The racing sim scene has always had a strong DIY subculture, as enthusiasts seeking the most realistic-feeling peripherals set out to modify off-the-shelf offerings for greater authenticity. Others go further and craft their own builds from the ground up. [ilge] has done just that, putting together his own set of pedals for sim racing.
The build relies primarily on 3D printed components, with a few springs and some nuts and bolts to hold everything together. Gear teeth on the pedal arms interface with matching gears mounted on potentiometers. These are then wired into an Arduino Pro Micro, which reads the individual pots via analog inputs and then acts as a USB Human Interface Device to the computer.
[ilge] tests the setup with a variety of games, including the popular Euro Truck Simulator and iRacing. It’s a great cheap way to get started with a pedal set for a sim rig. From here, the sky really is the limit; we’d love to see an upgraded version with a load-cell on the brake for better pedal feel. We’d be surprised if an H-shifter isn’t in the works, too. Video after the break.
I’d be curious to know how these hold up. I know I stomp on my Logitech pedals pretty hard; without having seen it attempted I would not have guessed a 3D printed part could take that kind of abuse unless it was very well designed. Which these appear to be.
all the bolt holes appear to have large collars, and there’s no wasp waists for stresses to get concentrated in. material cost of making it sufficiently ruggedized is lost in the noise floor of design, it appears. CNC Kitchen over on YT has some \scientific analyses of various printing principles and materials, I’ve enjoyed watching the test-to-failure comparisons he does
also, this is mostly made up of plate-section elements which could be cut from plywood fairly easily with almost no redesign required
I’d only really be worried about the pedals themselves (the part your foot rests on), though that could be helped by making the back of the pedal mount against the red parts releaving some of the stress from the black pedals. The rest of the system looks like it would be almost exclusively experiencing compressive forces (on the red parts and the spring mount in particular), which 3d printed parts with a decent infill should be able to handle fairly well. Even the bolt holes are fairly well positioned on the compressive side of the parts, taking advantage of the thickness of the entire part to reinforce them.
If he keeps the floor mounted (instead of hanging), he way want to reinforce the mounted bolt holes as they’re sticking out on little extensions off the side, that looks like the weakest point to me.
Where can I download the Arduino Code for this project?
I was going to suggest the actual youtube video (https://youtu.be/I4P86DJPXAc) but after looking for the sketch I didn’t see it in the description. You could leave a comment there and you’ll probably have more luck.
Uses MMJoy2 it handles the arduino code itself.
I really am curious about how these would feel, compared to some of the market ones like thrustmaster.