Modifying my fanatec csp pedals

[Ghoults]

So the brake pedal broke. It is probably the loadcell. The gas and clutch are fine. I never really liked the loadcell brake (not a fanatec problem, loadcells just are not my thing) so I got this idea to swap the brake and clutch around so I can get back to driving on ps3. The pedals are v1 csp pedals and I've had them over 3 years now.

What I'm planning to do is to figure out which wires inside the ps/2 cord that connects the pedals to the wheel are the brake and the clutch and then switch them around. This would make the clutch pedal work as brake.

The assumption here is that all pedals connected directly to the base of the fanatec wheels need to have the same electrical output. That should mean that they all are wired the same and the cord should have these wires: one of the ps/2 connectors is for brake, one is for throttle, one is for clutch, one is ground and one is 5V. And one does nothing (or if I'm correct that is the handbrake). So switching the brake and clutch around should work just fine.

Here is a pic:

(not my pic, I just edited a pic I found for this purpose)
Notice I'm not touching where the loadcells or hall sensors are connected on the pcb (A, B, C). I'm not doing anything to the pedals, the loadcell or the pcb. I'm just modding the ps/2 cord that is plugged into the pedals.

And here is the wiring diagram for a g25-fanatec pedals rewiring:

So basically I need to open the cord and figure out which wires are the brake and the clutch (2 and 5) and switch them around.

Is my assumption correct?

 

[FerrariMan96]

Off topic I know, but why bother with the CSP's if you don't like the load cell?

 

[Dietmar]

Why would you not simply swap the incoming wires on the PCB? (I am pretty sure it is possible for the clutch and throttle, the brake I am not sure about)

 

[Ghoults]

Why would you not simply swap the incoming wires on the PCB? (I am pretty sure it is possible for the clutch and throttle, the brake I am not sure about)

The brake pedal is broken (probably the loadcell). So if I switch the clutch and brake wires in the ps/2 cord I could use the clutch as brake on ps3. The throttle connections would stay as it is now. I'm not trying to invert the pedals .

I think the loadcell can not be connected to either the throttle or clutch connectors on the pcb simply because loadcell and hall sensors need to be handled differently by the electric circuits on the pcb. I think the outputs from pcb are the same for all three "channels" which would make them swappable.

Off topic I know, but why bother with the CSP's if you don't like the load cell?

Doing this would allow me to use the clutch pedal as brake on ps3 and leave the brake basically unused. The problem is consoles don't allow me to choose which pedals I want to use for which purpose so the only way to do this is to switch the wires manually for the brake and clutch in the cord that connects the wheel and the pedals.

Mechanically the csps are very solid, comfortable and adjustable and better than anything I could build.

 

[Ghoults]

This is getting bizarre. So I went and opened the ps/2 cord and checked the connectors. For some reason I was getting signal through connector 6 and not through 5. 5 should be the connector for the clutch and 6 should be unused. So I take it that the diagram looks at the pins from the direction of the cord and "not into the plug"... it is essentially mirrored?

So I took the 2 and 5 (which are now 6 and 1 because the connector is mirrored in the pic) and cut the wires and then connected the 2 to 5 and vice versa. The colors were brown and yellow. soldered them, added some heatshrink tube. Technically this should make the brake pedal work as clutch and vice versa.

Connected to my wheel and tried on ps3. Does not work. Well uh ok.

Then I decide to try the pedals on pc to see if the pedals still work. Now remember when I started doing this the brake pedal did not work on pc while the gas and clutch work fine. Pressing the brake pedal did nothing on pc. So I connect the pedals to pc using the usb (remember I did nothing to the pedals).

For some reason the brake pedal seems to work just fine on pc...

How can the brake pedal not work and then work when I did nothing to the pedals (on pc)? None of the connectors look bad or feel flimsy on the pedals but I'm starting to think there is a loose connection somewhere on the pedal pcb but the pcb itself and even the loadcell could be fine. I think it might be the loadcell connectors becoming loose.

Why the ps/2 trick did not work I have no idea. Maybe those wiring pics are just wrong?

 

[Ghoults]

Hmm so I found something interesting in the internets. According to this post here:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3398242/Re_Fanatec_CSP_Malfunction_Sup#Post3398242
The loadcell and hall sensor connectors are swappable on the pcb! So in this pic:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y224/melen1/DSC09197.jpg
it should be possible to connect the loadcell to A or C, or connect one of the hall sensors to B??

Does anyone know if this is true?? Reading about hall effect sensors I see that such sensor usually needs 5V input, ground and sensor. So 3 connectors. But loadcell needs 4 connectors so one would think they are not swappable. But are they on the fanatec pcb???

 

[Ghoults]

Just to update I switched the brake and the clutch connectors on the pcb. Or disconnected the brake and put the clutch into the brake connector on the pcb. Seems to work just fine. At first I was getting just 40% brake but then I used the potentiometer to adjust the pedal so that it reaches 100% when fully pressed. I need to do more driving to see if this fix works and I don't start having some other issues before I can recommend anyone else to try this.

What this basically means is that if your loadcell is broken you can still keep racing on ps3/xbox360 while waiting for the new loadcell. Just disconnect your loadcell from the pcb and put the clutch there. Obviously on pc you can just calibrate the clutch as brake but on consoles there is no calibration or settings for wheel and pedals so the hardware needs some tweaking like this...