Fanatec Has Released Details on Their All New ClubSport V2

[Ryan Ogurek]

Fanatec has released the details on their new ClubSport Wheel Base V2. They say they have completely reworked the ClubSport with durability their top priority. The V2 is now powered by a brushless servo motor with 75% more torque than the V1, but whats this? A price of $599.99!

It may not be a direct drive, but they claim it feels as good as one and may be a direct competitor.

The V2 will also be available as a console friendly version to allow for use with Xbox One and PS4.

If this wheel turns out to be the way it sounds, its going to be difficult to beat that value! To make the deal even more irresistible existing ClubSport owners will have the option to pre-order the V2 at a significantly discounted price.

Fanatec has started production this week, and will begin accepting pre-orders once they start shipping. The first products are anticipated to arrive late September or early October.

Here's the details as stated by Fanatec.

7 Ultra Precise
We replaced the optical sensor with two magnetic high resolution hall sensors mounted on both the motor and the steering axis. The new sensors have double the resolution and the magnetic sensors are less vulnerable to dust or scratched code discs.

6 Smoothastic
The cogging of this system cannot be felt by a human anymore. It is incredible smooth and feels natural and realistic. It is on par or better with the best and most expensive wheel out there although those wheels costs a multiple of the CSW B V2.

Every little bump can be felt and effects which were filtered by the wheel mechanics can now be felt. Your racing simulations will feel different and new to you.

5 Rock Solid
Our focus was to achieve high durability even for hardcore users.
• Improved QR release with rubber o-ring and less tolerance in production
• A brushless motor which can be cooled much easier as it gets hot on the outside and not on the inside so heat can be transfered better
• New cooling system featuring an additional fan on the backside right behind the new huge heat sink
• Integrated heat sensor inside the motor
• Motor can now even be operated at 180 C° although the FOR overclocking would be de-activated already at 120 C° and FF would shut down at 130°C. The motor has plenty of power so most people will not use max settings anyway. And during betatests it never happened that a motor was shut down or the FF was cut due to overheating.
• Ball bearings on the motor axis and bigger ball bearings inside the pulleys so we can increase the belt tension and avoid any belt slip. At the same time we have much less drag in the system.
• Magnetic sensors instead of the optical so we avoid problems with dust and scratches
• New main cable
• New electronics
• And many other small improvements to the overall build quality


4 Power. A lot.
The new motor is custom designed and exclusive to Fanatec. Although the gear ratio has been changed to increase the rotation speed, it delivers about 75% more torque than the CSW B V1. This means over 7 NM of sheer
power and this is enough to use even heavy rims with no disadvantages. The size of the power supply has also increased in order to feed the big motor.

3 Brushless Servo
A brushless servo motor is currently state-of-the-art for force feedback systems and in principle this is exactly the same motor as the most expensive direct drive base units out there.
• Smooth performance with no cogging (in combination with our Poly-V belt drive system or direct drive)
• Easier to cool as the heat is on the outside of the motor and not on the motor shaft
• Strong axis with ball bearings
• Optimized for use in stall at max power
• Fast acceleration
• More efficiency -> more torque with same power

We had to develop entire new electronics for that motor as the motor
driver is quite complex. Now that it is done we can easily use it for smaller brushless motors or a direct drive wheel.

2 Next Generation
The ClubSport Wheel Base V2 is the next generation of our wheel base but there is also a strong demand of wheels for “Next-Gen” consoles. People were asking us to make their wheels compatible to the Xbox One and Playstation 4 but if we want to make it official and legal then we need to follow the rules of the console makers and they clearly do not allow
that.

So how can we make a product where there is a chance that the customer can keep at least most of the equipment he purchased? We can easily make the pedals, shifters and handbrake compatible and this is what we did but what about the base unit?

And how can we make a product multi-platform compatible if we can only get approval for a license if the product has only the symbols of either one console on it?

We came up with an idea which brings modularity to a whole new level and protects your investment. If you play on PC then just go ahead and purchase the wheel base as it is and you will not be bothered with symbols which might hurt your eye.

But if you want to enjoy the painless simplicity of a console with its great exclusive racing simulations then you will get the option to buy an optional steering wheel which will
add full console compatibility to this base.

We want to achieve compatibility to both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and we are happy to announce that we already signed a contract with one of them. We will announce this product at the end of this year.

There will be multiple steering wheels available in different price ranges and they will compatible to several Fanatec base units from mid-range to direct drive.

1 By Invitation Only
The great response we get from our beta testers lead us to the conclusion that the demand for this product will be much bigger than the supply. Production output will be lower as before as we spend even more time on quality control and testing.

At the same time we want to honor the loyalty of our existing customers and want to offer a special pre-order discount for the owners of the current ClubSport and CSR Elite base so that they can enjoy a little upgrade advantage.

This is how it works:
• We will send an e-mail to our webshop customers with an invite code. There will be several waves of e-mails in the next months.
• Only after you entered the code to your profile page you will be able to purchase or pre-order this product
• After you purchased one V2 base you will receive a second code. You can give that to a friend or buy a second base.
•
Only one code will be given with a purchase as we want to avoid that people are selling their products or invites on eBay and make money with it.
• We will also give away invites in giveaway events so frequent followers of the blog or Facebook will also get a chance to get an invite

This is the priority we will use for the invites to make it as fair and transparent as possible.
1. Webshop customers of the CSW B V1 and CSR E (sorted by purchase date)
2. Webshop customers of other ClubSport products like CSP or CSS
3. All other Fanatec customers

Of course we will treat all territories with the same priority.

Not every customer will use his invite so go ahead and ask your friends if they use their invite of if they give it to you in case you are not on the list yet. It is possible and welcome to transfer invite codes.

Please do not ask our sales team for invites. They are not authorized to give out codes anyway. If it is your turn then you will get an e-mail. We will open a thread in our forum which explains more details and where you can also ask for invites from other members.

By the way, all lucky customers who placed a pre-order for the old V1 base just got a free upgrade to V2 and they are the first to receive the new product.

The Price

Pre-order price:
EU: 499,95
USA: 499,95
AUS: 655
J: 65.000

Regular price:
EU: 599,95
USA: 599,95
AUS: 785
J: 78.000

Prices are calculated different in the regions depending on taxes, laws, logistic costs and other local costs.

If you would like to have your products reviewed and featured here on RaceDepartment, please email us at ryan.ogurek[at]racedepartment.com

 

[Alberto Casado]

Nice post, one point, being in a racing harness 1G braking = leg weight.

I don't know how tight a race harness can be, but with a normal safety belt, you can definitely hold a good fraction of your body weight against the pedal when braking without tensing the seat belt. Probably not 100% because you also push against the wheel with the arms, but half of your weight sounds easy.

 

[Roger Snead]

For the console racer this is getting hard for me to stick to Fanatec. I say that b/c the Elite is awesome and it can be used on 3 platforms for $600.

Gonna get very expensive....$600 base and estimate wheel rim.... what $250 for XBONE, and only supporting one platform. I have to ask myself ...Is it worth 8-9 hundred dollars for XBONE? I can buy a TM 458 Italia for PC and ONE for $329. This is a huge decision. I want to believe in Fanatec, but who knows what the problems may pop up with the xbone rim, and no pc...WOW.

I think I might have to jump ship to TM .

 

[eKretz]

@ Christian: here you are, my friend:

http://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threa...ers-thread-update-february-2014.274631/page-5

This shows the Wheelcheck graph differences between cold and warm on a stock CSW V1. I also have the torque info in there somewhere, but I got tired of looking through pages to find it.

 

[Christian Casey]

Nice read, and once again a great job. Will read the thread further. One question, was the test carried out first lap to last lap?

I have been taking a lot of note of late to potential fade, I'm not concerned about the product (v1), but as stated the usage vs force loss (up to 40%) vs how it effects my personal force settings has had me interested.

Taking note of your V2 review and the requirement of force for a realistic representation, I fired up AC myself and took a lap or two in the 98T with 100 force, and I agree on two points, one its fun and two I could see how such high force would take its toll temp wise and on performance.
I figured this when you mentioned the wheel weight setting in F1 2012.

I can certainly understand the force requirement and concern with the power loss for the high force players such as yourself, personally I will stick to the lower side, I cant see myself being competitive at 100% force, the "rubber band" effect on fast corrections, when turning the vehicle and weight transfer is high enough to feel inaccurate. (new motor in my unit as of last week, was replaced due to a fault that couldn't be replicated)
I would almost rate the high force feel in the v1 as disappointing if it rated higher on the wish list than fidelity. No doubt this relates to the need for the mods such as in the thread.

Either way the V2 looks like it pleases both camps and thinking again, as I'm not renewing my Iracing subscription, I may even give the higher force settings a go more often with the V2s improved response, tho for at least 6 hours a day I have trouble turning my real cars wheel, so will see.

Either way, thanks for the info mate.

Common Fanatec, I want my freakin code....

 

[eKretz]

Yes, the first graph was cold wheel, the second was immediately after running the last lap.

The thing about fidelity, or dynamic range, is that the higher your max force is, the higher all the little ones are also. They are all interrelated. For me, some of the lighter forces on the stock V1 are quite difficult to perceive. With the higher max force, all those littler forces are also amplified. One of the comments I get most from people who have used my mod is how much better they can feel those small forces than with the stock wheel. The same applies to the V2, it's just not quite as good as my modded V1, IMO.

One of the main things usually brought up by people I talk to who are frustrated with the V1's drop-off with heat is that it should be able to handle whatever it's possible to give it from a sim without massive drops like that. It's often said by them that if it couldn't handle it, they should have changed the design parameters until it could. While I understand that viewpoint, I can also see the other side of the coin. The manufacturers are trying to work to a price point, and if they limit torque to eliminate the heat and subsequent drop-off, they have a weaker wheel than their competitor. But if they switch to a better, stronger, higher rated motor, then they are more expensive than their competitor.

There are some promising posts from David Tucker at iRacing in which he is testing some wheels to see how badly they drop-off in terms of stall torque with time at full locked stall. Admittedly this is pretty extreme and not really representative of actual heat built up in the wheel while racing, but every wheel tested drops off so far except for the new AccuForce wheel, which he has a prototype of.

 

[Christian Casey]

Thinking about max effect that was logged, trying to think if tyre pressure increase could have a bearing, but if "steering" force was max average effect you would see the drop reasonably quickly.

I understand more force = fidelity but what about turning the vehicle, with high force the fidelity drops off as you can feel the belt flex, you don't find the subtle forces telling you the car is turning getting lost here? Talking stock v1 here.
Is our differing of opinion of feel related to myself almost exclusively using the BMW rim perhaps?

So your mod feels better than the v2? That's very cool, I'm almost tempted to hang onto the v1 after I purchase the V2 to see exactly what I can get out of it.

 

[eKretz]

Well, not sure what you mean by feeling the belt flex. The belts are something on the order of 95% efficient at transmitting force when they're tensioned correctly. I sure don't feel them flex on my wheel. Perhaps you mean belt slip?

Maximum force generated is usually high-g corners, with high downforce cars and aggressive suspension settings - anything more than this is usually just short spikes such as mid-corner bumps. The more I think about it the more I think by what you are saying maybe you may need to adjust your belt tensions.

The BMW wheel does dampen the feel a bit on the stock V1 vs. the formula rim, and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is the weight, but IMO the more significant one is the larger diameter.

Yeah, my mod definitely feels better to me. I will not be getting rid of my V1, and that's a fact.

 

[Christian Casey]

Yeah, definitely less accurate at higher force, may be slip but my belts should be tight, maybe motor torque not dealing with the weight, as per your V2 vs V1 "rubber band" comparison.
I definitely predominantly notice it in ISImotor as the feel is terrific when the weight shifts or controlling the turn with throttle.

Edit: you know what, I trust your opinion, will research how to check the belt tension.

Nice, what is the main advantage of the modded v1? Just the motor force or other mods?

Edit: All good, reading through the whole thread, great stuff.

 

[eKretz]

The higher motor force, less belt slip (I have machined my steering pulley and reduction pulley to use a 6-rib belt, as well as skeletonized the steering pulley to lighten it), less freewheel friction (lightened bearing preload, washed out bearings with acetone and switched from grease to light oil), and a custom air cooling system that reduces the power fade to the point of insignificance.

 

[Christian Casey]

Very impressive. 12.9Nm, cooling and friction reduction, I can see why the V2 may not interest you.

I still think my fade is minimal or at least in-perceivable at lower settings, but I can see where a high power drop may increase with little extra force, will check the belt tension.

Thanks for the discussion and info Eric, learned a lot.

 

[eKretz]

Sure Christian, glad it was interesting. And I didn't say I wasn't interested in the V2 - it has a LOT of potential for mods too. Just in stock condition it doesn't beat my modded wheel - to me at least. I suppose I should modify my earlier statement - I won't be getting rid of my V1 unless I make the V2 even better.

 

[Christian Casey]

I tell you what, that Accuforce has me thinking....being that smooth and direct drive, fidelity looks superb.....