My Hand Fabricated Simulation Racing Rig. "Vintage" Forza Motorsports 4 Racing.

May 7 2021

#424

Gentle reader,

I last wrote about this favorite hobby of mine, here:

The Robb Collections: Just What IS Inside Of A Microsoft Xbox 360 Steering Wheel? How Does It Work?

And here is the webpage with ALL of my articles about this hobby:

The Robb Collections: INDEX TO Simulation Racing THE ROBB COLLECTIONS 

I have always been a car racing fan, however, I don't care for any open-wheel types of racing, like Indy or F1, nor do I care for NASCAR. My favorites are IMSA (and WEC), Vintage sports cars/Trans Am and V8 Supercars which are in Australia and New Zealand. They ARE what NASCAR could be!

That is a V8 Supercar from 2014, piloted by young "Kiwi", Scott McLaughlin. Back then, aside from Ford and Holden (when they were called Australian V8 Supercars) they invited other makers to participate around 2012, and Mercedes Benz, Nissan and Volvo stepped up to the plate.

And that is the V8 Volvo engine they raced with. The S8 sedan and XC90 SUV models had the option of a Yamaha-built V8 engine, which is what this race-modified one is.

I first got into this hobby when a coworker/buddy gave me some PC racing games. My favorite was Test Drive Le Mans, I could not "drive" with a keyboard anymore than I can with a controller. So, I bought a Logitech wheel and pedal set.

Later, my daughter bought me a SONY PlayStation 2 Slim two and my son bought me Gran Turismo 4. 

 

Daniel later had an Xbox 360 and when I saw what one could do to cars, (GT4 also allows many changes, but they are far more technical and one must know what they are doing) to modify them, and later found out one can decorate/paint/stripe, etc. them AND buy (for credits) the already done liveries, I switched to my own Xbox 360 and never looked back. Oh, and the engine sounds are WAY better in Forza 4.

 

When we bought this house, this bedroom was designated as a home office. We had planned to have two desks in it, but that never happened.

This photo is from 2008, the chair and desk where I am sitting at this moment. The photo below shows an electrician's nightmare due to all the electronics I have in here, as well as my new monitor arm with a larger monitor. 

The room has changed many times as far as what went where, but has been like this for some time. Those speakers are actually mini-monitors, but since my PC's monitor has built-in speakers, I realized they would better serve me for racing. 

The wall opposite me. I squeezed the "Simulation Racing Station" between that sunlit shelf and the back, or is it the front, of this desk. You can see that I rearranged the photos and posters, which lightened the room by being spread out.

The 42" HDTV is plasma (and HEAVY!) and was given to me. Initially, I used a 32" Samsung Monitor which has a much better picture, but the HDMI input stopped working, so it has been banished to the family room.

The oak/granite table I found in a thrift store, but the TV was too low (I'm 6'3" tall, so I added a little stand to raise it.

My ever-supportive wife bought me this gaming chair. It had a built-in amplifier with speakers in the headrest (ala: Fiero) and a 4" "subwoofer" under the seat. Right, one can't get much bass from that.

The amp died after a year and I replaced it with a digital one, but it did not last half that time. So I use those speakers seen in the first photo.

The TV does not have analog audio outputs, so I have a small DAC with Toslink input and stereo RCA analog outputs to the speakers which have built-in stereo amplifier in the right one.

I added this foam tape as padding for my delicate elbows.

I also made this cushion to extend the child-sized seat and made some brackets to attach it beneath the seat. It does the job. 

In summer, I put a sheepskin over the seating surface since my skin tends to stick to the black vinyl.

I made this stand out of one inch square aluminum tubing. It is collapsible for storage, if need be. 

The angle of the wheel platform is adjustable and I can move if forward down the supports for grandkids to race.

The angle of the pedal platform is also adjustable, but I have found this angle ideal. I added a thicker SPRING to the brake pedal which prevents the brakes from locking so easily. 

I also padded the brake pedal (real cars have rubber covers) since the hard raised round pieces literally wore THROUGH the left sole of a pair of Piloti driving shoes like these which my wife bought me years ago.

Frankly, they are too WIDE to be driving shoes. I've bought a number of them over the years. They should be thin-soled and fit like gloves so one can feel the pedals, like the one below. 

But, again, I have gone off on a tangent. One more photo, these are what I wear to race in now:

See how the sole wraps up around the back of the heel? That is helpful for heal-and-toe moves on the pedals. Which does not apply to simulation racing with a two-pedal set. I DO LEFT-FOOT brake while racing, to allow me to keep the engine revs up while cornering. 

And here they are, well worn, on the seat. I used to keep them there because Mo, the cat, would sleep EVERYWHERE I sat! He's gone now. Rest in peace, Mo.

I found that sometimes I pulled the wheel assembly off the platform, so created these brackets to keep it in place. Those black things beneath the edges are what one buys to cover the sharp edges of rifle mounts, (see below) they are glued to the bottom edges of the wheel base. 

You can see one of them facing the camera. While the top rail is unprotected. By the way, this is a .22 rifle, not an "assault rifle" which is a made up term.

This is an inside view of the adjustable bracket for the "rake" of the steering wheel platform. 

That handle/lever is perfect for applying enough torque to keep the slider from sliding.

If you look closely, you can see the upright bracket is "U" shaped to allow for the long bolts to slide out and in for folding and storing the rig. 

Easier seen in these photos.

You no doubt noticed the red covering on the pedals cable? I accidentally cut it! Since it is just four wires, it was easy to solder them back together.

Here are closer looks at the brackets I came up with to keep the wheel assembly from being pulled off during intense racing.

You can also see the rubber pieces I told you about above. The bracket pieces are two 1/8" thick steel "L" brackets and the upright pieces are two of four that came with the monitor arm for this PC desk.

Note also how I had to notch the 3/4" thick plywood since it extends over the upright brackets. I used a 3/4" rotary file in a drill to produce the half-round notches. This allows the platform to rotate over the squared off ends of the upright 1" square tubing. 

Lastly, I glued this round piece of wood to the bottom of the plywood for the clamp to tighten to.

The plywood, while thick, was not thick enough and the clamp's screw was nearly at the end of it's threads without it.

See what I mean? This is the old platform. The bolts stuck up and interfered with the ends of the base. Also, note how the clamp screw is all the way out. My new platform is MUCH better.

 

I hope that you enjoyed this article highlighting the hand-made racing rig. One can BUY factory built ones, but in our modest home, I needed one which could be collapsed if it needed to be out of the way. 

 

I made this YEARS ago, and had built a second one so that Daniel and I could split-screen race, but he has is now in his place. 

 

For fun, when we had finished a race, (he usually won) we would deliberately crash our cars into each other. Now SONY's GT4 would NOT allow cars to overturn, nor get damaged. FM4 definitely does with accompanying sounds!

 

Sometimes, especially if the AI cars had knocked me off the course, I would swing around and start racing the WRONG direction. I would try and crash head-on into the AI cars. Try it sometime, it's loads of fun and a great way to release tension.

 

I don't know about you, but when I'm racing, my heartbeat is up and, if they are closing in on me, the adrenaline is also flowing!

That's it for now! Thanks for taking the time to read my humble blog. I started doing this just for fun, never dreaming anyone would read it. But, to my utter surprise, over 350,000 people read it! I truly am humbled.

Scott

May 7, 2021

#424

Just What IS Inside Of A Microsoft Xbox 360 Steering Wheel? How Does It Work?

April 21, 2021 

#423

Gentle reader,

A little backstory: I was never much interested in computers until I watched my wife copy and paste a paragraph in a work processing program. "Whoa! How did you do that and what else can this do?" At that point in 1996, I became interested in PCs and my old portable Olivetti typewriter was forgotten.

As time went by I built an entire PC, a 586 Tower. I used a processor from the now defunct Cyrus chip company. That dates it.

Anyway, I am retired after 44 years working first as a dealership auto mechanic and then on our nation's capital's subway cars. 

The point of that little tale is that I have a LOT of experience working on things that if one does something wrong, they could very well end up dead. I have been hit with 700 volts DC twice, fortunately, both times it went in and to ground through the same hand.

This is the face of Microsoft's proprietary Steering Wheel which they created to work exclusively (and wirelessly) with their then-new Xbox 360 console. It includes an equally nice set of pedals. 

Microsoft played their cards right when they decided to enter the lucrative world of GAMING and came out with their original Xbox console. Since that happened, a LOT has changed. Now their most popular racing series, Forza Motorsport is up to number seven and runs on their new Xbox ONE S consoles.

I have never been on to have to have the latest and greatest. For example, I do not want nor need a smart phone. If I want to go onto the Internet, I do it the way God intended, I sit down at my PC and open a browser. And I am perfectly happy with my Sonim XP3 military-grade flip phone. It doesn't even have a camera. Over all the years of flip phones I have used I have used it's tiny camera ONE time to send my wife a photo of something she was looking for at the hardware store. But I digress.

Another way I am old fashioned is that I shift gears myself while driving. Below is the gearshift of my turbocharged 2005 Volvo V50 wagon. Not a bit of "tech" anywhere on that dash.

While today's kids cannot imagine a world without smart "devices" and a constant connection to the worldwide network of computers called The Internet, and thus they seem to have been born innately knowing how to play electronic games, I was not. As a result, I cannot "drive" with a controller

To operate a vehicle, real or virtual, I MUST have a steering wheel, pedals, a sturdy stand to hold same and a way to SHIFT the virtual gears in the virtual transmission of whatever I am pretending to operate. 

Above is the Logitech steering wheel made for the SONY PS3 console. I have updated it with carbon fiber-looking larger paddles. Note, at the right of the wheel is the shift-knob for pretend sequential transmission I might be operating.

NOW, all THAT being said, have YOU ever wondered just HOW that plastic wheel and pedals can make that virtual car do what you want it to? No? Well, I have.

 

This is a shot of my "Simulation Station". By the way, I have written a number of articles about simulation racing, here is a link to a LIST of LINKS to each and every previous article:

The Robb Collections: INDEX TO Simulation Racing THE ROBB COLLECTIONS  

Once again, the tiny microswitch inside my steering wheel has had enough and would shift no more. And I cannot drive in Automatic mode!

I have replaced the steering wheel at least five times in all the years I have been racing. The first time I physically broke the right (upshift) paddle! I know that I am not alone in having done that. Since then, I shift less aggressively, but still the microswitches, they wear out.

So, I looked for yet another used wheel on eBay. I found one which the seller promised worked perfectly.

Yet, when it arrived, NOTHING worked! With the AC power plugged in, pressing the "horn" button did nothing. Nor with two AA batteries in their pack. 

So, I tried the battery holder from my old wheel and at last it came on and worked. 

BUT, when using battery power, ONLY the wheel, shifter paddles and pedals work. NO: Feedback of any kind, nor the vibrations which greatly help the racer to feel what their car is doing.

I contacted the seller and he offered to refund half the money since I said that I could probably fix it. I had not taken one apart before, BUT, I have fixed THOUSANDS of things in my lifetime. What could go wrong?

Let's start with what I found once I figured out how to get the wheel itself apart and separated from the base.

There is the motor what provides the jerks when one bounces over a curb or any other bumpy surface on the virtual tracks.

 

The small tan board on top, with three wires attached, is for a sensor which reads the large gear's position and tells the console whether the wheel is centered (the car is going straight) or is turned and how far, and which direction.

You can just see the small round sensor at about 8 o'clock by the largest gear. The wheel is directly attached by that white shaft of the large gear. A pinion gear (the smaller one attached to the medium sized one) is rotated by largest gear when the wheel is turned. That medium sized gear which is part of the pinion gear assembly, turns the motor or vice versa.

The motor will jerk or move the wheel in your hands when a virtual tire or tires encounters rough pavement or curbs.

This photo by Dave Alan of Getty Images, shows a rough curb. If you look at the far curb (left side of the photo) you will see it is almost saw-toothed. There ARE smooth curbs, also painted red and white which race cars jump over like this: 

Oh, look! A racing Volvo! Yes, my favorite racer, New Zealand's Scott McLaughlin racing his Volvo S60 in the V8 Supercars Series in 2014. They race mostly in Australia and a few times a year in New Zealand. For more: Supercars - YouTube

 

To me, and millions of others, Supercars provides the BEST racing experience. Did you KNOW that in Forza 4 one can buy and drive several authentic V8 Supercars? Just look at the bunch of racing sedans under FORD or HOLDEN and you too can virtually experience these awesome cars.

This is one of the two vibration motors which are glued into the TWO silver portions of the bottom of the wheel. They and the chrome ring between them create the flat bottom of the wheel. 

The paddles are physically part of the lighter grey portion of this assembly. Above you can see the "L" shaped levers which press the microswitches which tell the console to upshift or downshift.

Here is the inside of the back of the wheel's center arms/column. You can see the two springs which push the paddles back to their original position after you let them go.

Do you see the two square silver and black devices with a round black button in their centers? Those are the microswitches the "L" shaped levers press. The board is facing you, but inside the wheel it faces away from you.

Now it is facing up, or towards the driver. The smaller board is the one within the "horn" portion of the wheel center. Three carbon switches are closed when any of the three buttons are pressed.

On the larger board beneath that, you can see the eight carbon switches which are closed by the "L Pad" on the left side and the four colored buttons on the right side. See below:

You can clearly see the "L Pad" on the left, the three buttons on the "horn" and the four colored buttons on the right. Pretty cool, right? 

This large board, 90 degrees left of and upside down from the position is occupies in the right side of the white portion of the wheel platform assembly.

For example, the AC power plug inserts into the cylindrical black thing at the bottom left corner. Directly above that is where the telephone plug from the PEDALS plugs in. Yes, it IS a telephone plug from a "landline" type telephone.

On the right side, top, the clear thing is a projector for the green LED power indicator. Below that is the microswitch operated by the small white button one presses to sync the wheel/pedals to the console. At the bottom right is where one can plug in their Microsoft Gaming Headset.

This last and smallest board, is wired to the main board shown above. The curly (and blurry) metal things are AA battery terminals.

I do not know what the six gold terminals are for, but suspect they are test terminals for use when the wheel has been freshly built (or rebuilt) to test all the moving parts and make sure they are working as they should be prior to shipping it out to the stores then finally to us.

 

Hopefully, you now have a much better understanding of the complex devices needed to virtually operate a virtual wheeled vehicle. Do these work on Tanks and such? I have no idea.

 

Blogger just notified me that by the end of July, 2021, they will not longer be able to e-mail followers with news of new articles. Sigh. But take heart! I WILL post new Racing Simulation articles to the Facebook Forza Motorsports 4 Group. 

Now that you have finished this article. Go ahead and click or tap on this link:
The Robb Collections: INDEX TO Simulation Racing THE ROBB COLLECTIONS  to read many more (hopefully) fascinating articles about Forza 4 and other racing things I have done.

Thank you SO much for taking the time to read my humble blog. When I began doing this, it was just for fun. To my surprise, people READ it, more than 300,000 so far!

Scott

April 21, 2021

#423

 

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What the Heck is a Tachymeter For? That Scale of Numbers Engraved Around Some Chronograph Watch Bezels.

April 5, 2021

#422

Gentle reader,

I first wrote about my small collections of chronograph watches in March of 2012. You may read that article here:

The Robb Collections: The Watches

There is a LONG explanation about tachymeters in Wikipedia here:  Tachymeter (watch) - Wikipedia

The gist of it, they simplify with this line: "A tachymeter is simply a means of converting elapsed time (in seconds per unit) to rate (in units per hour)."

Anyone familiar with the measurement of time and speed in automotive (and boat) Drag Racing knows there are two measurements: How Long it takes the car(s) or boats to travel from a dead stop at the starting line to it passing the finish line is the ELAPSED time in seconds. The second measurement is the speed the car is traveling as it passes the finish line. Two photoelectric beams shine across the drag strip, one X number of feet before and a second one the same number of feet after the finish line. How many seconds it takes to trip both beams of light is calculated to determine the speed. A YouTube video linked below is a graphic demonstration.

New Nitro Altered World Record: 4.92 at 304.53 mph by Richard Hartman - YouTube 

But THIS article is not about drag racing, it is about TACHYMETERS.  And no, they are not used to gauge how BADLY someone is dressed.

This lovely yellow watch was made by ADEE KAYE and it  most clearly shows the TACHYMETER scale. However, THIS watch is not one which someone can actually USE the scale with since the seconds had is part of TIME telling.

The SECONDS hand of a true tachymeter watch MUST be the elapsed seconds hand for the chronograph (stopwatch). Thus, it must be stationary unless one is TIMING something. As you can see the second hand with it's red arrow tip below is.

This stunning C.T.I. chronograph, a copy of a Breitling watch, the only hands used by the watch are the hours and minutes hands. The seconds hand and all three smaller (subdials) do not move until the top button (called "pushers") is pressed. Then the seconds hand and all three subdial hands begin moving. One of them is 1/100th of a second and it whirls very quickly then stops at 12 o'clock on it's dial. The other's are 1/10th of a second, then minutes and hours. When the top presser is pushed, all four hands stop and the 1/100th hand also swings around and stops to show how many hundredths of a second were elapsed. Pretty cool, right?

However, that watch does NOT have a tachymeter. The bezel (metal ring that surrounds the watch face) rotates and as you can see, 60 is not at twelve o'clock, as it should be. Rotating bezels are often on DIVE watches and much more clearly visible so divers can keep track of how long they have been down and not run out of air.

Now this ADEE KAYE watch has the fixed seconds hand, BUT it lacks the tachymeter scale! Also one of the pusher buttons was separated from the watch. :-( 

This lovely two-tone Citizen watch has BOTH the scale and the fixed seconds hand. I am now wondering why I got rid of it.

I have never counted just how many watches I have owned in total, but it is around forty. I limit myself to just seven at a time now. 

But, almost ALL of them have been CHRONOGRAPH watches. Which are a wristwatch (usually) which ALSO has a stopwatch built into the one watch movement. 

Nancy had bought me a Swiss Legend watch which has a yellow face and yellow silicone band. It's big and heavy which seems to be the thing these days. I like it and decided to find a chronograph from the same company. ABOVE, is what I found, used for $50 on eBay. That is the seller's photo which I rotated and cropped for this article. I picked out one of the watches I already owned and sold it on eBay.

AS you can see, it has it all: Fixed second hand, tachymeter scale and subdials. I am retired, and sometimes I DO wonder what day it is, so the bottom "day" subdial does come in handy.

In Hong Kong, China, one can find COUNTLESS "luxury" watches for BARGAIN prices! The problem is almost all of them are FAKES. 

Before ROLEX put pressure on eBay to prevent sellers from hocking their wares of counterfeit Rolex watches, I was able to buy these.

The red/blue one is a fake Submariner diving watch, but I would not get it wet! 

I call them "Fauxlex" watches. It is a word I coined. Faux is French for fake. It is pronounced "foe". Put together it is pronounced "Foe-lex" which rhymes with Rolex.

All the others are Daytona chronograph watches. The trouble is, while they do have automatic or self-winding movements like the original, THEIR movements are CALENDAR movements. The subdials show the day, date, and month. The black face/strap watch has the correct markings for that type movement, the rest look exactly like the real thing. Pressing the pushers does nothing unless one pulls out the crown and presses them repeatedly to "zero" them at the 12 o'clock position. ALL of them are long gone from the collection.

Someone who read my previous article contacted me to tell me he had a fake HEUER Monza chronograph (as well as the fake Submariner) which he wanted to offer to me. I bit because the price was right. It actually is a chronograph, but the back of the watch does not match the front. 

TAG bought HEUER or the other way around, and the back is clearly marked: TAG HEUER.

What Rolex objects to aside from their watches blatantly being copied is not just the design of their watches, at least in the case of the Daytona models, it is the USE of their NAME as well as their designs.

The Daytona design patent ran out years ago and many watch companies started making their own watches with the same look. Here are some I have owned:

                                       ADEE KAYE's version.

Apogaum's version which uses the self-winding Chinese calendar movement.

Italian named, but Japanese movement within the Enrico Coveri version which has added a red face and a date window.

This is the black "Fauxlex" Daytona. I included it so you could see the markings on the subdials. Note that they pressed the bezel on crooked. "60" is supposed to be at 12 o'clock.

A pair of INVICTA Speedway watches. I still have the stainless steel watch, but sold the gold one. It came with the alligator band as well as an all gold (plated) metal band. I have since purchased a two-tone Invicta Speedway which resembles this Faulex: 

Again, I picked out a watch from the collection to sell to allow room for it. 

A little history on the Rolex Daytona watches. Every January, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona, Florida, USA, is held the "Rolex 24 at Daytona" endurance sports car race. It is twenty-four hours long and starts out the new season of IMSA's premiere races. It USED to be part of what is now called the "WEC" or World Endurance Championship. The second race was the 12 Hours of Sebring, also in Florida in March. Then the racers went to Europe for the rest of the season's races. The PREMIERE event is the 24 Hour of Le Mans in France, in June. Races are held in several countries throughout the season.

This photo is from the parade lap (right before the green flag drops to start the race) of the 1968 Daytona 24 Hours race. Two Ford GT40 cars lead with four Porsche 908 behind, four Ferrari (I don't remember their models) and the white/black car had a JET turbine engine in it! It did not finish the race. MOST cars did not finish endurance races back then. 

ANYWAY, the winners (two or more drivers shared driving duty) received solid gold Rolex Daytona watches, second place, two-tone gold and stainless and third place all-stainless steel Daytona watches. 

BUT, this article is SUPPOSED to be about TACHYMETERS so, here it is.

A tachymeter is to be used when a vehicle is already moving at SPEED. This Swiss watch (Swatch) has the requisite fixed seconds hand and a tachymeter scale. Since almost ALL cars (except land-speed record cars) cannot go more than 200 miles an hour, or 321.868 kilometers an hour, we can ignore any numbers higher on the scale.

The driver, or preferably a passenger, presses the top button AS they are passing a marked/fixed point, such as a mile or kilometer maker, while the car is at top speed. The watch wearer again presses the top button as the vehicle passes the second marked/fixed point, such as a mile or kilometer marker.

Then, they look to where the second hand STOPPED and read the scale to figure out how fast they were going.

This scale is much more complete than the Swatch so one could calculate by the distance between the numbers. NOTE how they get farther apart as the speed numbers get slower. So, if it stopped at 12, the vehicle was going 60 miles or kilometers per hour.

How useful are tachymeters and for that matter, chronograph watches? To me, not very. ALL cars sold HAVE speedometers to tell the driver how fast they are going. And, I don't speed nor race real cars (only simulated ones) and the ONLY thing I've ever TIMED with one of my watches was how long it took to get our FOOD after we ordered it in a restaurant! 

But, I love their looks and IF I wanted to time something, I have the technology to do so. Between you and me, a DIGITAL watch would be much more accurate and goes down to 1/1000th of a second. But digital, BAH! Oh, and I deliberately do not have a smart phone. Useful they are, but I see SO many people who seem to CONSTANTLY be looking down at their phones and NOT at their surroundings. I do not want to be like that. 

I also drive a WAGON, not an SUV or crossover or minivan or pickup truck. I LIKE being different. 

My 2005 Volvo V50 T5 Sport is extremely rare since it has the six-speed manual transmission.

Oh no! The socket plug is upside down! Well the car was new to us then and I corrected that. 

To give you an example of it's size, here it is next to VW's (then) smallest SUV, the Tiguan. 

To show it's prowess, I added these Prancing Moose emblems. Every new Volvo goes through the high-speed moose avoidance test. I'm not making this up. And these emblems are a dig at Ferrari owners.

Thank you for taking the time to read my humble blog. Please take a moment to click or tap the FOLLOW button which is located by the ADEE KAYE watches version of the Rolex Daytona chronograph photo. That way, you will receive notifications of new articles as they come out. Also, feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.

Scott

April 5, 2021

#422