Fanatec handbrake wiring for DIY?
Aki Rintamäki
Member
TL/DR: Inconsistent behavior (doesn't work at all anymore) with my DIY hall sensor handbrake on GT DD Pro. How is the Fanatec handbrake wired?
So, I didn't find an analogue handbrake in a tabletop format, so I decided to make my own with a hall sensor. After a few calibrations it worked great until I shut down the wheel and continued later. The calibration was badly off, and I only got it to work by unplugging the handbrake and restarting the Fanatec base a few times. I still had to adjust the deadspot in EA WRC, but after that it worked well... until I shut down the system again.
Now it doesn't work at all anymore. At launch the Fanatec software shows no handbrake input, and when I pull the handle, it jumps to max. This is normal to the self calibration process. But when releasing the handbrake the meter stays at 100%. Unplugging the handbrake and plugging back in still shows 100%.
Tevhnical: The base puts out a healthy 5.2V to the handbrake connector, and the way that hall sensors work it gives out half of that without a magnet nearby. I thought that the base might expect a potentiometer version, so I lowered the output voltage with two diodes and connected 15kohm resistors across the terminals. Output at rest was now at 1.7V, increasing to around 2.7V when hb was engaged in full. But none of this helped.
Has anyone opened up the Fanatec handbrake and checked the electronics? What exactly is there and how is it connected?
Comments
[on PlayStation] I have to pull the handbrake completely in EA WRC everytime after I started the game to calibrate prior to the first race. Seems to be a wanted mandatory behavior
Yes, that is the automatic calibration process I mentioned. Same goes for the gas and brake pedals. The problem with my DIY handbrake is though that when pulling it for the first time, the base sees it as 100% pulled even when I release the handbrake. So the calibration fails. The manual calibration buttons in the Fanatec software don’t do anything either. So the handbrake can’t be used.
I can take some pictures of the inside of a Fanatec handbrake, if that will help you
That would be very helpful, thank you!
sent you pictures via Message as it wasn‘t possible here
So, inspired by Marcel’s helpful photos I gave up on the hall sensor and modified my handbrake to use a potentiometer after all. It works consistently with a 50k LIN pot as long as the pot travel never reaches zero.
I am also having this kind of issues, but with a potentiometer... I have made a DIY handbrake with a 10K potentiometer some years ago, and it works fine. Now, I got a original Fanatec handbrake from a friend and it doesn't work very well.
"At launch the Fanatec software shows no handbrake input, and when I pull the handle, it jumps to max. This is normal to the self calibration process. But when releasing the handbrake the meter stays at 100%." - This also happens to me.
I try to manually calibrate and move the handbrake and nothing happens. I unplug and plug again the handbrake sometimes, and eventually it will give him life again. I calibrate it and its working fine. Then I shut off the base and when I turn it on again, and the handbrake is in zero and when I pull it. it goes to 100% and stays there again.
When it is working, I can touch the wire and rotate the 3,5mm jack and works great so I don't think that the problem is in the cable or in the socket... But it is very strange that it works very well and just by shiting off the base and turning it on again will mess everything again.
Any one knows how to fix it?
Update: I soldered the wires directly in a new 10Kohm potentiometer and it keeps getting stuck in the 100%, and it doesn't calibrate.
I connected the handbrake to the v3 pedals and worked fine!!
How can this be posible?
When connected to the base, it looks like the potentiometer doesn't rotate enough because when I take the spring and rotate more the lever it start to work and I can calibrate the handbrake.
Maybe a base firmware could correct this.