DIY Ferrari 2011 Wheel

[William Geuze]

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

 

[William Geuze]

After some investigating, I found technical drawings for the driver control display

Unfortunately the SLI-Pro differs from this a bit, would it be hard to adjust that?
I checked in photshop and its probably to big of a change, I can move the warning led lights though (the two triangle groups)

 

[Gary Jibb]

Absolutely worth the money for a quick release IMO. I have 2 of http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Universal-St...r_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ebb2d2ac4 and I'll continue to add them to whatever I get in the future. By no means do I have experience with a $300 Momo or anything, but for $28 this thing is an incredible steal. Not a minor problem since I got them. Simple mechanical bits, nice tight fit but easy to put on and off.

Also, I've taken apart both G25 and GT3RSV2 and the wires can be routed through both base units.

P.S. If you don't trust yourself with "hands on activities" take your fricken time!!! It's not going to hurt anyone if it takes you 3 days longer on your build, but as soon as you start putting little scratches everywhere your doing to regret your lack of patients right till the end. I know it sounds dumb and simple, but you'll wreck something you didn't want to, we all do.

 

[William Geuze]

Thanks for the link, isn't that thing really big? :o

Hehe no way that I want to spend $300 on a quick release

Good to hear that about the wheels, dont want any wires hanging around ^^

Oh yes I do plan on taking my time, I hope to have a finished prototype by the end September/October. Creating proper plans for everything, and learning to solder, learning CAD, and learning how to create casts from my moulds, all takes time.

Right now, I created the driver control display in 3dsMax. I hope I can export these lines to the CAD program which name I forgot (funny name, krakensomething).

It is built to scale so I will this to base everything else off of, not so much guessing now
This weekend, I will try to get this into the cad program and see how that works. This is a little mini project to test what can be done with it, this will probably also be the first part to be created, I'll have someone route it for me hopefully

edit:
Will be using Autodesk inventor, I was going with Catia, I have a 64bits version here, but only have a 32bits OS.. Have watched some youtube videos, looks really interesting, will get to play with it this weekend. This part should be very easy to build, nice intro in Inventor I guess ^^

 

[Gary Jibb]

Not sure what you meant "isn't that thing really big" ? The QR is only 1.5 inches thick, which when it's in place or whatever definitely does not seem that big, and compared to some other QR's that are 3 inches + I'd say it's tiny.
As for the learning CAD in a few months, good luck. I just finished night school for Solidworks which was 3 months. I just finished modeling a steering wheel which I'm in the works of getting milled out of polyethylene. Not sure if I would take the route of mould making, rather than getting 2 layers cnc'd with a cavity in the middle for the electronics and putting a couple hidden screws to put it together.

 

[William Geuze]

Oh cool, the quickrelease looked huge to me, but I guess that is because there is nothing else for size reference.

Learning CAD sounds more complicated than it is, Im only going to know the basics probably, but if that is all I need, fine. It wont be easy thats for sure!

Yeah I figured the same thing you propose, that would be great if I was going to create a GP2 wheel, which is exactly that btw, all cnc'd material. But these shapes for this wheel are quite hard to create out of a flat surface.

But to be honest, nothing has been decided yet, let's see how the cad drawing comes out, thats one of many hurdles.

Im curious about your own wheel as well, you do plan on posting build pictures, right?

 

[Gary Jibb]

Well, if you want a picture here you go.

The left is probably what I'll get cut. Based on my cockpit now I don't want to get putting buttons all over it. I do endurance races and use a sequential shifter. Tho only button I use on my other wheel is a pit limiter (having some problems with a few of my low cost buttons being shyte). My SLI-M, GI-Max and SPI-D are all on a dashboard I made a while back. The second is what I would use to add my SLI-M right into the wheel, but explaining all that gets complicated. Both wheels are 297mm, I'd go smaller, but I have a big chest and a 260mm wheel feels horrible. I use a 320mm round and I think that's as small as I'd like, but I'm going a tad smaller.
I'm trying to set up with a cnc guy to mill it out of polyethylene for me, but I'm getting screwed around a bit. Gave him the models and my tool paths over a week ago and he still hasn't called me with a price yet.
Anyways, don't want to steal your forum... Ciao.

 

[William Geuze]

Looking good there, hope he does a nice job of milling it though..

Working with Inventor now, pretty complicated but I like how these constrains work!

 

[William Geuze]

For now this part is done, I don't have an SLI-pro to measure.
How wel does Leo Bodnar respond to emails generally btw?

(just messed around with this a bit)

Next up will be the body of the steering wheel itself

 

[Devil_Dog]

Good stuff. I have a WIP F1 wheel that I put on hold as Leo is releasing an true F1 SLI.

Quote from Leo:

Hello gentlemen,

I have designed another display for a special project with a working name of SLI-F1.
I am willing to make it a regular product if there is enough interest so please speak up here if you are tickled!

The specification is similar to SLI-Pro with extra 14 inputs for buttons/switches/encoders.

It comes with or without a matching black anodised enclosure. These are rough prototype pictures and don't show the inserts covering shiftlight LED openings on the top and both sides.

Standard USB connector on the back is optional and can be left out if mounted into the wheel.

Expected sale price is:

£150 for a display without enclosure
£200 for a package with black anodised enclosure

Cheers!
Leo

Pics:

Also, I have a .dfx of the SLI-Pro dimensions that I got from Leo. If you want it PM me your email and I will send it to you. For some reason I can't upload it on to here.

 

[William Geuze]

Awesome I guess he beat me to it!

I hope he used the same source material I did but it would only make sense he did.
Ill send you a pm with my email address thanks!

Now I'm glad I didnt order an SLI-Pro yesterday!

Ill make a carefull start on working out the main body of the steering wheel tonight, this will take a lot more time I suspect because the shapes are quite intricate and don't have the awesome reference I had for the display unit (Plus I only know the bare basics of how to create things )

edit:
By the time the SLI-F1 will be available I'll probably have the design finished and bought a new computer, so thats fine, there is no deadline for me.

 

[William Geuze]

Annoyingly, the reference this time is in perspective, which makes things a bit harder to line up.

For people who have experience with this, how should I create these grips? 3dsketch and a loft?

edit:
Think I found out how to do it, using sweep on a guiderail. Will test it when the regular things have been drafted ^^

 

[William Geuze]

Cleaned up the file and added more lines, it is suffering from perspective issues down to the photograph I used for reference, so I'll need to counter that a bit.

Hopefully this weekend some more images which I guess those are more interesting to look at

 

[William Geuze]

Don't like how the grips came out, but they will do for now.

I have measured the buttons on that wheel, but they don't appear to be the standard 5mm Knitter buttons, which I originally though..

 

[Miguel Gonzalez]

Good stuff. I have a WIP F1 wheel that I put on hold as Leo is releasing an true F1 SLI.

Quote from Leo:


Pics:

Also, I have a .dfx of the SLI-Pro dimensions that I got from Leo. If you want it PM me your email and I will send it to you. For some reason I can't upload it on to here.

Where can i write thousands of unread emails demanding this product???? That looks brilliant cant wait for thatto be available.

 

[William Geuze]

Same here! This project is not going to be built unless I have the SLI-F1 when its out

It is getting clear that our budget for our new home isn't big enough for us to have a spare room, so don't even know if I can setup my pc + steering wheel

While I'm typing, a question. I'm looking into pushbuttons and switches, how do I know which ones to pick? There are so many choices, with even more options, I don't have the slightest clue!

For example, the lever switches on the bottom of the wheel. The type of operation, would this be ON-OFF, or ON-ON? Example:
- switches are in the up position standard
- when switching the middle switch to the down position, a different brakemap is selected (for example)
- when switching that switch back to the up position, it reverts back to the default setting

Is this even clear?

 

[William Crudup]

I'm not complaining or anything becuase I find leos products pretty cool, but thats $300.00 U.S. Thats a bit much Imo. You could get a stock G27 for that price if I'm not mistaken. I know it takes time and work to build your products as I build some stuff on my own and always go over budget,but really?

 

[William Geuze]

I know it's pretty darn expensive, and if I could build it myself, I would, but I'm lucky if I can solder some wires onto some switches

 

[William Geuze]

I used the Knitter MPE 106 D for reference. The problem now is that they are longer than the front panel is deep.

Something else which is unclear to me, how would the construction of the horizontal grip piece be done? I can make it into a mold, but then, I don't quite know how close it up, if you know what I mean. Any tips/tricks on that?

 

[William Geuze]

I still have all sorts of questions that I hope someone can answer for me

- In another topic I saw someone made a casting of a wheel picture (looked like it), what are the costs for that (estimate)
- How do I know which switches and buttons to get? I do know the tumble switches need to have 3 poles and the buttons need to be momentary, but anything else about the specs which I need to know?
- Any ideas as for cluth and gear paddle mounting and mechanics? I have an idea but I'd like to see more ideas which I haven't thought of.
- Should I use micro switches for the gear paddles? If so, what kind, there are so many..) (clutch will use hall effect sensors)
- Would it be an idea to have the quick release mount to the center frame through the rear panel, or just the rear panel?

Questions questions...

Before I start building a prototype of any kind, I really want to have these technical drawings out of the way. I'll probably start working on the back panel this week, and post images of the parts, I'd very much like some feedback. I have never built anything like this at all so it will be quite usefull!

edit:
A big 'if'. What if, considering costs, its better to produce lets say, the parts for 5 wheels in total (excluding any hardware that is). Would anyone interested in buying some? If so, speak up and you can even help along improving the technical aspects of the production if you want to.

Will hopefully be able to post new images next week. I would really like some feedback on construction. Because of cost, I will probably need to settle for polyethyleen or something similar... Creating a mold and my own carbon fibre shell, that is going to very expensive and I might just end up with a very expensive wobbly steering wheel which is of no use...

Also, will this quick release fit on a g27 or t500?