Home made Force Feedback H shifter (work in progress)

[matt2000]

thought you guys might like to see this

i was going to buy an act labs RS shifter for LFS because i was bored with buttons, but after finding out it would cost me more than £80 i decided to make my own. i had seen lots of home made shifters on the RSC forums and some were made with force feedback joysticks. one of the guys there wrote a free program to control a FF joystick to work as a shifter.

so i got onto eBay and found this Logitech Wingman Force. got it for 1p. postage was £10, but still a bargain i think 8). anyway it took me a while to get it working in XP (other services were cocking it up) but now it works and it's great.

now i'm looking for a complete centre console (with gear stick and handbrake) to make my own mini cockpit. at the moment the centre console from a Honda S2000 seems good - this one is from eBay:



anyway here is the 'shifter' as it is at the moment... on a chair

1st gear :


2nd gear:



my full driving rig as it stands (yes i know i need a new chair...):


everything here needs to be de-mountable because this is the family PC and i can't leave things attached.

so now i'm gonna practice so i can beat you all to the first corner crash i will cause in the next season

Matt

[Mischief007]

All the power to you and keep us updated on this project.

[matt2000]

we i've changed my plan now after i found out that the centre console was going to cost over £100, so now i'm making my own wooden frame, with sheet ally top. angle iron and MDF board inside will make a platform for the Joystick to stand on, and the shifter plate will be acrylic plastic. i'm getting a handbrake off eBay too. just waiting for parts to arrive before i can start building it