Sounds like motor or mosfets overheating. Mounting position and seatting position is paramount in the karts if you want to use a lot of feedback. It needs to be at a similar angle to the real kart, your forearms should be parallel with your thighs, this makes your biceps do the work rather than shoulders or forearms. Another tip that my buddy who does enduro Karting told me that helps, is to really relax your grip on the wheel whenever possible (like a straight) it helps to stop you getting tired as quickly.
Hopefully its the mosfets then! I can't say that my arms are parallel to my thighs at all, although this is probably down to bad pedal positioning rather than bad steering wheel mount. I just want my T500 fixed so I can play on rF2 again. I have no inclination at all to use the G27, it feels like its broken because there is so little strength and feedback.
Is there a Fanatec repair facility on the east coast of the US now? My load cell replacements came out of southern California. I am very interested in the final outcome of this discussion, since I too will need to re-purchase a new wheel once I'm complete with my move across country. I sold my G25 only to have the standby Momo Force fail. I'm down to using an old MSSWFF which has no ffb drivers compatible with Win8.1. (Who the heck puts out an OS that does not support their own previously released hadware.. but supports others of similar vintage?). I've always had either cable-driven or gear-driven wheels. It'd really be nice to test a belt driven one before jumping in, so I'm gathering pros vs cons. Any of you guys looked at retrofitting wheels with brushless motors?
Thanks F1Fan07. I'm a bit surprised that Fanatec still do not have a greater presence in North America. Sure they're relatively new as a game controller supplier...but I'd have thought by now they'd have a B/M location or two. As it is now, I still cannot go into say Fry's or Micro-Center and touch the hardware. I have never seen any of the wheels outside of pictures and I absolutely love my Clubsport v1 pedals.
The csw rims make the clubsport pedals look like pretty low quality which they aren't! Before I got the csw I thought it was a bit overpriced, when you hold the rims you wonder how they did it for the price. As far as I know you can't walk into anywhere and touch a fanatec anything and then buy it. They have supplied direct from the start I think?
I have three Fanatec wheels, Porsche 911 GT3 RS V1, Fonza Motorsport CSR, CSW and they are all broken. Porsche 911 GT3 RS V1 and Fonza Motorsport CSR has center error which is impossible and repearere. I have replaced 4 times new motors to my CSW wheel and it is broken again. Fanatec Return regulations is a joke you must pay for the parts and shipping if you wheel is broken and when you return the shipping charges for return shipment are not refundable and If the return is due to a manufacturing defect or Endor AG shipping error the initial shipping cost will be credited is a joke you don`t get anything from Fanatec. I will never more buy products from Fanatec. I have T500RS now and my vote goes to T500RS.
My experience with Thrustmaster support has been that it takes them a day to reply to emails, they sent me replacement parts out without much hassle and they arrived in the UK from France in 4 or 5 days. They think the "mainboard" in the T500 has gone and apparently it requires me to solder only the ground wire.
My experience with fanatec support has been nothing but excellent. My fanatec csl seat broke because of me and they were willing to send me the replacement parts under warranty. My csr-elite wheel was fixed 3 times without issue and when they shipped me new parts or collected the broken wheel from me i was never charged by them for shipping (all under warranty ofc). So it's surprising for me to hear of your experiences Ari. Having said that, everyone knows of my dislike for the csr-elite wheel based on how quickly it's motors break and how weak the ffb is compared to my t500 (which i only discovered after taking a chance on the t500). Since you came from a CSW, you are probably the only one here who can make a direct comparison between the two wheels. What's the difference in strength of the ffb like between CSW and T500? Making sure you make this comparison with the exact same car specific ffb multi ingame or else the comparison is completely unfair (and using 60% overall on the t500 as this is the default and most linear setting).
I suppose I was fearful that they would want the old one back before sending a replacement and thus taking more time, I'm not experienced with these sorts of things.
I have csw and never had a problem with motors, I got it September 2012 and I use it a lot for league racing/ practise and countless hours of practise with rf2 and race07. I had one issue where I thought shifters were broken and it was double shifting emailed fanatec and they sent me 2 new shifter setups complete with screw driver etc for even putting them onto f1 wheel free of charge and turned out it was just a screw needing tightened, so have the new spare shifters anyway.(I also live in Scotland, if it makes a difference) I've also had cs pedals v1s since 2011 and had the loadcell fail in the 1st 6 months or so, this was also replaced free of charge and haven't had a problem again. You have to give them some lubrication every now and again but that's it, obviously not everyone's has had the same experience with fanatec products, but then same goe's for Thrustmaster's to, I just thought id share mine also as I have had quite a good customer service from fanatec. I think both Thrustmaster and Fanatec have some great products so either way plenty enjoyment is possible with both.
They have some strange policies and quite a bit of variation in customer support. This can range from completely ignoring your mails, to sending a whole replacement wheel without receiving anything back. I have a theory about the burning out motors with the csr and csw and it's got nothing to do with the actual motors. Mine still and always has blown cool air out of it, doesn't get warm at all even after hours of heavy use. Clearly this is not everyone elses experience. Looking at the adjustment slots for the motors it is impossible to back the motors off and loosen the friction in the belt when it brand new, the motors are as backed off as they can be already. Belts vary in length, get a short one and the belt could be too tight when it's new. Knowing Fanatecs idea of engineering tolerances is not that great, I only have to wiggle the pedals on my CSPs or look at the 10mm height difference one side to the other in my fanatec cockpit, to feel they probably made a simple mistake, the motor slots should be 5mm longer to the left, each csw and csr should then have the motors adjusted and the belt tension checked. If they had wanted to make it easier on themselves and not need to do this they could have added an automatic belt tensioner although this would have added to the cost and a further friction point. So anyway I reckon they don't check the belts for length and discard anything too short, I doubt they check the tension, and I think they put the motor mounting slots in the wrong place. This leads to a number of these wheel bases ending up with a belt that's too tight and overheats the motors maybe? I think force difference theoretically (which I'm not that fond of relying on) between the 2 wheels is 10NM, which I can produce with one or two fingers on a torque wrench. As discussed before unless the motor is direct drive to the axis of the wheel the motor manufacturers specs can only be a starting point for any calculation, there's a whole lot of other things to consider. But the theoretical possible maximum force difference between these two wheels is not many NM and it doesn't add up to a whole lot of extra muscle power to produce a resistance to that type of tiny force. I have a project to do and will probably get a t500 to do it and try to keep costs down, I will certainly give the forces some sort of test, do a show and tell or something when it is done. I'm not expecting much difference in forces. Because of the theory Been wrong before though.
I would look forward to a direct comparison Murtaya. Only way for us to know for sure ofc but i'm still convinced it will be like my experience of the csr-elite but i'm happy to be told i'm wrong. In the meantime, hoping Ari will respond to my previous post.
I think yours must have been going into thermal overload mode right from the start which it would if the belt was too tight. Replacing the motors without also getting a better tolerance belt wouldn't solve it. (see how I added pseudo water to my theory there?) I just know there's no way anyone is describing the forces on a properly working csw as too weak.
The problem with that thinking is that it's only true until you get the chance to try a better wheel (that is if the next wheel you get/try is indeed more powerful). I once thought my csr-elite was the be-all-end-all until i tried the t500 and then the leo bodnar. It's all relative.
Has anyone measured how much force a real-life wheel exerts. It seems that it would vary from car type to car type. I try to imagine how much force i should feel turning a 60s f1 car and i tend to think it wouldnt be arm wrenching. Not talking about hit curbs etc., just turning force. Edit: do modern tin tops have power steering
