Fanatec Podium Wheelbase DD2

[Paul Jeffrey]

This thread is for the general discussion of the item Fanatec Podium Wheelbase DD2 Direct Drive Wheelbase. Please add to the discussion here.

 

[TedBrosby-]

Retail on these industrial motors is pretty high. Then you need to design and build controller, software, FW. I do not think it's that unreasonable considering the price of the components and RD.
@TedBrosby- , you built SC1 recently with much cheaper Mige motor, how much materials ran you?
I remember my DIY OSW based on Argon from US builder ran me a pretty penny, more than SC1 Pro in fact.

The motor itself wasn't that bad. About 275€ shipped and after customs.
The controller board itself was actually the biggest cost. SC1 board + Ioni Pro HC set me back over 400€ shipped.
I understand development costs are rolled into it, but that's quite expensive. The PSU was expensive for locality reasons. 480/720w Meanwell that everyone swore was the best, only for Simucube to abandon Meanwell products and then say "Well actually they're not that good" when it suits them going with another brand for the SC2 R2.

Most of the cost of building an SC1 was in the divided vendors/shipping. Shaft clamp from Martin Ascher, motor mount from SimRacingBay, controller boards from Granite, servo from China, PSU from Digikey/etc.

The thing is, what I mean on the cost being too high is that IMO DD1 doesn't have the same quality industrial grade motor that SC2 does. If they chose an outrunner servo to save on costs and their PSU is the same low cost brand as their CSL/CSW variations, why is the DD1 $1200?

IMO, based on quality of build - DD1 should be at most $799 or maybe $899. If the ITM is the reason (OLED display) for high cost, get rid of it to drop the price since everyone has to use it at default Fanatec logo anyway.

What I would like to see: DD1 without the OLED screen for $799 ~ $849. DD1 with OLED screen for $999. DD2 for $1199. All three come with emergency stop.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The motor itself wasn't that bad. About 275€ shipped and after customs.

And I assume that EU made motor they use in SC2 is quite a bit more expensive than Chinese Mige.
I remember Kollmorgen and Lenze were crazy expensive.

 

[blekenbleu]

What I would like to see

Marginal cost of the display itself is not that much; display control is probably integrated, so BOM largely unaffected. Firmware and support assume OLED presence; defunctioning wheel base would add costs.

 

[GagarynGaribaldi]

Agree, here's some financial info on them. 70 employees, 600K EUR revenue.

Endor AG, E2N:MUN profile - FT.com

Endor AG (E2N:MUN) company profile with history, revenue, mergers & acquisitions, peer analysis, institutional shareholders and more.

markets.ft.com

Year on year Endor AG grew revenues 75.92% from 20.37m to 35.83m while net income improved 244.13% from 912.27k to 3.14m. They are 2018/2019 reports. Not sure where that 600k revenue figure came from but it's clearly wrong. You can't even pay 70 employees with such low revenue.

 

[T_rac3]

Nice video/review. I enjoyed watching it. Good humor and story line. Thank you for your work.
And, DON'T GIVE UP. Repetition is the key to mastery.
Happy racing

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Good humor and story line

Agreed, laughed my ass off when Steve first showed me the video. Pure entertainment. Loving it.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Year on year Endor AG grew revenues 75.92% from 20.37m to 35.83m while net income improved 244.13% from 912.27k to 3.14m. They are 2018/2019 reports. Not sure where that 600k revenue figure came from but it's clearly wrong. You can't even pay 70 employees with such low revenue.

It says the data from January 2021 negative 1.2mn income. Not like I invented these numbers.

 

[TedBrosby-]

And I assume that EU made motor they use in SC2 is quite a bit more expensive than Chinese Mige.
I remember Kollmorgen and Lenze were crazy expensive.

You're right.
Actually my theory is the Simucube 2 motor is Lenze.
The form factor is eerily similar, and Lenze offers very similar torque ratings on their m850 servo line (17 Nm, 25 Nm and 35 Nm with up to 3000 RPM speed).

Granite is in Finland and so is Lenze. I feel like it'd be easy to find common ground for a relationship.
I mean look at the housing, the front mounting, the separation line between the driveshaft and the rear enclosure:

m850 synchronous servo motors

www.lenze.com

 

[Chrhun]

It says the data from January 2021 negative 1.2mn income. Not like I invented these numbers.

The company seems to be in good shape, Q3 sales 24,6me and last years EBIT nearly seven million in profit. Nice stock price increase too for this year!

E2NG.MU - | Stock Price & Latest News | Reuters

Get Endor AG (E2NG.MU) real-time stock quotes, news, price and financial information from Reuters to inform your trading and investments

www.reuters.com

The sales for 2020 must be close to 100me then and that is without VAT. If an average racing set from Fanatec is around 500e VAT 0%, they sell something like 200000 units. It's not millions, but it's actually quite a lot - no wonder there are so many lost people at their forum.

 

[RichardHessels]

Jeez, that was like an extended advert! No mention of the several well known issues/flaws with this wheel. I've seen some popular youtube channels shill but this was next level.
I'm guessing you were told you can keep the wheel? or you are hoping they will let you after this "review"

Only people who have problems post it. So you end up getting a really distorted view about a device.
Probably 95% rarely runs in to trouble.
But the 5% who does post their problems 3 fold.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

The company seems to be in good shape, Q3 sales 24,6me and last years EBIT nearly seven million in profit. Nice stock price increase too for this year!

E2NG.MU - | Stock Price & Latest News | Reuters

Get Endor AG (E2NG.MU) real-time stock quotes, news, price and financial information from Reuters to inform your trading and investments

www.reuters.com

The sales for 2020 must be close to 100me then and that is without VAT. If an average racing set from Fanatec is around 500e VAT 0%, they sell something like 200000 units. It's not millions, but it's actually quite a lot - no wonder there are so many lost people at their forum.

Different metrics.
Market capitalization is 224mn, but still Revenue (TTM) is 602K, Net Income (TTM) is -1.19mn, and 70 employees.
Is it fake data? I could only see stock price from your link.

Endor AG, E2N:MUN profile - FT.com

Endor AG (E2N:MUN) company profile with history, revenue, mergers & acquisitions, peer analysis, institutional shareholders and more.

markets.ft.com

 

[Chrhun]

Different metrics.
Market capitalization is 224mn, but still Revenue (TTM) is 602K, Net Income (TTM) is -1.19mn, and 70 employees.
Is it fake data? I could only see stock price from your link.

Endor AG, E2N:MUN profile - FT.com

Endor AG (E2N:MUN) company profile with history, revenue, mergers & acquisitions, peer analysis, institutional shareholders and more.

markets.ft.com

I'm not looking for an argument here, I just got interested in the discussion about Fanatec's sales volume.

I'm not a stock market professional and English is not my first language, but I think there is something wrong with that figure you have. Look at all the other companies on that list, their figures make sense, but Fanatec's doesn't. How do you run a 70 people company with global sales with a yearly revenue of 600 thousand euros or dollars? Are we even discussing the same thing?

The Reuter's page to me has info that makes sense. It has the company news below the stock price, it show the latest results and revenue.

 

[GagarynGaribaldi]

It says the data from January 2021 negative 1.2mn income. Not like I invented these numbers.

I know where you read them from but there is clearly an anomaly in those figures. I don't subscribe to FT so can't see the breakdown that might explain it but that landing page also has the paragraph I pasted which you seem happy to ignore. No agenda here - just stating the obvious - they obviously don't have a 12 month revenue of 600k. That's only 400 DD2s.

 

[Mr Latte]

Gees, what has the discussion of Fanatec financials anything to do with this thread?

Next thing I will be reading is how some RD Staff members are suspected as being biased shareholders for offering a positive video and I hope a future video on the BMW rim.

A query I had about the 5 year warranty is if it comes with some assurance of a "loaner" "repair" or "replacement" guaranteed within a specified time frame?

 

[Kenny Paton]

Gees, what has the discussion of Fanatec financials anything to do with this thread?

Agreed, so please let's close that discussion and get back to the thread topic.

 

[Blkout]

This wasn't sponsored or an advert. I asked if I could try one. They said yes. Hell, we don't even have an affiliate link.

I haven't had any failing parts, any issues with drivers or knocks so i'm not sure how I am meant to report on that stuff I haven't experienced.

As I would expect, honestly. I've had my DD2 since it was released, my original wheel had an issue and would shut off automatically while in a race randomly. Fanatec promptly replaced it within 2 weeks and I've never had another issue since then. Its been a great wheel and I've put it through it a lot in a year's time.

 

[Clover11]

I think the issue is that Fanatec's marketing/image has worn on some people. The truth of the matter is, lots of people watch "review" videos and think, gee, it would be nice if they sent me something for review. Fanatec has chosen to take advantage of the situation and send out products to these "reviewers" that a lot of new sim racers watch when they buy their gear. Problem is, at least a chunk if not most of these "reviewers" want to carry favor with Fanatec and don't share criticism, for one reason or another. Yes, wanting to get another product sent to you influances your review, especially if this is not really something that happens to you. There are plenty of us that have been around and seen the issues that Fanatec continues to push off and that certain people seem inclined to make excuses for. Some of us, perceive this as bad faith and are annoyed by it. It is not unique to Fanatec but they are obviously the worst offender in this market. Look at their own site, it is currently full of people who ordered products last year that still have not had anything shipped or any notice other then the money coming out of their account, and this is not a new problem for them. Some people want everyone to chill since they went on vacation, but there is no mention of that anywhere from them. They released the DDs with lots of bugs and did not even have the software package ready for it at launch. We're well over a year after these have been out and they still have a bug that prevents you from using a feature of the product. But people make excuses for them or don't mention it in "reviews". These issues go back a long time.

When you end up with Fanboys who make excuses, your going to get haters next. Problem for Fanatec is, the haters have a point or multiple points.

 

[blekenbleu]

When you end up with Fanboys who make excuses, your going to get haters next.

I have no issue with your explanation,
but IMO the same holds by replacing Fanatec with Nvidia and DDs with Ampere.
I do not know whether Fanatec DD firmware negatively affects their earlier wheelbases as Nvidia's impacts older GPUs..

Microsoft largely pioneered the "move fast and break things" software development paradigm, but many have since watched and learned.

 

[TedBrosby-]

I think the issue is that Fanatec's marketing/image has worn on some people. The truth of the matter is, lots of people watch "review" videos and think, gee, it would be nice if they sent me something for review. Fanatec has chosen to take advantage of the situation and send out products to these "reviewers" that a lot of new sim racers watch when they buy their gear. Problem is, at least a chunk if not most of these "reviewers" want to carry favor with Fanatec and don't share criticism, for one reason or another. Yes, wanting to get another product sent to you influances your review, especially if this is not really something that happens to you. There are plenty of us that have been around and seen the issues that Fanatec continues to push off and that certain people seem inclined to make excuses for. Some of us, perceive this as bad faith and are annoyed by it. It is not unique to Fanatec but they are obviously the worst offender in this market. Look at their own site, it is currently full of people who ordered products last year that still have not had anything shipped or any notice other then the money coming out of their account, and this is not a new problem for them. Some people want everyone to chill since they went on vacation, but there is no mention of that anywhere from them. They released the DDs with lots of bugs and did not even have the software package ready for it at launch. We're well over a year after these have been out and they still have a bug that prevents you from using a feature of the product. But people make excuses for them or don't mention it in "reviews". These issues go back a long time.

When you end up with Fanboys who make excuses, your going to get haters next. Problem for Fanatec is, the haters have a point or multiple points.

what you said is true about every brand, including Simucube, Heusinkveld, Sim Lab, etc.

I'd argue the only brand that has a solid reputation that almost always precedes itself is Heusinkveld and Martin Ascher maybe.

Simucube is great, but also there are issues: online profiles incident, the R2 change and some of the reasons behind it, janky bluetooth antenna (I'm not the only one who experienced this).

The truth is, there are sim racers beyond the confines of Race Department who are perfectly content with normal, casual, no frills gear.

And no offense but, worst offender? There have been other sim hardware companies who have done far worse than Fanatec. There was that sim rig maker who defrauded dozens of people and tried to disappear before returning money. And some offenses go beyond reliability or RMA claims.

Personally I feel like Logitech does a lot of damage by making no efforts to improve their wheelbase technology. They've been re-boxing the same gear driven technology for 12 years now. People have had failures with Thrustmaster as well.

You said Fanboys don't do favors, I think this cuts all ways. I don't like die hard fans at all, regardless of the brand. Because we need competitors to make sure the market stays diverse and prices don't get crazy. This hobby will die out if you have to pay $2500 at minimum to get hardware that people won't call "junk". Simucube is nice, but it's way way too out of the price range of general consumers. If it's "Simucube or nothing at all", then SC2 will be the last commercial Simucube they ever make. A $1500 wheelbase just will not become something tens of thousands of normal casual racers buy.

So far, Fanatec and Thrustmaster are the only brands that are willing to try to build something accessible in the "entire set up for less than $1000" that includes load cell and changeable rims. Even that price range is very hard for people to regular people to justify. It doesn't matter if you say "you get what you pay for" and stuff like "well if you don't want plastic junk". That sort of elitism doesn't help us. the fact is, casual racers, not hardcore basement dwellers with PT actuator systems, but casual racers are the primary customer and market segment that leads to the actual development of the sims themselves.

If iRacing suddenly required direct drive and HE sprints at minimum to participate, they'd go bankrupt in a year. If Kunos had to choose, "low level hardware users with G29, Fanatec setups or DD and Sprint owners", half of the highest liked set-ups in the cockpit thread would no longer be able to drive in ACC.

And no offense, but your experience doesn't echo mine or hundreds/thousands of others who have either had zero issues with Fanatec or positive experiences with RMA. I've only had one RMA I had to deal with, with Fanatec, and it wasn't even their fault (previous owner of a 1.1 base dropped it which broke the power port) and it was positive all around, constant communication, fast turnaround time.

 

[hotak]

I got myself an SC2 sport recently, the feeling and the smoothness are incredible, but because of that i wouldn't ever review it: i just don't have enough experience with DD wheels to say anything really usefull. I know a bit of controls engineering tho, and have to say that IMHO filters are overrated and just a bit of smoothing and very little damping and friction are more than enough to have a nice FFB in any game that actually has a good FFB to start with.