Center Point Calibration Changes While Driving!
I have the most frustrating thing happening with my DD1 (which is less that 20 hours old). While I drive, the center point changes. This usually happens mid-corner as I bring the car back to center I find the wheel will be off center several degrees. It can be any where from +/-2 to +/-15 degrees depending on the FFB strength and the severity of the corner. No matter what though, I have to pause the game and center calibrate the wheel or base every single time this happens. Because of this issue, playing online is pretty much impossible because there's no way to pause online races to re-center my wheel. Anybody ever have this happen? Is it some crazy software/firmware config issue I'm missing? I can't imagine what kind of setting would allow center-calibration to change while driving but who knows...I thought I would ask. I have a sneaking feeling it's hardware-related and I'm just screwed. I've attached a picture that shows my wheel at 0 degrees and in the background you can see (barely) the Fanatec software showing the wheel turned to -8 degrees. It's insane and very frustrating.
I've tried setting to defaults, re-installing driver, low-torque mode, different games...
Thanks in advance.
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James
Comments
I highly recommend tightening down the compression collar that holds the 2-piece shaft together (the 2-piece black ring with 3 air holes through each side and a split between them). I think this uses an m5 allen key (could be 4 or 6, but in that range).
Remove the wheel and then loosen the collar a bit on each side and make sure the QR is flush against the output shaft of the wheelbase and the collar is towards the front (wheel side) of the base enough to compress the output shaft over the QR shaft (not blocking the foam cover on the air intake). Then align the compression collar slots with the slots on the output shaft and tighten about half a turn on each side to keep the gaps an equal distance apart on each side. I don’t remember the quoted torque spec (like 8-10 nm I think or 6-7 ft lbs) but you want it pretty tight without bending. After that, recalibrate the wheel and you should be good.
Remember, you are actively torquing a 14-18 cm lever (wheel radius) in the opposite direction of a peak 20 nm force. If that collar is not tight enough, you will overcome the friction between the QR and the output shaft and see exactly this rotation, that’s why you need the collar to hold everything in place.
Ah yes, interesting and thanks so much for your reply.
I honestly hadn't thought about this being a physical issue because I assumed if it were slipping I could see it on the shaft. It will probably be tomorrow morning when I can get to that but I will definitely give that a try and update the thread afterwards.
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James
Thank you so much, Jason. I don't think I would have ever checked this because I didn't realize there were multiple connections between the QR & the motor shaft. I was convinced it was software/firmware-related. Once I loosened it, though, I could see the wheel-side QR could move separately from the other bits which made me realize this could very well be what's going on. Then I re-seated and tightened back up the collar and after 4 or 5 hours of driving I'm guessing that could very well have been what was causing my problem because it's behaving as expected. So, I will keep an eye on it going forward but so far (knock on wood) it's stayed centered.
Thanks again!
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James
You’re welcome, James! I’m really glad this seems to have resolved it for you. I had it happen a couple months ago to me and I thought I was going mad. I totally understand the frustration you were having as it’s not immediately obvious, especially if you haven’t recently been messing with the collar.