Csl pedals disappointment
Stefano Campisi
Member
Hi all,
I get my GT DD Pro a week ago after 2 year experience with a G29, planning and comparing different sets until Fanatec came out with the CSL DD, and I knew was that the moment, I had to wait for PlayStation version, and i couldn't ever been more happy about my choice, I finally start to feel the car and the need to wrestle with it, but... There is a huge BUT... Csl pedals are very satisfying as look and building quality, but the brake feel like the brake lines explode at every braking, and the throttle is also quite light.
What I know for sure is that many people were disappointed about pedal feels, would be extremely professional from Fanatec to gather our feedback to develop a kit to fix the pedal feelings to send for free to their customers, according to the high expectations that we have about this brand, to produce sim parts that don't feel like something is missing, it feels like the cost is for building quality only and there is something missing to buy as upgrade. The loadcell pedal is the first option form me, but at least you should have what you expect out of the box to avoid any painful part of the experience.
I would take as exemple Nintendo Wiimote silicon shell free supply campaign, but that was for safety so is of course not the same.
Have fun,
Stefano
Comments
Pedal mod... or just buy some RC car shocks and jerry rig them to your pedals. Doesn't add anything major to except the feel and sound like what you want... I'm thinking of buying som RC car parts and just doing it myself.
The CSL pedals are entry level. V3 is what you may need to look into. I have the load cell brake kit for the CSL and they feel much better. You just have to get used to the throttle. Keep practicing and soon your legs will have the muscle memory.
I also thought the CSL brake foam felt a bit too soft, so bought the Load Cell Kit which arrived last week. Unfortunately the load cell felt even worse to me for the opposite reason, far too hard to press comfortably and was almost unusable even though I have fitted it to a aluminium Sim-Lab frame.
So I went back to the standard CSL brake and just tried two easy modifications which I feel improve it. The main change was to fill the small circular hole in the rubber/foam with something solid. I did this by placing two M8 nuts in there (probably best to remove the foam first), and now the foam has noticably more resistance when pressed.
The second thing was to place/wedge a 3-4mm spacer between the tip of foam and the back of the metal pedal to remove the little gap. I presume the gap is intentional by Fanatec and it's probably more personal preference. I used a bit of plastic, but some folded card would probably work as well.
Overall I'm happy with the feel of the standard brake, and don't feel like I would need the load cell, well not until some option is available to make it feel less difficult to use.
Image showing the possible way described above to make the standard brake a little stiffer- and hopefully better.
I even removed the foam. Couldn't be happier.
Make sure your seat and pedal is secure before you go to the load cell kit. They work really well but only if you have them secure like on a rig.
Hi Steve, great idea and i did the same as you!
But, don't you think you need to press the pedal to hard to get maximum break force?
We can't edit the maximum brake position without a loadcell right?
Unfortunately no max brake force (BRF) setting in the menus with the standard brake. It's a shame and I wish it was also an option on the standard brake instead of just the load cell, as you can calibrate once and leave it be.
Apologies if you already know this, but the main thing to remember is that the standard brake does dynamically calibrate something similar to the max BRF setting all the time as you use it. You don't need to physically press the brake fully down to get 100% brake value if you don't want to. The maximum physical brake travel length (however large or small) registered by the wheel base automatically becomes the maximum braking value - for as long as the wheel base is turned on. However, in a moment of brain fade - if you just once slam on the brakes unusually hard - that brake length becomes the new auto max BRF, which will mean you have to brake slightly harder on average for all the other corners until you restart the wheel base again to reset the brake length calibration.
If you haven't mounted the pedals to a frame I can imagine the mod being a bit too stiff now over standard (but its no where near as stiff as the load cell). The intention was to get its feel a little closer to a real brake or a load cell where you can modulate braking better and faster by having a similar force required but in less pedal distance (well that's what I presume anyway). I could only 'comfortably' press about 5-10mm of pedal travel on the load cell kit - I can get a better distance now without the brake feeling excessively stiff (load cell) or too soft (standard CSL brake), and without the pedal distance being too short (LC) or too long (standard CSL).
If you want to soften the brake mod, perhaps try with just the spacer to remove the initial gap (it'll still be soft though like this), or perhaps fill the foam holes with something of similar density to the main foam that can squash a bit itself. I didnt have anything on hand that fit apart from the solid metal nuts.
Another unrelated and optional tweak to try - is to tie one or two of those little plastic cable tie wraps around the stopper bar of the accelerator. To me, when fully pressed down it dampens the noise a bit and creates a slightly nicer and more solid 'thud'.
With the load cell, on top of changing the cushions behind it, you can adjust the force it takes from the steering wheel in the settings, but as said before, pedals need to be mounted solid with loadcell ({ BRF setting- lower it to make it more sensitive) I have my setup on a “wheel stand” and set brf to 40 or 30 so I don’t have to shove the stand across the floor to stop 😂
Does anyone know why Fanatec does not sell replacements for this foam? I feel it is the weaker part of the whole bundle.
What if it breaks? What if I want a stiffer one?
My solution was to stick a gummy eraser in the hole but now I am getting eraser crumbles everywhere... I will try the M8 nuts as our fellow commenter said earlier...
I would like to have, at the very least, the option to buy a replacement for when it breaks.., because it will, I am sure
I will also try the "cable tie wrap damper system", although that pedal feel doesn't bother me that much as the brake does
I was also concerned with how much long term durability the brake foam rubber might have - especially in the thin side areas around the hole, as this area absorbs most, if not all, of the bending and stress which could get softer over time. When you fill the hole up tightly, it seems to transfer the compression more centrally down the entire shape of the foam (especially at the thicker top area), so hopefully it'll maintain its durability for a long time and will never need replacing.
After using metal nuts I decided to try some of those plastic nylon spacers you can get cheaply on eBay, and they fit even better. A 15mm wide spacer with a 16-17mm diameter is perfect if you can get one. It was a bit of a squeeze to get the larger spacer in, and was worried about damaging the foam edges in the process, but there was no problem or damage. The material Fanatec chose for the foam rubber seems pretty strong and resiliant.
I'm trying this rn