hi guys.. 'm new to this forum, not new to arduino though. i want to build a gaming wheel for my pc games using arduino as platform. i want to have a steering wheel, sequential gear shift and the 3 pedals(acc, brake & clutch). will this be possible to build? and even if its possible wat would be the procedure to interface it with the pc/game? hope its not too outrageous an project. plz suggest if it is possible to build something like this. all suggestions, ideas and guidance is appreciated..
What're you doing on the hardware side? I'd have thought the easiest option would be to buy a set of controls intended for game use. That would naturally come with the associated hardware and software to interface to your PC. If not that, then what?
I'm not sure what "level" you are looking to build this at either. If you want to interface a set of premade racing controls to the PC there is no need, you can just buy a set.
If you are looking to make the parts from scratch I think learning how to enginner the physical parts is going to be the greatest of your worries. How do you expect to make the steering wheel, pedals, etc? For the metal parts, CNC milling on a 5 axis machine? For the plastic parts, injection molding? Or maybe a fancy 3D prototyping printer? Or are you going to carve it from balsa and hope for the best?
Or, are you looking to take real world car parts and interface that somehow? That would be very cool, your wife will hate you. All I can say is for the steering wheel - rotary encoder. This one looks usable: http://www.ultimarc.com/SpinTrak.htm. To find the position of the pedals and shifter, I bet someone could help you with that, it could be a series of hall effect sensors or something of that nature.
Then I would be looking at getting one of the cheap race sets that Logitech makes, maybe this maybe something cheaper or used on eBay: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Force-Feedback-Racing-Wheel/dp/B00006HYLN/ and reverse enginner the interface. Figure out how to get the data from the rotary encoder and other sensors into the correct format for the PC. This is where a microcontroller like Arduino would come in). Maybe you could look for a spec on the Internet somewhere and avoid having to buy a racing set, but having the set would let you test against it.
@ JoeN: i jus finished my undergrad n kinda jobless till the start of college in summer, so its a project jus to keep me occupied. i don know if i can actually build it but it would be a great way to pass time trying to. i could jus buy the console but as i said i ll be leaving to college n cant take it with me if i buy it..
parts wouldn't be a prob, i can go to the nearest junk yard n pick up stuff for very little price.
there was 1 web page that gave instructions to build it, and it used potentiometers for the sensing/output, and a pic controller i guess. how good would a potentiometer be compared to the Precision Rotary Control device. and how much does Precision Rotary Control cost? and i thought even though i somehow magically build the console, i ll have to write a driver file for it to actually work right? or is it possible to make it work without having to write any driver n stuff?
overload27:
@ JoeN: i jus finished my undergrad n kinda jobless till the start of college in summer, so its a project jus to keep me occupied. i don know if i can actually build it but it would be a great way to pass time trying to. i could jus buy the console but as i said i ll be leaving to college n cant take it with me if i buy it..
parts wouldn't be a prob, i can go to the nearest junk yard n pick up stuff for very little price.
there was 1 web page that gave instructions to build it, and it used potentiometers for the sensing/output, and a pic controller i guess. how good would a potentiometer be compared to the Precision Rotary Control device. and how much does Precision Rotary Control cost? and i thought even though i somehow magically build the console, i ll have to write a driver file for it to actually work right? or is it possible to make it work without having to write any driver n stuff?
rgds
When I said reverse engineer some other company's USB connection what I was basically telling you, and maybe I should have been more specific, is that using their interface allows you to use their driver. QED.
Now I don't know a lot about racing controls. Maybe you don't need a driver. Maybe the wheel makes itself look like a mouse to the system and the shift and pedals look like mouse buttons or keypesses. I don't know. If that is the case, you don't need a driver in this case either, all but you still have to get the USB right to simulate the keyboard and mouse interfaces. I don't know how driving sets like this really works. If you wanted to roll your own protocol over USB, yes, you would need to write a driver which means knowing what DirectX or whatever is expecting on it's side of the interface, now you are writing PC software as well as Arduino software and I would just try to avoid that.
Maybe someone else can weigh in on this, but to my way of thinking rotary encoders are better than potentiometers for a several of reasons. First, they don't have a stop and you can't overextend them. Second, they have longer lives - optical ones especially because there are no touching parts other than the shaft bearing. Third, they are just more precise. Every rotation is exactly 16 or 32 or 64 or 128 or 256 pulses. Potentiometers have to be decoded via ADC and resistance can vary by temperature, how worn the device is, etc. I don't think many are made for constant readjustment. I've never seen an arcade game use a POT for spinner like control, they would wear out way too quickly. The only downside of rotary encoders is price (especially for optical ones and you really want an optical one) and they are a little more difficult to interface, but not especially so.
I'm just new to these forums and this post caught my attention. I'm avid PC race sim guy who uses a Logitech G27 for a wheel and pedal setup.
It seems to me that most of the racing games detect the type of wheel automatically and have code for supporting them. For example, in order to get my G27 to work with Dirt 1, I had to edit the file for the G25 or else the game did not recognize it. So unless you emulate such code and identify your device as something that works you may be stuck with simple keyboard emulation. So your drivers may be a big issue. Probably a bigger issue than the hardware.
The only reason I would see to make your own is to have hardware that is far superior to anything on the market or it is significantly cheaper. It's not likely you will make nicer hardware than an Ecci Trackstar or match the value for your dollar of the G27 which has three pedals, six speed shifter a large, leather wrapped wheel with 900 degrees of rotation and dual force feedback motors.
If I was going to roll my own wheel I'd probably build nice hardware then use the guts of a G27 to make it work.
Of course you may not find these ideas challenging. I can appreciate that too.
@ Jimmy60: i wish i could afford a g27.. its amazing, i have used 1.. the reason i want to build 1, as i mentioned earlier is because i don want to spend so much cause i ll be leaving for MS in the summer sem. if i had the cash i would totally go for the G27.
JoeN:
Potentiometers have to be decoded via ADC and resistance can vary by temperature, how worn the device is, etc. I don't think many are made for constant readjustment. I've never seen an arcade game use a POT for spinner like control, they would wear out way too quickly.
Just for your edification, there do exist such things as high-precision "servo" potentiometers; these are very precise (you can find them sometimes with better than 1% precision), have no end stops (there is a small "gap" though in the readings), and are fairly low noise. They can be readjusted continuously (they are meant for use in servo actuator applications), and are fairly robust.
Note that, by "servo actuator", I mean things like servos used in industrial or other larger-scale concerns (not hobby servos); such potentiometers don't tend to be inexpensive (even when found surplus), and so optical encoders would still be possibly the better option depending on the design needs and budget.
i want to build a gaming wheel for my pc games using arduino as platform. i want to have a steering wheel, sequential gear shift and the 3 pedals(acc, brake & clutch). will this be possible to build? and even if its possible wat would be the procedure to interface it with the pc/game? hope its not too outrageous an project. plz suggest if it is possible to build something like this. all suggestions, ideas and guidance is appreciated.. 
i don know if i can actually build it but it would be a great way to pass time trying to. i could jus buy the console but as i said i ll be leaving to college n cant take it with me if i buy it..