The DIY Shifter Thread

After a good wheel and good pedals there is another device that is very important for getting a good feeling when racing. The shifter. The Logitech or Fanatec ones are to toyish for me, so I decided to look after an alternative. After one hour on Ebay I found the parts that I needed:

1* BMW 5 Series (E39) Steptronic Shifter (in Germany I paid 20€ but after my DIY Guide was postet in a German forum the prices raised for some to 40 Euros :( The demand was there suddenly

1* Gear knob for that BMW

You can remove parts of the Shifter unit so only the Shifter is left with the plug that goes to the microswitches in the Shifter. I cutted the Plug and soldered a PS2 to it for fitting to my Fanatec Wheel. Connecting to a Bodnar USB Controller is another solution. The blue leads are all connected and are Ground. The other two are switched leads. Here are my pictures:


DSC_7443.jpg


DSC_7444.jpg


DSC_7445.jpg



Here is the Connection Plan for the Fanatec Wheel

__3___ 4___
___________
2 ________5
___________
__1 _^ _6__

1. NC

2. +3.3v

3. X-Axis for gated shifter, Upshift for sequential

4. Y-Axis for gated shifter, downshift for sequential

5. Ground

6. mode select for gated shifter, or common signal on sequential shifter

 
Project DIY High End 6 Speed Shifter

After I finalized the sequential shifter I needed a replacement for my 6 speed Fanatec shifter. So again Ebay was visited and I looked again for shift levers from real cars. After a while I thought that the Mercedes A140 A-Class Shifter should be perfect. It's not to big, you have much space under and around the shifter and the lever has a spring so it returns in the X Directions allways to the middle (like in a real car). The price was fair with 18 Euro. Yesterday my parcel arrived and I made a short clip from the shifter. I will post more, after I have an idea how to get further :confused:

 
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Figured I would post this for a friend. He does not come around the hardware section as much as I do. Anywho, stolen from RSC. =] Currently he is working on a new "cleaner" version for resale.

ShifterTranspartnt.png


Well I was lucky enough to grab a screeny off of google cache of my original RSC post for this. However I will only give the short short version here.

Once upon the time.. I wanted to buy a shifter. I have the Logitech momo wheel with 2 pedals and at the time the G25 was still $300US. So after a very exhaustive search I found only retarded expensive pre-builts followed by complete crap pre-builts. So I turned to the DIY you-tubers only to find most of those shifters were a bit.... "ginger beer". So out I set to make a shifter to better emulate the type of shifter found in Historic GT and Touring cars.

Example! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Forums/1966TriumphSpitfiredashKRM.jpg

Vs the open gated shifter so many other people adopt.

http://ifitsgotanengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/gated-shifter.jpg


So after 3 months of walking through Home Depot and in the basement and wiring like crazy I finally made it. Now some things I changed since the original build so I will not go into great detail as to keep from confusing people. I was just going to smash this place with images but I am limited to 4 images per post for some dumb reason. So here is the full Album http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y136/F12Bwth4/H Shifter/?start=all Note it is oldest picture first.

Heres a demo video from months ago

Now since the old RSC I have changed the metal H-Plate to a custom PVC one and added the 4 button box on the back and the fingertip toggle.


I am seriously considering making a few of these with a custom box to sell here and on other Sim forums. But I need to hear back from Mr Bodnar to assure I won't need to screw around with broken gampads.
 
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Figured I would post this for a friend. He does not come around the hardware section as much as I do. Anywho, stolen from RSC. =] Currently he is working on a new "cleaner" version for resale.

Thank you Evan for posting my shifter. Not like you couldn't have just told me about the tread. Sheesh.

Nice old sports roadster style despite of the power supply casing :)

Tis' the feel I was going for. It has no return to center or clunking into gear but I dont miss either of those things. I just smoothly move it from gear to gear silently like I am churning butter. Also here's the new cleaner one I am working on. May try to sell one or two since people have asked. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/H-Shifter Prototype/IMG_1845.jpg
 
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Hi,
I'm looking for a sequential and h gearbox for Iracing as what you put in the first photo. How did you create it? Did you use a base? and strength?
Thank you. Sorry for my English language.
 
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Will,

That looks like a sturdy piece of kit. But i guess with it coming from a real car, it wont get the abuse its designed for, so should last a lifetime!!

Nicely packaged too, looks very neat now its more complete than before.

I would do this kind of thing too if i didnt use a h-shift so often lol
 
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