T500RS Alternatives

G

GranTurismoFive

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Iraq
London
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D-MVN
My T500RS recently stopped working.

Its a shame, for almost three years it was faultless. Not a thing went wrong. Until Project Cars came out for the PS4. That is when things started to go downhill.

Would be in the middle of a loading screen and the wheel would start violently juddering from left to right. And at times FFB was non existent.

Anyway, cant pin point the cause of the issue. Like I said it had been working fine up until the release of PCARS.

I've contacted Thrustmaster who suggested I get myself a new power pack. The power pack arrived yesterday. Lol I couldn't tell you how excited I was. So imagine the disappointment when I hooked it all up. Flicked the switch and then nothing.... The thing still won't work. Power is definitely being fed from the power pack as I can see that the blue light is on.

So far I've only tried it on my PC. I may try to hook it up to my PS4 tonight.

I've informed TM and am awaiting a response. I've also contacted the retailer I purchased it from (Zavvi). Again I am awaiting a response. Doubt I'll hear from them before the end of this week though.

Anyway, have any of you experienced this issue.

Just so you know. There are no visible signs of damage.... I'm so bored right now it hurts.... Although that could be because I'm at work... But when I get home I'll be sooo bored I'm sure it'll hurt lol.

Anyway, in the event the wheel is well and truly dead...... What other wheels (within a similar price range) are out there?

Thanks
 
People like the T300, and you have the better pedal set already. Amazon sells just the servo/motor/case unit, so you could save some money by buying it and changing out the one you have now, using your present rim and pedals. Sorry for your luck. Hopefully it will work with the PS4. I had similar issues with Project Cars until I installed the latest update. Works great now. Fingers crossed-knock on wood.
 
Assuming you want PS4 support, there is the Logitech G29, Thrustmaster T300 which are both fully PS4 licensed, and another Thrustmaster T500 which as you know requires a controller in the menus but works in all current racers.

Given you have still got fully working T500 pedals and rim, it would give you a head start on for example just buying the "T300 servo base" plus "599XXX alcantara rim", and reuse your existing pedals. The T500 rim would also work on the T300 although you'd be without paddle shifters so you'd need to also have a TH8A shifter.

Difference between T500 and T300: The T500 is more powerful but more damped. The T300 is very light to spin, so if you like it has a "lower FFB noise floor", but it only spins at around 75% of the top speed of the T500. The T300 has a smaller "dynamic range" of forces but is good at letting you feel the lighter forces and is less work to fight against when you have it turned up. Personally I enjoy both wheels, but since I love to have the least possible damping I find the T300 marginally better to use.

In addition the T300 has no fixed paddles and needs to be used with a wheel rim which has paddles included, so either opt for the T300RS with the PS4 rim or get the T300 servo base and add a rim of your choice separately. No point in the T300 alcantara set if you have T500 pedals to reuse.

One last point: My T500 from late 2013 went through RMA in early 2015 (one of the pedals suddenly stopped working) and they gave me a brand new one: it felt slightly smoother than the old one. You should find that a brand new T500 will be tighter, smoother than your old one. It may well be the best option.


The G29 is a very slight evolution of the G27 for more money. It would be a big step down from the T500 in my opinion.
 
TM have now suggested that the CIRCUIT BOARD may have died. And want me to purchase and New one and then install it... I'm not much of a hardware person.... Any Londoners out here? lol
 
skazz
Difference between T500 and T300: The T500 is more powerful but more damped. The T300 is very light to spin, so if you like it has a "lower FFB noise floor", but it only spins at around 75% of the top speed of the T500. The T300 has a smaller "dynamic range" of forces but is good at letting you feel the lighter forces and is less work to fight against when you have it turned up. Personally I enjoy both wheels, but since I love to have the least possible damping I find the T300 marginally better to use.
Click to expand...
I'm at the point where I'm looking at upgrading from my G27 and the T500 is available in a very attractive package right now. This damping you are referring to with the T500, is this a mechanical thing with the belts or some software thing? If you set the 500 and 300 at roughly the same level of FFB how does this damping affect the T500 vs. the T300 in terms of feel, FFB, responsiveness etc?
 
The T500 damping is definitely from the belts. It's not like the feeling of a DFGT where you are fighting the motor itself to turn the wheel fast, it's just a bit more friction when you spin the wheel quickly than a G25/27 or a T300. Not as bad as a Fanatec Porsche wheel though.

Turning the T500 down is actually the wrong thing to do with it, because you weaken the motor speed relative to the inherent friction and it makes the forces feel a bit less well defined (kind of squishy). It feels best when you set it up for actually using the forces available from that big powerful motor, since that way it feels crisp and exciting.
The T500 can spin powerfully, which makes drifting very easy because it can generate self-aligning torque speeds fast enough to not need any "help" (which you could never say of the G27), but you need time to adjust to that spin speed because catching the wheel isn't easy :)

In terms of actual FFB feel, I reckon there's little difference in information delivery between the T300 and T500 if both set optimally just short of clipping. The difference is that the T300 gives that information from a lighter lower force level but won't go as "high", whereas the T500 operates within a higher band of forces.
From my iRacing Wheelcheck testing the T500 offers roughly double the peak spin speed of a G27, whereas the T300 is half way between (120, 180 and 240 degrees in 0.3s respectively).

In terms of ease of use: look at it this way...
  • The T300, being relatively light to turn and communicating small forces very nicely, lets you know that the car is getting out of shape and the reasonably powerful self-aligning torque spinning starts quickly, so you barely have to do anything to give it a flick to correct oversteer.
  • The T500 is more of an adventure. You will feel the small forces, but they come over a little more powerful. You can let the self-aligning torque throw the wheel around easily, but you need to be more aggressive, braver and slightly better at timing to hold slides with the T500. Which means it feels more like the real thing. :)

Both wheels have compromises compared to a CSWv2 or Direct Drive wheel, in that they don't offer high power and low friction in a single package. Of course most real cars are not that light even with power steering, so for realism it's quite feasible to want to add some damping anyway.

The question is just which compromise you think you will prefer.


P.S. The fixed paddles on the T500 are lovely chunky things, and you get used to them very quickly. They are fine for shifting in anything up to formula cars without needing to take your hand off the wheel, because you can use them with the wheel turned quite a bit. Formula cars are best done using an alternative rim with moving paddles (yes you can fit a paddle rim to the T500 and leave the fixed paddles in place without them getting in the way)
 
You can also take them off WITHOUT VOIDING YOUR WARRANTY, as long as you follow Thrustmasters posted directions. Pretty cool!
 

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