Direct Drive in a cold garage

[Grudyjsy]

Hi,
I have been having issues with my DD2 on and off and had wondered if it was an EMI or a grounding issue of some sort.
The issue was that sometimes the wheel would not report its position correctly and if you turned the wheel while in the fanatic driver the position number displayed would jump about and not show all values as it should. The would then trigger the wheel to start spinning wildly as it tried to catch up with where it though it was positioned.
After having tried everything I could from removing everything from the rig with only the wheel base attached I have finally come to the conclusion that the issue is the ambient temperature of my garage. This sometimes goes below 14c and with a humidity of over 65%
The DD2 manual states 14c is the minimum operating temperature. I removed the wheel base from the rig and left it for a few days in the living room as it was vey cold to the touch. On reattaching it the issue has gone and can’t be replicated.
Not sure if anyone else has had this issue but thought I would mention it here just in case as it does come across as being caused by possible interference.

Gav

 

[metalnwood]

I doubt very much that this temperature would be an issue. 14C is not very cold.

You should certainly follow up with fanatec. I remember building my own OSW 7-8 years ago and when setting it up it went a bit out of control. I would not at all be happy using a wheel that may decide to take off at any moment if it was a DD servo based wheel.

 

[blekenbleu]

can’t be replicated

I hate when that happens.
FWIW, I run a dehumidifier in my garage to combat rust and mold.
My GE dishwasher craps out when its main controller board is bundled in its metal box,
but works fine when hanging out of the opened box...
Such issues might be caused by cold or cracked solder joint on some chip or connector.
Capture a smartphone video if/when it recurs;
Fanatec employees seemingly monitor only driver threads at forum.fanatec.com

 

[Grudyjsy]

I doubt very much that this temperature would be an issue. 14C is not very cold.

You should certainly follow up with fanatec. I remember building my own OSW 7-8 years ago and when setting it up it went a bit out of control. I would not at all be happy using a wheel that may decide to take off at any moment if it was a DD servo based wheel.

hi thanks for your reply. I have logged a ticket with them previously and we couldn’t replicate the issue however I have only recently stopped the problem from happening. I would say the garage temperature has beeen as low as 8c and the aluminium casing is very cold to the touch I’ve just used it for a couple of hours again and I can’t get it to have the issue again. I know the outrunner motor in the DD2 uses a magnetic position sensor so just wondered if it was sensitive to the cold. Unfortunately fanatec don’t detail what would happen when used outside of the supported tempurature range. I’m going to let it get very cold again and check again. Normally the issue happens when I switch the wheel base on and not in game.

 

[blekenbleu]

magnetic position sensor so just wondered if it was sensitive to the cold

Hall sensors are indeed temperature-dependent; that is a very good point which I had not considered.

 

[Neilski]

Hall sensors are indeed temperature-dependent; that is a very good point which I had not considered.

Surely not enough to matter though...

 

[metalnwood]

I would not have thought so, we are not all living the life of fully insulated temperature controlled houses 14 deg is far too high to be any reasonable cut off point for an operating temp.

I cant count how many times its less than 14 outside and less than that inside.

 

[Grudyjsy]

The wheel does detect the position but it misses positions in between the start position and end position. Imagine the position being 0 and I move it to 50 normally the number increases by 1 for each position (1-2-3-4-5…..50) When I have the issue the number goes 0-20-40-50 for example, it’s like the sensor loses its resolution. I’ve only had the issue since the rig was moved into the garage. The temp at the moment is 10c in the garage. I have emailed fanatec support asking the question. Be interesting to see there repsonce.

 

[mrexcitement71]

I very much doubt it's temp related as winter here it's not uncommon for it to be 5 - 10c inside when I'm using my DD1 and it's never ever been a problem , it just works and is very reliable.

 

[blekenbleu]

Surely not enough to matter though

Honeywell and TI Hall sensors typically spec -40 to 125C operating range with e.g. +/- 10% sensitivity tolerance.
Whether cheap clones consistently meet that is arguable,
and subcontractors in times of component shortages may skimp on testing.

 

[drvrn]

Honeywell and TI Hall sensors typically spec -40 to 125C operating range with e.g. +/- 10% sensitivity tolerance.
Whether cheap clones consistently meet that is arguable,
and subcontractors in times of component shortages may skimp on testing.

You think 14C is a problem for a cheap hall sensor?

 

[blekenbleu]

You think

Probably few if any non-military manufacturers test each product
across rated temperature range before shipment.
Even back in their high profit margin mainframe glory days,
IBM tested only a few samples exhaustively at start of regular production.
Marginal components get shipped by even well-regarded manufacturers;
seemingly unlikely failures happen when ship volumes balloon.
99.9% perfect products will more likely than not
experience at least 1 failure per 1,000 shipped.
Cold/crack solder joints are IMO more likely;
symptoms described by @Grudyjsy seem consistent with some position sensor failure...

 

[GeekyDeaks]

Cold/crack solder joints are IMO more likely;

If I had to guess, I'd go for that one. Had this happen more than once on my old BMW bike during winter and ended up resoldering most of the instrument panel board.

 

[cnhoff]

I have had EMI issues with my DD1 where the wheel sudenly pulled to one side and would not respond anymore until a restart. The reason was routing the power chord too close to the USB cable.

Once i fed the power from one side and the USB from the other i have never seen that issue again.

 

[Grudyjsy]

The issue finally became permanent after every power on. So took a video and logged a support ticket. Fanatec are sending me a new DD2 just waiting for it to arrive. The process has been slow (5 weeks) part of the delay (1 week) was having to post the item to them rather than a DPD pickup as its not available where I live, had to arrange a trip to the post office. There communication has been very good throughout and once the support centre received the dd2 it took a couple of days before getting the replace sent out.
I had kept hold of my csl elite ps4 wheel base so have used that instead. So this did take the pressure off me needing the DD2 repaired quickly.
thanks for all the suggestions and advise. Next time I have an issue I will video the issue and submit a support call straight away. One plus is at least I know my rig is grounded now so if I have any issues in future it won’t be because of that.