PT-1 Pedal Set - Discussion

Why did you use potentiometer instead of hall sensor? I find flat pedals really uncomfortable to use unless they are articulated on an accelerator where there's quite a lot of travel. Your ankle has to do twice as much work unless the pedal plate tilts or is curved. Looks like a good bit of kit though, keep going!
 
Murtaya said:
Why did you use potentiometer instead of hall sensor? I find flat pedals really uncomfortable to use unless they are articulated on an accelerator where there's quite a lot of travel. Your ankle has to do twice as much work unless the pedal plate tilts or is curved. Looks like a good bit of kit though, keep going!
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Hey there, Murtaya,

We used the potentiometer because they are industrial grade and they're rated for millions of turns. These are the same POT's used on the CST pedals.

With respect to the the flat pedal face, we found that most people prefer the flat version, but you'll be able to choose which version you like. You will also be able to adjust the angle of the pedal arm. We'll be going over this in an upcoming video, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for the comments and compliment!
 
Hey guys,

In this video, we show you all of the possible adjustments you can make to the accelerator pedal. We hope that we covered everything, but if you feel that we didn't, or you have any questions regarding adjustments, feel free to leave a comment. Enjoy!

 
Won't the fact that you have offset axes and different degrees of travel between the pot and the accelerator itself lead to a non linear output from the pot, I know you can correct for that in this software, and you could probably do something electronically to rectify it, but was wondering if you had checked that side of it? Plus resolution, you want the pot to use as much of its travel as possible. This is why I wondered if you had considered hall sensor as in theory they don't fail, dust should never be an issue, and it would make your life easier wouldn't it? I would have thought so anyway. I enjoyed seeing model heli pushrods utilized though, top tip if you end up with this design as final, get some carbon tube cut it to the length of the exposed part of the metal pushrod and use it to encase the metal. It will look better and suit the rest of the construction. Whilst you and I both know how tough those links are, (and would never fail) it does look quite thin when you compare it to how industrial everything else looks.
 
Murtaya said:
Won't the fact that you have offset axes and different degrees of travel between the pot and the accelerator itself lead to a non linear output from the pot, I know you can correct for that in this software, and you could probably do something electronically to rectify it, but was wondering if you had checked that side of it? Plus resolution, you want the pot to use as much of its travel as possible. This is why I wondered if you had considered hall sensor as in theory they don't fail, dust should never be an issue, and it would make your life easier wouldn't it? I would have thought so anyway. I enjoyed seeing model heli pushrods utilized though, top tip if you end up with this design as final, get some carbon tube cut it to the length of the exposed part of the metal pushrod and use it to encase the metal. It will look better and suit the rest of the construction. Whilst you and I both know how tough those links are, (and would never fail) it does look quite thin when you compare it to how industrial everything else looks.
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Those are all great observations. You have a good eye for this sort of stuff :)

A couple of points I'd like to make...

The linearity of the Potentiometer is really not a concern of ours. If it were, we would have used linear slide pots instead. It's just not something that we feel is a deal breaker. They were used in the exact same fashion on the CST pedals and the CST's really got no complaints.

As far as the metal rod that connects the arm and POT... We don't feel there will be much of an issue here. We've been testing them for the past week, and we haven't seen a single issue with them. Still, it's only been a week. So, we'll keep an eye on it. Covering up that rod is something we thought of doing, but that might make it harder to do adjustments. Something else that we didn't mention in the video is that we'll be drilling a number of different holes in different positions on the pedal arm so that you can place that rod in different positions. This may help with linearity.

We'll look into something for that rod, but if it never comes about, I don't think we'll lose customers over it ;)

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! The feedback from the community has been amazing!


Chris
 
I spent years messing around with model helicopter geometry, servo arms to offset crank arms, plus a bit of messing around with datalogging and modifying on my real car. Nearly was an engineer but youthful interests didn't allow it. Put it all together with current interests in simulators (and the youthful stuff a distant memory) and I can't help but look at all the bits of hardware available, and wonder how I might do things if I had the kind of motivation and tools that you guys do. Until then I shall hold the blueprints for all my awesome (never getting built) stuff in my head, and watch as others actually do.



How long before you know a price and release date do you reckon?
 
Murtaya said:
I spent years messing around with model helicopter geometry, servo arms to offset crank arms, plus a bit of messing around with datalogging and modifying on my real car. Nearly was an engineer but youthful interests didn't allow it. Put it all together with current interests in simulators (and the youthful stuff a distant memory) and I can't help but look at all the bits of hardware available, and wonder how I might do things if I had the kind of motivation and tools that you guys do. Until then I shall hold the blueprints for all my awesome (never getting built) stuff in my head, and watch as others actually do.



How long before you know a price and release date do you reckon?
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You sound exactly like me!

I come from a family of engineers. My grandfather worked on the very first space shuttle, and other NASA programs. My uncle is an engineer at Boeing. I suppose that's where I get it from. I've been working with my hands all my life, and I just love to tinker with things. As a kid I took things apart to see how they worked. My parents really didn't mind it that much, and in fact, they encouraged it. I never had the motivation to go to college, so becoming a real engineer was just not in my future. But I do have that engineering spirit. There's just something wonderful about being able to visualize and solve a problem, or design a new part, in your head.

We are nowhere close to a release date. If I had to guess, I would say we are still months away. As far as price, we're keeping that a closely guarded secret for now :)
 
Hey guys,

We finally have a working prototype of our new pedals and here we get a chance to do some preliminary testing. Enjoy!

 
GTFREAK said:
Hey guys,

We finally have a working prototype of our new pedals and here we get a chance to do some preliminary testing. Enjoy!

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What about the brake pedal?! You haven't made any video about them and how does they work?! Load cell?
 
Hey guys,

Doug Meyer over at SimRacingReview is an awesome guy, and he just released a special video that showcases our new brake pedal along side the throttle pedal. Keep in mind, the pictures you'll see are of the prototypes, so they'll have some wear and tear on them. Nevertheless, I wanted this to be sort of a surprise. Doug and I have been in contact with each other through email and I offered to send him a set of our new pedals once we have a "final" version ready to go, so he'll be part of the beta testing crew :) You can get a glimpse of our new brake pedal in this video, but we'll have a lot more details on how this works in about a week or so. Check out the video!

 
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Hey guys,

Here's another video of our pedal testing. It's going very well, and as you can see, we're using a clutch this time :) We'll have more details about this clutch very soon, but before we do, we're going to be showing you how the brake pedal works. So stay tuned for that!

 
Looks nice, I think you (if that's your feet) could do with the brake and accelerator being slightly closer together, and also the brake being slightly higher than the accelerator when not depressed. This would make your blipping easier. Nothing to do with how nice they look though. Good job. I'm still convinced about curved plates though!
 
Murtaya said:
Looks nice, I think you (if that's your feet) could do with the brake and accelerator being slightly closer together, and also the brake being slightly higher than the accelerator when not depressed. This would make your blipping easier. Nothing to do with how nice they look though. Good job. I'm still convinced about curved plates though!
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The brake and throttle pedals are only about 2 inches apart. So, they're relatively close to each other. The brake pedal is also closer to me than the throttle, and therefore is slightly "higher" than the throttle when depressed, but it's not perfect yet. I'm still experimenting with the correct placement, but I definitely agree with you there. It needs to be slightly higher.

You still like those curved plates, huh? Some people did like them, but most people preferred the flat versions. So, that's probably what we'll go with in the end. We may offer the curved plates if we can figure out a way to do them correctly. We're just not convinced that those edges are something we want to go with. Too many people were concerned about them, and perception is reality, unfortunately. We'll see if we can come up with another "curved" version.

We'll have another video out soon with details on the brake pedal. You've already seen it, but we want to go over some changes we've made to all the pedals, plus highlight some details on how we built the brake.
 
I would just offer the flat ones drilled for and with the Tilton pedal tops rather than machine curved ones. I guess people will just do that to them if they want it.


Maybe it was just the camera angle but it looked like you almost got your foot stuck or missed the blip with your outer edge foot twist thingy you're doing there, which was why I said a little closer together (only 5mm probably).

These are looking really close to ready anyway, you must be quite excited.
 
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Can't wait for the newer video's, I think the technical stuff is awesome to watch and even for one who is not technical, comprehensible :)

If you're going to think about a new project after this, I have one in mind already, which hasn't been done before :P
 
Murtaya said:
I would just offer the flat ones drilled for and with the Tilton pedal tops rather than machine curved ones. I guess people will just do that to them if they want it.


Maybe it was just the camera angle but it looked like you almost got your foot stuck or missed the blip with your outer edge foot twist thingy you're doing there, which was why I said a little closer together (only 5mm probably).

These are looking really close to ready anyway, you must be quite excited.
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You're right. I was doing some testing tonight and found that I need to move the pedals a little closer to each other. Which presents a bit of a problem... The mounting blocks (those things sticking out the sides) are in the same position on all three pedals. That means that they can only be about 10mm closer to each other before those mounting blocks hit each other. I'll have to see if I can figure out a solution for that.

We don't feel like they are ready just yet. We've got some serious testing to undergo. It will at least be a few more months before we start to think about selling them. But yes, we're very excited :)

Do you happen to know the dimensions for those Tilton pedal faces? I'd be interested in knowing the mounting hole dimensions, just to see if we can accommodate those at some point. Or, perhaps we'll offer our own versions when we switch over to CNC. That said, we really like the flat faces. They're working out quite well so far.

During our tests, we found some problems with the tie rods we were using, as well as some noise that we'd like to get rid of when the pedals hit the stops. We think we've come up with a nice solution, but we'll have to put it under some stress testing before we call it good enough. Testing is actually going very well. Each day we're finding new ways to improve them, and we're very close to having a nice solid version. But again, we still have to do some serious long-term testing before we know we have a good product. Time will tell :)
 
Hey guys,

We're starting to make some great progress. We've had a finished brake pedal for about 3 weeks now and we're finally getting around to showing you how it works. We hope you like the design. Let us know what you think!

 
Looking great and very sturdy :)

One question though, the amount of throw you have on that pedal still seems like a lot and I can see people
want to have less of it. As I understood, this was the minimal throw you can have, but it would be nice
to have less as well.
 
wgeuze said:
Looking great and very sturdy :)

One question though, the amount of throw you have on that pedal still seems like a lot and I can see people
want to have less of it. As I understood, this was the minimal throw you can have, but it would be nice
to have less as well.
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The amount of travel shown in the video is the maximum travel at that tension setting. Keep in mind, I was pressing on that brake pedal harder with my two hands than you would with your foot. It took everything I had to make it go down that far. The only reason you would get more travel than that is if you were to place the tension adjustment on the bottom settings. I'd suggest keeping it at the top for maximum stability.

We tried going with a harder polyurethane bushing, but it was almost impossible to even get the pedal to move. I don't think people would like that very much. The bushings we're using at the moment actually perform VERY well. However, we have one more option that we're going to try. If that works out better, we'll go with that.

We might actually do another video that concentrates on pedal travel. I'll see if i can do another "Pedal Testing" video that shows how much travel you have in "real world" applications. Fair enough?
 
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