I am New to DIY sim building. Anyone chiming in with help is great.

The next stages of evolution begin

Nice idea to use a console from a car.
What type (model) did it come from ?
When comes time to rig the dashboard together I can assist in using steppers. if you need help.
Do like the idea , never had the time to do it myself.

Its from a2001 vw jetta. Nice simple design.
I do want to set up the tack and speedo, will I need a seperate arduino for it?
my momo wheel will be installed into the old steering colum and the shifter will be moved to the center console.
The light and dimmer will work and the hazards will be the on off switch.

Thought I recognized it , cool yes nice and simple but effective.
Ok to control a dash I use an ard and stepper driver and replace the original motors and bits , basically just use the front of it and clean skin the back and then use the GameDash to talk to that one, not the Game Engine.
All sounds cool, should turn out rather neat.

just a thought here but has anyone tried putting the t-bar on the front of the simulator seat? I was thinking that as I dismantal my sim for the rebuild into the cockpit that if I move the actuators and t_bar to the front and simply reversed the polarites than I should get the as effect.
Right now I have it set up as a independent seat, independent from the wheel and pedals, but i want to intergrate the pedals and put the seat and pedals on a board.

do you mean like this?

or connected to the steering frame, dont have a pic but done that as well

Some what but further forward. My idea is to have a base platform about 2 feet wide and 5 feet long. The seat and pedals with mount firmly to the platform and the whole assembly will pitch and roll. I also want it to swivel from side to side for traction loss. Not much mabey 10 degrees. I was thinking that to reduce the amount of torsion at the ball ends i would move them closer to the pivot point.
My next question is about distance vrs travel vrs power.
Does a srat move more the closer you connect the actuators to the base of the set? And do they need more energy to work?

generally, the higher above centre of gravity, shoulders, or the further away from the pivot and mounting as you can, my foot motor mount sim, is the way to go.
Both those options give maximum effect for a full frame.
Its not so much energy for them to work, but less stress for them to work,
In the beginning of sorting the big worm gear motors, I tried different placements to try to reduce current absorption with no success, but I did find the motors worked better in places where it was above the centre of gravity and or simply further away from the pivot and mounted as high as feasable.
Design is important, DO NOT use springs to overcome bad design or balance, take your time to get it right.
I know what works.

Well today was Dash day.
I first wanted to find the clock and lights wires and out of 32 wires it took some time.
But by connecting the grey/blue wire with the red/black wire and hooking up the +12v then the 3 tan wires to the - 12v I was able to bypass all the dummy lights and in board computer.

Next will be the speedometer and tachometer.
No clue.
I figure the best bet is to use new servo motors. But first I had to take apart the entire dashboard to unsoilder the old ones.
Now to rebuild.
How do I start that lol

The new momo wheel chopped up to fit into the old steering column plastics of the old jetta

Ok those gauges look like air-cores , quiet hard to drive. Have you carefully opened one up, take care not to break the internals, if they contain two separate coils inside them then we can drive the standard motors with a stepper driver.
If not and the simplest method is to replace them with a stepper motor - bipolar are the best to drive, only require a direction and step pin so that's 2 pins for each gauge, unipolar use 4 pins and driving commands cause blocking in the code no good when trying to run multiply steppers in one command and each stepper waits till the other has finished moving.

I work with these MK4 VW clusters on a regular basis. If you need any wiring diagrams or pin outs for them let me know.
What's also cool is that the other side of the cluster (the green connector) also can control things like a trip computer and obviously the wipers if you really wanted to make it uber realistic for some games which could handle that.

@eaorobbie I think the motors are 4 pin. If you look closely at the cluster circuit board you can see at the top 2 small brown squares. Under the left one you can see the 4 heat marks caused from unsoildering the motor. I am guessing from your response earlier that these are no good for a ard. control. What motors would you suggest and if you could help walk me through it please do.
@Barry I wish I had your input earlier. It would have saved me about 3 hours of wire testing. Which only by fluke I figured out that I needed to connect 2 power wires at the same time. I only want to have the lights and clock to keep track of the time played.

No problem. Lots of the cluster wires are useless anyway but you may as well have a list to refer to. You can see the rpm and speed signal wires. You might be able to get it to work easily enough. If you use the actual wiring and gearbox speed sensor it might be an easy way to get the speed signal to the cluster.

Here you go:

Instrument Cluster 32-pin Connector (Green) Terminal Identification
#1-#16 right side from up to down
1.) open
2.) open - reading coil for immobilizer 1 (from 05.99 prod.)
3.) open
4.) open - data bus (CAN), shielding for input (from 05.99 prod.)
5.) W-wire (where applicable)
6.) low level washer fluid
7.) brake pad indicator
8.) external buzzer - open from 05.99 production
9.) open
10.) fuel reserve warning - open from 05.99 production
11.) signal for vehicle stationary
12.) air conditioning system cut-off - ECT signal
13.) parking brake indicator light (K14)
14.) warning light for traction control / vehicle stability
15.) open
16.) open
#17-#32 left side from up to down
17.) open - reading coil for immobilizer 2 (from 05.99 prod.)
18.) open - oil temperature and oil level warning signals
19.) open - data bus (CAN), high input signal (from 05.99 prod.)
20.) open - data bus (CAN), low input signal (from 05.99 prod.)
21.) open
22.) open - input signal from hood alarm switch (from 05.99 prod.)
23.) MFI call up button - top (display switches forward)
24.) MFI call up button - bottom (display switches backward)
25.) MFI memory switch - reset
26.) ambient air tempertature sensor
27.) open - data bus (CAN), high output signal (from 05.99 prod.)
28.) open - data bus (CAN), low output signal (from 05.99 prod.)
29.) open
30.) output signal 2 from electronic speedometer - open (from 05.99 prod.)
31.) selector lever display - open (from 05.99 prod.)
32.) fuel consumption signal - open (from 05.99 prod.)

Instrument Cluster 32-pin Connector (Blue) Terminal Identification
#1-#16 right side from up to down
1.) terminal 15, positive
2.) right turn signal indicator light (K94)
3.) output signal 1 from electronic speedometer
4.) open
5.) fuel gauge (G1)
6.) airbag malfunction indicator light
7.) terminal 31, sender ground (GND)
8.) engine coolant temperature gauge (G3)
9.) terminal 31, ground (GND)
10.) oil pressure switch (F1)
11.) RPM signal - open from 05.99 production
12.) generator warning light (K2), terminal 61
13.) glow plug indicator light (K29 - diesel only), control light for rear seat backrest lock from 05.99 production (only certain countries)
14.) open
15.) open
16.) warning light for rear lid open (only certain countries)
#17-#32 left side from up to down
17.) headlight high beam indicator light (K1), terminal 56a
18.) left signal indicator light (K54)
19.) ABS warning light (K47)
20.) instrument cluster illumination, terminal 58b
21.) signal for open driver's door
22.) engine coolant level (ECL) sensor (G32)
23.) terminal 30, (B+)
24.) terminal 31, ground (GND)
25.) on-board diagnostic (K-wire)
26.) parking light right, signal for "lights on" warning buzzer
27.) parking light left, signal for "lights on" warning buzzer
28.) speedometer vehicle speed sensor (VSS) (G22)
29.) warning light for brake system fluid level
30.) ignition key warning buzzer, terminal 86s
31.) seat belt warning system
32.) emission workshop lamp (only certain countries) - open from 05.99 production

Ok So I have taken apart the servo I removed from the dashboard and here is a video of what I found



I am not sure if this answers your question @eaorobbie on 2 or 4 pin.
Mabey @Barry can help explain whats happening to this to me.

@Barry they look like aircore drives but debating in my head I could possibly drive them with a stepper driver, not 100% sure , leaning more towards an air core.

What I have replaced them with in the past couple of builds,
- http://www.pololu.com/product/1207
At about 12 bucks and only have a foot print of 35mm square, so 4 easily fit back into a dash without changing clock locations etc.
They deliver 200 steps per rev on 1 step scale but with the right driver can be micro stepped down to 16x which gives us plenty of resolution to use as a gauge.

The driver I use
- http://www.pololu.com/product/1182
this only requires us to use 2 pins from the Ard meaning we can drive up to 6 analogue gauges leaving plenty of pins to drive lights, specially if we use a 595
- https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10680
- in the wiring giving use 8 led pins from 3 Ard pin, need more pins, daisy chain another 595 and we get another 8 and so on, plus a 7 seg display can also run off one of them too.

I'd like to be able to give you more information but i've never had to go that deep into them.

As Robbie says, a stepper motor might be an easier solution. The VW instrument cluster speedo and rev counter is driven by pulses from the gearbox and crank sensors on the engine and the abs controller is also plugged into this system. It's incredibly integrated. When the voltage is removed the needles on the gauges return to the resting position of the cluster which would probably explain why the motors reverse when the power is removed.

Next build I am using a ford Mustang dashboard. Apparently they use stepper motors. These i think you are right in assuming aircore. So i will need to swap them out. But shouldn't shaft size and depth be taken into account. I will need to measure.

But as i messure the "axis pin"? I would like to understand what I will be faced with once I have the parts.
What code would I use? Which wires? I am sure its as easy as the motion motor set up but just want to get some forsite.
Is there a thread that has gone through this all before?

Oh just bought Grid autosport through steams summer sale and got dirt showdown free.. Can't wait for the plug-in. I guess if anyone else is a steam user you can look me up @ seventh of may or may the forth.