Wheel position detection sensor location

  • Thread starter Krypton78
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Hi,

As far as I know there are 2 kinds of connections between the wheel shaft and the shaft from the electrical motor

- with belt (Fanatec, Thrustmaster)
- with gear/ cogwheel (Logitec G29)

Now there must be a sensor in any wheel which detects the actual position of the rotation in order to let the game know how much you turn the wheel.
My question is, does anybody know where this sensor is located? Is it directly at the shaft of the wheel or is it where the shaft into the motor is? Because if the sensor is not directly located on the shaft of the wheel, that would perhaps explain why I can feel (and also see when I make cockpit view) a tiny delay between my wheel and the virtual wheel on the game. I have the T-GT

And besides of that, it would match with what I once heard from a direct drive wheel owner (where is only the wheel shaft which goes direct into the motor) when he bought it. He said in the beginning he turned into corners to early in the beginning
 
The sensor can be in a variety of places depending on the wheel design. The T300 and T-GT from Thrustmaster both having hall-effect sensors for the shaft of the motor for example. Some wheels have more than one such as the CSL Elite from Fanatec. Higher quality wheels have better and more refined detection of position and no doubt lower input latency when sending that data to your PC or console. However, in my experience such lag, when noticeable, is most commonly caused by latency in the display system. What screen are you using?
 
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Thanks for the quick answer!

It should not be because of display (5ms, Asus Pxxx something, its for gaming)

Very interesting. So Fanatec seems to be a little ahead from Thrustmaster regarding this.

The reason why I ask is not mainly because its an big issue for me. I observed that recently some direct drive users got quicker after they got used to it. And I doupt a little that this is only because of the better/ immedaite FFB of it. I guess that the human input is also better because there is only one shaft so the sensor must sit there, while at belt or gear driven wheels the sensor could be sitting somewhere else (like I wrote in first post).
 
Thanks for the quick answer!

It should not be because of display (5ms, Asus Pxxx something, its for gaming)

Very interesting. So Fanatec seems to be a little ahead from Thrustmaster regarding this.

The reason why I ask is not mainly because its an big issue for me. I observed that recently some direct drive users got quicker after they got used to it. And I doupt a little that this is only because of the better/ immedaite FFB of it. I guess that the human input is also better because there is only one shaft so the sensor must sit there, while at belt or gear driven wheels the sensor could be sitting somewhere else (like I wrote in first post).
Fanatec are not ahead as such in terms of the two sensor thing. The CSL Elite has two sensors for some reason but their much higher end wheel (the Clubsport v2.5) does not. It's just a design choice rather than any better or worse.

I agree your monitor is unlikely to be the cause of the lag directly but it could still be something in your display system causing the issue - I have had in the past for example had to clean my system completely of nVidia drivers and reinstall in order to fix mouse lag in some FPS games.
 
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The CSL Elite has two sensors for some reason but their much higher end wheel (the Clubsport v2.5) does not.
sensor.png
 
Barry Roland (Sim Racing Garage) review of the CSL Elite he points out the optical sensor on the large belt pully and the sensor on the motor shaft. I guess he was mistaken. Same for the Clubsport - no sign of dual sensors in his review iirc. I wonder if the dual sensors are in built into a single location or he just missed the other one in his tear down?
 
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I know I'm late to this, but maybe someone else will benefit off this.

What do you play the game(s) on? PC, console? Your input lag seems like it's due to vsync being enabled & not the location of the encoder, which has nothing to do with it. If you're on PC, you can switch the game into borderless, disable vsync & then try driving again; the experience will possibly be much better.

To add to that, A LOT of driving games do not have a synchronised steering animation to the real world, which also might be throwing you off. It's the best to disable the in-game arms & steering if possible or switch to a camera right at the gauge cluster
 
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