Clubsport Shifter v1.5: Stuck in Sequential
Evan Hamalainen
Member
Hello,
I sent this over to Fanatec support a couple days ago, but haven't seen a reply yet, so I figured I'd post here.
My CS 1.5 shifter seems to be stuck in sequential mode. I have it connected via the USB adapter directly to my PC.
Notes on its behavior:
- The driver shows the shifter as being in SQ mode and recognizes the inputs
- Switching between SQ and H on the shifter does nothing
- When inserting the shifter cable, there is a point where the driver will recognize it as H pattern. If you leave it at this point it will stay as H pattern but obviously this isn’t really useful for calibrating
- Games recognize the shifter as a SQ shifter both on PC and console (through Drivehub).
I’ve tried the obvious solutions:
- Different shifter cable. No change
- Different USB ports and USB cables. No change
- Reinstalling firmware. No change
- Installed handbrake firmware and then reinstalled shifter firmware. No change.
I also took the shifter apart (it’s out of warranty) and tried the following:
- SQ switch works fine. Confirmed with multimeter.
- Continuity confirmed good on all connectors/cables in the shifter
- Added electrical tape to back of main PCB. No change.
- Disconnected hall-effect board. No change
- Tried jumping the SQ mode switch connector on the board to simulate a closed state. No change.
- I also checked the pins in the adapter and there was continuity for the power and ground pins. The data pins didn’t show continuity, but I don’t think it would.
I’m thinking right now that it’s an issue with the main PCB in the shifter or USB adapter.
Anyone experience a similar issue?
Comments
I did experience the same issue. For me the issue was a loose connection on the the little slide switch that signals the change when you slide from SQ to H. The two wires on the switch are soldered then hot glued. On mine the solder joint was poor - the wire was simply held by the hot glue - sometimes it would be connected - other times it was not connected so the board saw open = SQ. Resoldered and been fine since. Sounds like you checked this but easy enough to double check.
Yeah. What Gary said. You can also order a new cable + the black thingy on the bottom. Then just screw it on the bottom, plug it in the pcb and carefully bolt the bottom again on the base. And hope the solder and glue are enough.
I appreciate both comments, but as I noted above I used a multimeter and determined that the switch was good. I also confirmed today that switching it on/off causes the voltage coming out of its connector on the board to change. I even checked some of the transistors and saw the expected voltage changes when the switch state went from closed to open.
I spent some more time investigating the issue, and I think I figured it out, though it's not really possible for me to confirm.
There is a pin on the main PCB connector that corresponds to SEQ. Basically, when that pin goes high (5 V), it switches to sequential mode. I stuck my multimeter on this pin and found that it was 5V 100% of the time. It didn't matter what the mode switch was doing. At first I thought there may have been a short on the board or a bad component somewhere, but every avenue I explored (which was somewhat limited since it's been a long time since I really did circuits) proved fruitless.
I then decided to measure the pin on the harness that goes from the RJ12 connector to the PCB. When I did this, I found that the wire that corresponds to the SEQ pin was reading at 5V even if it was disconnected from the PCB. I then worked backwards and figured out that the SEQ wire coming from the USB adapter is always set to 5V.
The 5V coming in on the SEQ pin is likely forcing the shifter to always think it's in SEQ mode even if the mode switch is set to H pattern. Something is probably wrong with the USB adapter. I may take it apart again to see if there are any shorts anywhere, but I didn't see anything when I looked.
I've sent my findings to Fanatec. Hopefully they can confirm my thinking and replacing the USB adapter will get this resolved.
I believe you, haha. What a story. Hope the issue will be solved.
Ha! Luckily the shifter is actually a somewhat simple device. It doesn't actually have any kind of processor or memory on it at all. All the inputs/outputs are simple analog signals. This makes it relatively easy to analyze in diagnose.
I just hope that Fanatec support looks at what I've done and is able to confirm with the engineers that my thinking is correct. The first email they sent me was just "You can send it back for us to look at, repair time would be $$$$, etc." instead of any kind of suggestion as to what other steps I could take to diagnose or what parts were likely the culprit. I understand that companies don't like giving out that kind of info, but this is an out-of-warranty shifter and I think I've demonstrated at least some level of competency lol.
You do seem to have some level of competence as you say. What you could do next to confirm the issue is with the USB adapter is to remove it from the equation and see if the problem persists. You will have worked out what pin on the RJ12 corresponds to power so feed it a supply, you could even just us a 9v battery and a simple voltage divider with couple of resistors to provide the required 5v if you don't have a suitable power supply. If the problem persists, the USB adapter is not the cause and you either return the shifter or continue troubleshooting the circuit. If the shifter works without the USB adapter in the equation, you can either try to fix that - could be a simple short like you say, or simply buy a new one.
Funny you mention it, because I was just able to do some more testing.
I took an RJ12 cable I had and cut every wire except the ones for Vcc and G coming out of the adapter. When I did this, the SEQ pin on the shifter PCB was set to 5V. This makes me think that this PCB is faulty.
I may try to circumvent a transistor on the board that I think MAY be causing the problem, but I'm not sure if it's the right one. Need to do some more digging.
I'm confident that it's an issue with a transistor on the board. I was able to find the exact part used by Fanatec and ordered a set from Digikey.