To all Shifter v1.5 owners
Rinus Huisman
Member
Dear reader,
If you experience miss-shifting. I would advise to put electrical isolation tape on your PCB. Just like this guy did:
It really helped me from shifting in 4th gear while it sometimes would register as 2nd gear.
While taking the PCB off you can also take a look if the magnet is aligned. Just click on the picture
My magnet was aligned, but the tape helped. So far!
Anyway. On the first post someone replied that Fanatec is fixing this with new shifters. So I suppose everyone who bought this shifter before 2020 should do the tape and/or the magnet-solution.
Yours,
Rinus
Comments
Nearly 1 week later ... I can hereby confirm isolating the PCB-board works. No miss-shifts anymore
Ahh beer. I love 10% beer and craftbeer. <3 Hope these solutions help people who are annoyed by the miss-shifting.
At last I am really really curious if Fanatec is going to do a v2.0 or a Podium Shifter.
To ALL V1.5 Shifter users! You should watch this video.
https://youtu.be/zHHw3j_a9Ug
Still working great! Isolate your PCB, guys! :d
Latest reply:
It's still working! 😍
I had same problem, specially when shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear.
Today finally opened it and that same tapefix worked for me.
Magnet wasn´t moved.
Shifter is bought at 6th April 2020 from Germany.
Great to read, mate! Have fun!
Little update. My shifter started to doing funky. So last week I took it apart again and looked inside. The isolation-tape was touching the wire a bit it seems, so I took a little off. Also took a look at the magnet and fiddled a bit with the cables. It seems to be fine now. Happy again! 😍
The shielding/isolation fix is the real deal. The first time I had the mis-shift problem I sent my shifter back to Fanatec for warranty repair. When I got it back it worked great for a few months. Then the mis-shifts started happening again.
So this time I opened it up, added some shielding, recalibrated & the problem is fixed. It's been working reliably for a couple months now.
Curiously, in spite of this thread existing, the repair work by Fanatec did not include adding this shielding.
Glad you've fun, mate.
So lately my shifter started again to do funky. So I took off the current isolation-tape. Sliced some new ones and put 4 of them over the whole PCB. No issues so far.
My first guess is that the bolts were touching the metal or so, or the middle of the PCB was doing funky. I've no idea why it started to doing misshifts again. For now I'm having two days of fun again.
Might isolate-tape the wires as well.
I like Fanatec products but there's always a 'but'
Same here, two pieces of electric isolation tape didn´t fix problem.
At this time put black Gorilla tape under PCB and seems to work again properly (1 hour test behind).
Fanatec, is there something permanent for fixing this mis-shift issue?
My´n shifter is still under warranty, so what are you going to do it if send it back?
Nope, still problems when change gear from 2nd to 3rd, sometimes it regonize it as 5th gear.
Made ticket to support.
Seems it waste of time to send it back if solution is not permanent.
No responce from Fanatec support... 🤨
Added second layer of black Gorilla tape under both PCB´s.
Calibrated shifter and now it seems to work again...let´s see how long at this time.
Fanatec make pretty decent equipments but their communication to customers is really bad.
That is one reason to look some other manufacturers if/when upgare my system in future.
Is Gorilla black tape electrical tape? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_tape
Also check the magnet. I haven't any problems since March. Taped the whole PCB instead of two tapes. Works well. ;)
It´s pretty thick, used like for building air conditioner tubes.
My´n shifter seems also work now nicely.
Fanatec contacted me and said I can send it back to service, but because now it works no reason to do that.
You guys are wasting your time with this tape. IT DOESNT FIX THIS ISSUE PERMANENTLY. I dont understand why everyone is preaching over this tape "FIX", your just putting a bandaid on the issue.
First of all, lets start fresh. The shifter is using a Hall sensor in order to understand in which gear it currently is. How do you ask, it measures the changing voltage when you change gears. In other words, the Hall sensor detects when its in a magnetic field (any gear). It sense the position of the gear because every gear gives a specific voltage differentiating one gear from another.
So how is it possible to go in the wrong gear? Because of resistance. AKA, there is "something" that is making the Hall sensor miss read the proper value.
If any of you notice, by just opening your shifter and doing nothing else (at least from my end), i am able to make the missshift disappear just like the tape fix but, again, always come back. In other words, the tape isnt really a fix at all. Also, just by blowing inside the shifter i was able to make the hall sensor miss read which gear i was in.
To my understanding, i think its either a static issue meaning dust is able to make its way into the shifter and sabotage with the Hall Sensor reading the correct voltage.
ALSO (this is big), fanetec ISN'T using DIELECTRIC GREASE inside the shifter. What does this mean? Dielectric grease is a type a grease that DOESN'T allow electricity to flow better. In other words, they are using conductive grease that might make its way on one of the PCB changing the voltage value intermittently.
So whats next? I suggest cleaning out every single last drop of the factory grease and changing it for Dielectric Greases. Step 2, i would give a slim coat of the same grease on the PCB (check that magnet but im sure all of you checked already and it wasn't the problem). If you wish to put a piece of tape behind the PCB, go ahead as Electric tape is also non conductive when installed properly. Next step, I would strongly advice to BLOW the s**t out of the Shifter, use compress air and make sure the inside is dust free. Lastly, Ground that shifter to your rig.
By doing all this, we might be able to go forward with this damn issue cause Fanatec is clearly aware of this issue and rather then to fix it, they LOVEEEE to just cash in on there wonderful built products lmfao
FYI owned a G27 for 10 years, never had ONE missshift. that says alot considering you guys are asking BIG money for something that clearly never worked from v1.
EVERYONE TRY THIS, please dont give a feedback after a hour or a week. We need CONCLUSIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE RESULT OVER TIME. having a shifter to work for one week is something, having it work permanently is another.
I can confirm that tape is not permanent fix if fix at all.
I noticed also that just opening shifter make it work for a while.
Now I removed every grease from upper part of shifter and replaced it with dry lubricant.
I´ll come back later when it misshifts again or if that was cure.
Nothing is so annoying than H-shifter which do not work correctly, you put 3rd and it give 1st 🤬
I think you're correct. I did blow the hidter a couple of times and it worked lovely. Then overtime when dust gathered I had to open it and blow it again. tape fix is ok. I think its indeed a dust/eletrical thing issue. I will clean the grease this month or so and apply a non-electrical one.
Hey man could I get an update on the situation, I want to see if it really works.
I never bothered again with it anymore. I keeps miss-shifting after a while. Honestly I've no clue what to do this shifter anymore. Maybe change the grease as a last resort. Or change it back to its normal state and sell it or so and hope it gives someone else pleasure.. This shifter is awesome, but it's as a huge product-flaw. Really want my money back, but it's been like 3 years I bought it from someone else.
So I scooped the grease out, and added new better grease. Couldn't find die-electric, and the one I found is really expensive. So I used the grease Heusinkveld recommends for their HE Sprints. Lets find out how it goes.
A few months later, I decided to address the issue. I removed the tape trick and took off the original tape from the other board. This time, instead of applying the tape directly on the board, I applied it on the casing or metal where the board is positioned. I made sure to cover the areas where the board sinks in. Since then, I haven't experienced any more problems with miss-shifting. It's been a couple of months now, from April or May to nearly August 2023. After almost a year of enjoying the shifter's performance and three years of dealing with misshifting issues, I can finally enjoy using my V1.5 shifter again. There's no need for me to upgrade to another shifter at the moment.
Here are the modifications I made:
Add a ferrite choke to each end of the cable connecting the shifter to the base.
Update
Actually point 4. I removed the original tape from one of the pcb's. Added my own tape.
It's now end of november and it's working amazingly since the last update.
Worked flawlessly until 2 or 3 month ago.