgot to measure mine before I fitted it sorry .
The Nixim website has good fitting guide with pictures.
For the price of a packet of ciggies including postage it's not too bad, but I suppose that is relative, I would rather be racing than buggering around in toy shops looking for a piece of rubber then ending up in hospital because i've sliced my fingers off with a stanley knife while attempting to mould said rubber.

Anyone have one of those adapters for the pedal unit for a review?

Quote from AlienT. :

Conclusion.
This takes some getting used to, the pressure needed to push the pedal to the floor is probably too much unless you have very well secured pedals and seat to (meh I need a sim cockpit)
It is easier, after much practise and fiddling with calibration, to know when you are reaching threshold breaking. Trail breaking I am finding more difficult at the moment.

I built myself a very very simple system for securing the pedals. I just bolted them onto a couple of pieces of wood which I then lodged against the wall. Works just fine while I'm waiting for my Rinoseat to arrive.

It's of course piece of cake to place some stuff underneath the wooden boards to create an incline. (Although in my case I'm limited by the wall socket. )

LEP BODNER PEDAL ADAPTER

before i comment, my controler history.

i started sim driving using a keyboard on an amiga 500+ and grand prix 1, then with a joystick and grandprix 2, 3 and 4 along with colin mcrae. 2 weeks after finding LFS i bought s2 and a DFP before purchasing a g25 9 months ago, i also drive in iracing and occasionally richard burns, i've tried rfactor but don't like its feel. i dont much time to race at the moment and in LFS im about 3% off the faster drivers, in iracing its about 5%.

firstly by seperating the pedals from the wheel and shifter, this has made moving / storing / installing my g25 far easier as before i either had to disconnect the pedals to pass the cable behind the desk or i had to have the cable passing over the front of the desk. it's a minor point as a lot of you will be able to have your wheel set up all the time but it has made my life easier and to be honest made me more willing to set things up rather than not bothering if i havent got a couple of hours spare. hopefully this will improve my current lack of driving time.

this unit is very nicely made and it's only the fel of the plastic that seperates it from quality mass produced items. 1 minor quibble is that there is a gap all around the usb socket which could allow ingress of dirt, dust and in my case pet hairs, i may see if i can seal this at some point in the future. be aware the adaptor sdoes not plug directly into your usb port, you need a proper usb cable to link it, not mini usb cable that seems more common with peripherals these days, if your using a cable that you got for a printer, like me, then you'll end up with another meter of cable between the pedals and your pc which can be untidy but it may be of use as it allows you to extend your pedal cable if your installation needs / would benefit from it, i will be looking for a short cable or adaptor soon


now the most important area, does it work?

YES ! if you have iracing then you'll know of the problems with judging brake lock up, but now i can judge my braking far more accurately and not only am i not locking up (wel not that often) but also my braking distances have fallen due to being able to judge the brake force more accuratly and so using far more of the grip available with less of a margin to allow for error. in LFS it's meant that i'm able to increase my max brake force and exploit the extra grip that the downforce at speed gives whilst not worrying about lockup at lower speeds.

what hasn't been mentioned much is the effect on the throttle, in LFS in the past i've tended to use low diff lock figures for comfort rafher than the higher settings that most fast drivers use ( as previously mentioned i used to use a dfp and when first using it i didn't realise that the calibration of the pedals was faulty which resulted in a very off, 1/2, full throttle progression and, depsite solving the problem and later changing wheel, i've always stuggled to shake the resulting habit i learned of being very on off with the throttle ) now after about 15 mins with this mod, i've already almost doubled my diff lock power setting. in iracing its meant that the skippy can be held on a slight power slide on the tight bends without worrying about wild slides. in fact for those of you that have iracing the best review of this i can give is that now the skippy actually flows rather than jumps into slides and you can smoothly change on tight bends from a slight turn in slide under braking into a slight power on exit rather than the previous only brake in a straight line and then accelerating into the bend.

in conclusion ijn case you havent guessed i like it. its definatly worth probably 2 or 3 times its cost and certainly makes the pedals feel far more a quality item

Thanks for your review! Sounds very good indeed.

I don't suppose you could post a .spr replay of a lap in LFS? Maybe it will be possible to notice a change in the "pedal bars" in the lower right corner..?

I might have to get one of those..

Quote from Gnomie :

Thanks for your review! Sounds very good indeed.

I don't suppose you could post a .spr replay of a lap in LFS? Maybe it will be possible to notice a change in the "pedal bars" in the lower right corner..?

I might have to get one of those..

i'll try to remember next time im playing

you probably don't "need" one for lfs as the sim is very good for dealing with controler short comings via the brake force limit but it does allow more accurate control and if you think of it as part of your g25 and just add the cost onto the cost of your g25 then it becomes a bit of a no brainer, personally i think something like this should come with the g25 in an increased price

Quote from tinvek :

Blah blah blah blah

Cheers for that

Probbably will buy one now

Quote:
Originally Posted by NIXIM
When you click to buy the mod from our webpage, post and packing is included, - worldwide.

Don't worry too much about not being able to configure the DZ, the mod as supplied will still allow the full pedal travel, so using it in console games is not a problem.
It may not be perfect, but it will be a sight better than what you have with the standard pedal set.

Not all PC games are that configurable either, this is why the mod is a slight compromise to make it work with all games.

Take Live for Speed and Richard Burns Rally for example, these sims do not have a DZ adjustment, but you can set the brake so that it works how you want it to, by adjusting the available settings.

Brake power "per wheel" at 2300 in LFS is much more powerfull than the standard setting of 1640 (at least for the FZR car shown), but with the mod you no longer need the full pedal throw (as you do in GTR 2 for e.g.), and it feels much more realistic as you can now control that extra brake power with what is now a progressive feedback pedal.

Oh and whilst we are here, quite a few guys prefer a Sensitivity setting around 40% in GTR 2, as opposed to our previous 80% - as I have said previously, it is worth experimenting with your sensitivity - but the DZ is always 50-55%.

The attached images should give a starting point in RBR and LFS.

Dave

Hi, all.
I am usually racing LFS with nixim brake mod.
I have a question about setting.
I set up dxtweak2 brake dead zone 50% AND changed the Brake power setting in the game to much higher than standard.

Is it right way for LFS as using BOTH dxtweak2 AND brake power
or just using ONLY brake power setting WITHOUT dxtweak2 setting?

I am pretty confuse about this setting.
Please give me your advise.

Thanks all.

sorry for bad english. LOL.

So is the Leo pedal mod worth €25? I'm not sure if I should go for it, I mean, would I notice much of a difference? I'm not looking to be 9000% faster, but will it make it more realistic? Thanks for help

I just heard that leo mod has a little issue.
Please check this link.

http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=328209

Quote from Stigpt :

Unfortunatly, I brake with the clutch pedal - feels more natural, having the accel/brake pedal a bit farther apart (for single-seater racing, that is).

Same for me !

But I've just order a g25 pedal mod and will place it in the clutch pedal, the springs seems to be the same size, it should fit there, I'll let you know once I've tried

Guys, I am real close to getting the Leo mod but was wondering if any of you guys have tried this with GT5 w/o any of the 99.65% calibration problems? I am worried that it might not work well there.

Anyone tried it out yet? Thanks.

Hi I don't know, but apparently there's a firmware update available now. Here's a post from the iRacing board (by Leo):

Quote :

If you are using DFP/G25 standalone pedals USB interface then you may want to try new utility that opens internal calibration feature. You can now go ahead and store calibration inside the device box. I think this should be a big step ahead in iRacing calibration struggle since they seem to bypass Windows calibration settings. You would need to press "Upgrade Firmware" button once at the beginning to load new firmware into the box. This has been tested on a few PCs and should work OK but if the application crashes just try a few more times. You should see the device version change from 1.1 to 1.2 and all the calibration features should get unlocked. After you start using internal calibration reset the Windows/DIView/DXTweak2 calibration to default! Calibrate gently - don't push or stomp on pedals while calibrating or tuning the limits. This will make sure you are setting realistic limits and always achieve 100% acceleration and braking. The software can be downloaded here: Calibration-DFP-G25.exe http://www.leobodnar.com/produ ... n/Calibration-DFP-G25.exe This has just been developed so please report any problems directly to me via email. This option only applies to DFP/G25 standalone pedals USB adaptor. BU0836, BU0836A, BU0836-LC and BU0836X are not compatible with this software