DIY Ferrari 2011 Wheel

William Geuze · May 17, 2012

At this point in time I'm in the research phase for my future DIY project. I have never done anything like this, and I'm certainly no handy man. You think this sounds weird? Wait till you read what I want to do...

In short, this is what I want to build:

Features:
Leo Bodnar SLI-Pro
Shifter paddles
Clutch paddles
Hall effect sensors for clutch (Allegro A1302)
Microswitches for shifters (???)
12 rotary switches
3 regular switches
10 (knitter) pushbuttons (only if I can strike a deal)
Quick release
2 layers of Carbon fibre shell
glass fibre cast
rubber grips

I will create my own CAD drawings, guestimating measurements, with the help from some known sizes, and my own 3d model made for my 3D portfolio.

Estimated cost: €450,-

Yes, this might seem way out of my league for someone who has no experience with this stuff at all. Because it is. But I'm a stubborn bastard and I would love to do this. There isn't a single product on the market which suits me for an affordable price. Buying a Thrustmaster and adjusting that still sucks, since thats costs about 500 without the SLI-Pro and buttons added, and it basically is a plastic toy still..

For now, I have the following questions:
- According to Bodnars' website, the hall effect sensor can be connected directly to the SLI-pro, is this true?
- Is it expensive to have moulds routed/cnc-ed?
- Which microswitches for the shifters? What about the mounting, no idea how just yet.
- Is the quick release worth my money?
- Is it possible to route all wires through the steering wheel/colum into the steering wheel base?
- I will be in the market for a new steering wheel base, Im still using an old Momo Racing. second hand g27?

Any feedback, opinion, help etc, is much appreciated.

edit:
Before I forget, any plans, templates, files I create, will be free to use by the community

Im just not responsible for any mistakes in them

belldanndy · Jul 16, 2012

It looks better and better now!!

William Geuze · Jul 16, 2012

Thanks ^^
I noticed that my grips are a bit too wide, so I will need to change that later on.

Today I'll receive my 3D print of the first version of the gear shifter paddle, so curious to see how it feels

(This part will need to be updated as well, as well as the clutch ones)

I also need to find a way to limit the cluth paddles going past a certain angle because of the force of the spring when the paddle is not in use. I have an idea, and that might be in the shape of the top of the braked, give that an angle so the paddle can't exceed that angle physically. Update on that to come.

About relocating, still no news. We might keep living in our current place for another 6 months, which will mean no desktop pc+steering wheel, so all in all, no production of this one. The upside is, everything will be carefully drawn and planned out. So it's not all bad, it just sucks that this gets delayed since it will take quite some time before I've got it all produced..

William Geuze · Jul 16, 2012

WOOHOO!!

First time I have something tangiable in my hands other than a printed letter or something!

A littlebit of a setback however. This material doesn't seem suitable to create by knobs from. I will do a test anyway, this is one thin flat slab, maybe curved/round knobs will have way more rigidity to them.

As far as the shifter, holy crap, it's exactly the piece. So in theory, with this, I could create a mold, and duplicate it as many times as I desire

I tried it on my mockup ofcourse, and the position feels really good, so I guess I guesstimsed it's placement correctly!

It might be 5mm longer or so, I will probably do that.

simracn · Jul 16, 2012

The shifter/clutch assy is the one thing i need to get down to add to my wheels. It takes me anywhere from 16 to 30 hours to complete a wheel out of the plex depending on how intricate and how many layers. A lot of it is hand work after cut out on the machine. Thats next once i get caught up on my orders.
Yours is coming along very nicely! quite a bit involved in getting one figured out/drawn and made

William Geuze · Jul 16, 2012

Can you do all the routing yourself? Thats awesome

Yeah planning and testing is all I can do for a while, and it does pay off I need to say. I already found out I need 5 to 10mm extra length on the paddle and need to extend it a bit in width on the bottom, make it a bit more symmetrical. I didn't see this on my reference because it's very hard to see, but thats taking a bit of artistic license I guess since I can't get it a 100% accurate with these images anyway. Aside from all this, it's really fun to see this project grow, and I'm growing into it as well, learning new things almost every weekend I spend working on it!

simracn · Jul 17, 2012

Yes i cut them out myself. Have my iwn little cnc machine. Draw them up in autocad 2d right now but plan on getting into 3d drawing and cutting contours.
Yup at times trial and error is the only way to figure things out. And i never plan on stopping learning.

belldanndy · Jul 17, 2012

Well, it must be a great feeling when you finally hold the product you created with the PC!
Good for you!!

William Geuze · Jul 17, 2012

simracn said:
Yes i cut them out myself. Have my iwn little cnc machine. Draw them up in autocad 2d right now but plan on getting into 3d drawing and cutting contours.
Yup at times trial and error is the only way to figure things out. And i never plan on stopping learning.

Thats awesome, wish I could do the same myself

belldanndy said:
Well, it must be a great feeling when you finally hold the product you created with the PC!
Good for you!!

Hehe yeah it's really cool to hold something virtual in your hands, in a way. I will make some adjustments this weekend to both this paddle and the clutch ones. Anyway, with this material, not going to happen. Who knows I will have them milled out of POM or something, don't know about the costs for these small objects yet, but I will ask for quotes again on these

About those cluth paddles btw, Im not too sure how that should be produced. Does anyone have any idea's? I forgot to add the sides properly in my design so it might difficult to do with carbon fibre. At least, not from one piece. I will have to create a mold for the outside, and then later have to reinforce the inside with the wall which is in there. This is not hard to do, but my question is, will this hold up and will it be as sturdy as I need it to? Milling this is not really possible because of the concave shapes you end up with because of the sides.

If that last question is not clear, wait for the updated design this weekend and it will be

belldanndy · Jul 17, 2012

I think only the gear paddles is in Carbon Fiber, the clutch paddles seem to use Titanium or may be aluminum on the real thing?!

William Geuze · Jul 17, 2012

I think it's cast aluminium or something yeah, but that might a bit too expensive for me

Jim Cole · Jul 17, 2012

I would think that cast aluminum would be a lot less expensive than having something made out of carbon fiber.

William Geuze · Jul 17, 2012

You think so? Hmm, maybe worth to investigatI think noticed a problem with my design but other opinions would be nice.

I have the idea that the gear shift paddles are coming out as too high on the back of the wheel. This is because where the center of the wheel is, based on the main knob on the front. Everything I did lines up at the front if you compare the shots, but on the rear of the wheel it really feels im a good 10mm off...

How would you guys sort this out and how is possible to find where the error is? Might it just work lowering the pivot of the wheel bij 5 to 10mm ? Won't that make it feel weird? This is quite an issue to solve because as the prototype is now, the paddle feels too small and a bit on the high side. Making it bigger would is one thing, but then it still is a bit too high.

Very curious to your opinions!

edit:
After some more looking, think im definately off by a bit, cock, moving all that stuff down is going to be a pain in the ass. But is neccesary, the top of the main knob should be positioned vertically halfway the horizontal pieces of the grips, Right now in my case, it's more in line with the top of those, or atleast towards that direction. I think it's not even 10mm, and I would have never noticed it if it wasn't for using the shifter paddles and seeing that I could not 'fit' the design in the space I had for it. That kind of makes sense now! When you pay attention, the bottom side of my paddles are straight, because if that was curved as well, they would get too high up. I still like to hear your feedback, thats what this topic is for after all, am I right in my conclusion? Wrong?

simracn · Jul 17, 2012

you can always leave the pivot point alone, but make the paddles so the end up where you need them to be. Look at some of the whels here http://www.amalgamcollection.com/en...e=&PHPSESSID=f7db43774195dce301e7506ad1c84efc go to the hi res gallary and take a peak around at the different ones.

William Geuze · Jul 17, 2012

Thats the problem, the paddles are connected to the screws which are used to mount the quickrelease. Thats all conected, I'm not creating a MercedesGP wheel

edit:
holy crap this is what I needed!!!
http://finemodelcars.com/hi-res/hi_res_store/bulk_update/Ferrari 150 Italia Steering Wheel Replica/Amalgam 150 Italia Full Size Steering Wheel Replica (1).JPG

Will definately use that to fix my issue as it is proven again here that im slightly off. Awesome stuff! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!!!

Now this makes me wonder what they are using on the clutch paddles!

Hopefully I can show you an updated version of the rear this weekend!

William Geuze · Jul 20, 2012

Small update:

I realised something this morning. Previously when I was placing the rotary encoders in the DIF IN and CHRG cavities, I noticed that they barely, or just not, fit in there. As I am going to be moving the entire mid section of the wheel down a couple of mm's, 10 at most hopefully, those parts will have some space again to be bigger, as they probably should be anyway! This to me proves again that the way the pivot is placed right now is off and this is proven in two seperate cases. If you ask me, after I fix this, and that's quite some work, I'm really close to the real thing. I'm not sure if I can get any closer after that, maybe with some tweaking here and there, but visually that might not even be noticable.

For now, thanks for all the pointers I already got, this is definately going in the right direction!

belldanndy · Jul 20, 2012

wgeuze said:
Thats the problem, the paddles are connected to the screws which are used to mount the quickrelease. Thats all conected, I'm not creating a MercedesGP wheel

edit:
holy crap this is what I needed!!!
http://finemodelcars.com/hi-res/hi_res_store/bulk_update/Ferrari 150 Italia Steering Wheel Replica/Amalgam 150 Italia Full Size Steering Wheel Replica (1).JPG

Will definately use that to fix my issue as it is proven again here that im slightly off. Awesome stuff! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!!!

Now this makes me wonder what they are using on the clutch paddles!

Hopefully I can show you an updated version of the rear this weekend!

Btw, is it possible to use the Amalgam replica wheel for sim racing use? They claim they use the same material as the real wheel, so if all the switches and buttons are real one, just need to connect to SLI Pro and things done. I know I may sound a bit simple, but can it be done?

William Geuze · Jul 20, 2012

I believe it can be done with some adjustments yeah, but it's damn costly. And ****ing awesome :X If I even come anywhere remotely close to their level of finish, I'm going to be extremel happy.

William Geuze · Jul 21, 2012

The new shifter paddle design, as on the real wheel, the one below is the old one

*
I left out the round thingie with the holes, don't know what it is for.

belldanndy · Jul 21, 2012

wgeuze said:
I believe it can be done with some adjustments yeah, but it's damn costly. And ****ing awesome :X If I even come anywhere remotely close to their level of finish, I'm going to be extremel happy.

If it can be done, I will seriously thinking to get one and put all the wiring inside and make it work with the G27. I have browse all the custom make wheels, they are all costly and the outcome are not what I expect.
I only interest in your wheel because the look is very close to the real thing, and you put a lot of effort to create it. But too bad it take time to complete, and I can't wait that long.
The only problem is I'm not good at wiring things, so I need to get some pro to do it for me. But first, I need to find some wiring diagrams for the SLI board. Any information you can share?

William Geuze · Jul 21, 2012

You better ask that question to somewhow who owns a SLI-M or SLI-Pro

There is also the user manual which explains some things about wiring.

As far as I know, it should be very straight forward and Leo even offers standard wire connectors which you can plug right onto the board. Then all you have to do is connect all the wires to the components you want to use with it. The only thing you would have to do then is to connect the ground connections between all components.

Atleast, this is my understanding of the process. Maybe someone else who is experienced in this can shed some light on it, would be good for me as well

When my plans are more final, I might take a look into kickstarter as a way to speed things up.