Heusinkveld Sim Pedals Sprint Interview and First Impressions

[Paul Jeffrey]

We talk to Niels Heusinkveld and try out the soon to be released Heusinkveld Sim Pedals Sprint.

Catching up with Niels Heusinkveld at the recent very busy Sim Racing Expo over in Germany, we took the opportunity to quiz the man behind Heusinkveld Engineering about his newly announced Sim Pedals Sprint set of high end sim racing pedals. With Niels in a buoyant mood following what appeared to be a largely very positive reception to the new hardware, we took the opportunity to question him about the features and improvements of the new gear, learning plenty about how some dramatic software features and production improvements have moved the product range on from the already very impressive offerings of HE Engineering.

Not content with merely taking Niels at his word, we also couldn't quite resist the chance to get strapped into the cockpit and have a go ourselves, recording a short but sweet talk and drive segment as we give our first impressions based on the limited time we had with these brand new set of pedals.

Frankly, I was very impressed, although it is exceptionally hard to gather any serious kind of feel with something like a high end set of pedals with such a short period of time behind the wheel... not helped any by a crowd of people watching on, and a camera and microphone in my face!

However, with that said I'm going to be lucky enough to take receipt of a review set of these pedals in the very near future, so please consider this more of a taster video, with a much more in depth and detailed look at the HE Sim Pedals Sprint set to appear on our various social media channels in the near future. So stay tuned, get subscribed and watch out for some new footage in the (hopefully) coming weeks...

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[ColinMac]

I ordered mine in the UK from DemonTweeks. They still took around 5 weeks but saved me having to keep checking. Might be a possible solution - although I'm not sure how much of a backlog they have currently... Good luck tho !

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Can´t believe how you´ve your pedals. I´ve been looking on Heusinkvelds website every day since 4 months back in time..."Out of stock". Will they ever catch up or are they selling all their pedals to a bigger retailer?

We've more than doubled production and have been selling batches of pedals every 2 weeks.
New stock should be on the webstore this Friday.

 

[EsxPaul]

Can´t believe how you´ve your pedals. I´ve been looking on Heusinkvelds website every day since 4 months back in time..."Out of stock". Will they ever catch up or are they selling all their pedals to a bigger retailer?

I think most are using Demon Tweeks to get their pedals. You at least then have a ballpark idea of when they are going to arrive and it takes away the anxiety of checking the Heusinkveld site and hoping you might get lucky.

 

[White Hawk]

Can´t believe how you´ve your pedals. I´ve been looking on Heusinkvelds website every day since 4 months back in time..."Out of stock". Will they ever catch up or are they selling all their pedals to a bigger retailer?

A number of us have preordered on the Demon Tweaks website instead of trying to catch them on Heusinkvelds website..

 

[sam75]

Also got mine from Demon Tweeks, you place your order and will be put in the queue, and will be sent the pedals as they come in stock to Demon Tweeks, so no need to keep checking the HE website every day

 

[zazep]

Just be aware that the information on the DT website is misleading. I placed my order on May 17th, when the website stated a ship date of early to mid-June. I was told this week that the new ship date would be July 17th, after they blamed Heusinkveld for not sending them enough stock. I’m traveling in July, so I may have to cancel this order and join the ProtoSimTech lottery.

 

[Hiro Abe]

I went thru DT as well and it took a tick under 5 weeks. My experience with them is they are not the greatest in responding to inquiries but they reliably process these orders and ship when stock becomes available. I to would recommend if DT is an option, order thru them.

Got my pedals mounted and adjusted to my liking but had to order an extension cable - as expected thanks to @Elaphe. I have to be careful with my knees so i run a 2 pedal setup spaced so my legs run straight from my hips to the pedals. The stock cable between the brake and throttle is too short for me. So, i still haven't used them in sim but they are feeling nice!

 

[sam75]

DT are very poor at responding to emails, but any time I have had a query and called them they have been very helpful.

 

[White Hawk]

Anyone with these pedals thought about how to add damping, to the throttle maybe? Feel like it might be possible to use the top of the holes for angling the pedals and the holes in the arms to fit a damper of some sort, something like this made for Thrustmaster pedals or some other similar damper.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Throttle-B...T3PA-PRO-Gaming/254275364197?var=553733287042

 

[Hiro Abe]

@White Hawk Curious in the feeling you are looking for. I'm still dialing mine in but I prefer a pretty stiff throttle. I'm close to an optimal feel for me with increased travel from delivered, second to highest force and the spring preload dialed up a bit. This setup gives me very nice throttle control with relatively heavy resistance. I might go a bit heavier but only slightly (might dial up the preload just a bit more) which I'm equating to adding dampening. Or am I off-base regarding what you are looking to accomplish?

 

[ShinyAndy]

I'm going to have to order mine from DT too, Heusinkveld want to charge almost 70€ to ship to Spain which seems rather excessive!

 

[F1Aussie]

I'm going to have to order mine from DT too, Heusinkveld want to charge almost 70€ to ship to Spain which seems rather excessive!

Well I had to pay 305 euro or 500 odd AUD to get a Simlab rig shipped to Australia. Not a cheap hobby this one if you want the best gear.

 

[ShinyAndy]

Spain is significantly closer than Australia though! DT want 16€, which is more inline with what you'd expect to pay.

 

[White Hawk]

@White Hawk Curious in the feeling you are looking for. I'm still dialing mine in but I prefer a pretty stiff throttle. I'm close to an optimal feel for me with increased travel from delivered, second to highest force and the spring preload dialed up a bit. This setup gives me very nice throttle control with relatively heavy resistance. I might go a bit heavier but only slightly (might dial up the preload just a bit more) which I'm equating to adding dampening. Or am I off-base regarding what you are looking to accomplish?

Preload and damping have different effects, preload changes the stiffness of the first part of travel from zero up, dampers are like moving your hand back and forth through oil compared to air, it’s a combination of the feel and the reaction to movement in either direction over the whole pedal range to make it feel more like a real car pedal.

 

[cap7ainclu7ch]

Stupid question but if I want to adjust the brake angle I need to remove the brake from the plate right? Because if you try to adjust it without the tool (one side at a time), the washers can fall out?

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Preload and damping have different effects, preload changes the stiffness of the first part of travel from zero up, dampers are like moving your hand back and forth through oil compared to air, it’s a combination of the feel and the reaction to movement in either direction over the whole pedal range to make it feel more like a real car pedal.

Not necessarily both ways, as we only use a one-way damper on the Ultimate throttle to simulate the racecar feel

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Stupid question but if I want to adjust the brake angle I need to remove the brake from the plate right? Because if you try to adjust it without the tool (one side at a time), the washers can fall out?

We always recommend unmounting the pedals when making changes. We've seen several pedals "explode" when users still have it mounted and muck about.
Only exception would be changing the rubbers, as you can do this quite easily without having to unmount it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I find it interesting what things different people focus on. I haven't made one adjustment to my Sprint Pedals and use them as they came and I'm very happy with how they feel.

If something is pretty close you will tend to just get used to how it feels. I can modulate both the throttle and brake very well and all the pedals are comfortable to me. I'm not going to spend time trying to see if I can get them to feel "better" because I believe I would just be making them feel "different".

Maybe I just happen to be a good match for their typical out of the box settings.

 

[cap7ainclu7ch]

Also just wanted to say that these things are amazing. Everyday that I use them I learn about a new adjustment that might help me out. I finally have all the final parts of my rig, so just focusing on setup now and it's amazing how much a difference these little tweaks can make. I've already broken all my records and I know I can gain even more with some additional practice. At this point I've already gained around 1s over my Fanatec CSL LC's. Looking forward to putting thousands of hours on these and experimenting with all the different setups.

Also I got the pedal plate and it's stopped any flexing on my GT1 Evo. Great piece as well!

 

[atomicgarden]

I have been getting used to using more brake force after many years with the very light Fanatec V1 pedals.

I installed my sprints on a Sim-Lab TR1, which is a great rig, but I could still notice flex especially if I increased the brake pressure. Main problem is that the mounting holes in the TR1 baseplate are too big for the M5 threads used with the sprints.

I had some aluminium lying around so I went overkill and used 4x 300mm profiles and 2 aluminium 4mm plates to eliminate all flex:

anyway, the pedal are amazing.