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FFB bus steering wheel

Discussion in 'DIY peripherals' started by gazz, Dec 10, 2019.

  1. gazz

    gazz Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2012
    Messages:
    35
    Location:
    Scarborough
    Balance:
    105Coins
    Ratings:
    +3 / 0 / -0
    My Motion Simulator:
    Arduino
    I'm building a replica cab from a bus, for the bus simulator Omsi.. i welcome any feedback, pointing out glaring errors in my choices and all that.

    I've already got the dashboard almost sorted, most gauges work, all lights and switches work... just converting the air pressure gauges from 0-10 bar of air to servo operation that's being a pain,
    Pedals, the brake pedal is for compressed air, looking into a way to get it to feel right with either springs, or actually using a compressor to feed it, then have it move an air cylinder and load cell... or maybe a pressure sensor.

    So, onto the steering.

    I have the full steering column, cardan shaft and steering wheel from a bus (MAN NG272... German bendy bus) this stuff is pretty heavy... there's lots of mass to the wheel.

    I need to be able to get about 1500 degrees of rotation from this set up, as that's what a bus has (~2.5 turns each way), it's annoying playing with a 900 degree wheel, even tho i mounted the bus wheel to it in-place of the small plastic wheel... a bus steering wheel is like 2 and a half foot across... and mounted so it's almost horizontal, as opposed to vertical as in a car.

    Anyway... to start with i am going down the cheap route, using EMC ffb.. cost $10 for the software and firmware.
    This will use an arduino leonardo at first... but later on i will move to an STM32F103 board for faster processing power.

    i have the leonardo and STM32F103 boards on order, as well as an E6B2-CWZ6C, 1000 pulse per rev encoder,

    This system seems to just use a H bridge to run the motor, no braking resistors or owt, and i'm not sure about any way to limit current other than in the software... limiting feedback forces.


    I've ordered a couple of BTS7960B H bridges as that's what they say to use (confused as they call them stepper motor drivers on fleabay, but this is for a brushed DC motor set up)

    I was thinking of a way to use maybe an AMC brushed servo motor drive, but getting one for a reasonable price in the UK is very hard.


    For the feedback motor, i have a couple of motors, one's the power steering motor from a vauxhall corsa, but this thing is rated at 12 volts and runs at 90 amps normally, way too much for the H bridges, and i imagine way too much force even for the heavy bus wheel.... i also want to run 24 volts at the least.

    I also have a smaller 24 volt motor from a kids battery powered trike thing (not a toddler's trike, this was a big wheel type trike electrified)

    But of course i can search for a better motor, either way, what i will be doing is making up a bearing housing to hold a bearing and thrust bearing going through the floor of the cab, and a fitting that on the top the cardan shaft will bolt to, go through the bearings and then have a pulley, and the fitting for the encoder,

    The motor will be mounted vertically, output shaft pointing down behind the steering column cowling, the pulley ratio i havent worked out yet either, and not sure if to go for a toothed belt for a V belt,

    Thinking V belt for safety, i can have it deliberately slip when setting it up, and with the encoder being on the bottom of the wheel shaft, even if the motor slips that's ok, as the wheel will still stay aligned.


    Looking for any constructive criticism, recommendation on motors, and even different FFB systems, but i know i won't be able to justify one of these systems that cost £400 or so for the custom driver boards.