While working on my R6 and R1 bikes the last week, I've grown interested in the concept of having working "motorcycle-like" controls. With the rotation of a standard wheel base acting as a simulation of leaning a bike, and most importantly having handle throttle, brake and clutch, mostly so I could map the pedal throttle as a rear brake and simulate proper bike brake blending.

What you are about to see is very very alpha v1, the obvious things will be taken care of. I whipped this up in a few hours with materials I had laying around, minus the pit-bike throttle and brake.

The shifter is an older Fanatec sequential shifter, with the wires cut and the 2 switches soldered directly to the gamepad.

TO-DO:

I already have ordered a thread on adapter to mount the handlebar directly to the Thrustmaster base, so I can ditch my wheel and make the setup easy to swap back and forth.

The springs on the controller analog sticks need to not wrap around the controler, it is causing binding and inconsistent return.

I may ditch that entire controller mounting aparatus entirely and start with something better, possibly an arduino with 3 axis' so I can add the clutch later, the analog sticks work but something linear like a trigger would be better suited.

Small update, I ended up soldering 2 potentiometers to the joysticks on the controler in an attempt to achieve and more linear and consistent feel. While this worked I mounted the rig to a conductive piece of metal and the pots were feeding back to one another. I will have to apply this concept to a sturdy piece of plastic or a plastic electrical box. Which then I can mount the electronics inside of.

This is really neat, good stuff!

Update, moved the setup over to a plastic box and it works perfectly now. Waiting for the adapter for my wheel base so I can properly mount the handlebars.

Update : got the handlebars mounted on a standalone adapter finally. Really liking the bars being mounted below the axis of rotation. Gives a counter steer feel and the feeling of leaning away from the bike.

My girlfriend does not play sim racers, or any games for the matter and she was able to jump on and ride the bike using this setup immediately. I think it shows how natural an intuitive this design may end up being.


UPDATE 10/6 :



My Arduino is due in the mail today, I won't have time to mess with it before I have to go to work. I was able to remove my clamped washer setup from the pots and replaced them with these rc servo arms. Perfect fit and the knurling works perfectly with the pot shaft. Creates a much more linear feel and spring reaction from the previous setup.

My only complaint is bikes don't really steer that way. I think GPBikes has an option for realistic steering? IIRC, it's in a config file, not the in-game menu. Maybe try that?

At this moment all I can do is pretend it's controlling lean not steer. I originally designed it around LFS which had no way of seperating steer and lean. Since starting to play GPBIKES I have started to ponder adding another axis / pivot in the handlebars to steer.

I'll eventually have a triple clamp on a pivot controlling another potentiometer. I'm still working on the electronics portion of this project and haven't been able to move on to improvements the last few days.

UPDATE 10/8

Moved the control board inside of the case, the only wires coming out are the USB and shifter leads. Added proper cable ends, and secondary compression springs to the cable setup. The improved throttle feel from this setup has made LFS a viable motorcycle racing sim for me now.

The big advantage people are missing when they see my setup is the abilty to realistically modulate the front and rear brake. With this setup I'm running main brake on full front bias with the LFS handbrake set as rear brake. The wheel base is simulating leaning and feels immediately intuitive.



UPDATE 10/13

I finished the proof of concept bike pedal set, shifter and rear brake are working. The current setup is nothing more than a rough test bench for positioning, travel and spring mounting.

I ordered a shifter return spring from a real motorcycle, none of the universal torsion springs I found had the muscle to consistently return the shifter to center.

The idea here is to eliminate the small plastic electrical box, and the pieces of L channel and combine them into 1 unit, there will be no wires running externally just the cables from the handlebars. The finished product will be a box housing the entire electrical unit with the pedals just, sticking out from the sides.

Nice project!