SEGA driving cab MULTI EMULATOR & PS3 + HAPP FFB WHEEL

[thesharkfactor]

hello everyone!


im new on this forum, but have visited before.. SORRY, I DO NOT SPEAK ANY FRENCH!.. i hope some of you can speak english to me!

i have done the happ/logitech/servo amplifer modificaion- to a sega drving cabinet!


(this is a copy of a post by me, i have put on a few forums)..

hey folks,

i wanted to show you my mame and model2 driver which is also GT5 ready (PS3 compatible) SEGA driving cabinet! ..  
 
i got this cab lovely minty fresh restored Initial D cab from an arcade forum a couple of months back (arcadeotaku)...



it was originally one half of a SEGA Touring Car, which was beautifully restored/converted from the bare metal up, to a single Initial D. however, when i took ownership of the machine it was an unfinished project, it was almost complete and was running, it had all the naomi 2 hardware and game but with a few cables missing making some components inoperable.  Lovely condition, majority of the parts used in the conversion were new old stock or near mint.

Upon learning the news that the SEGA model2 emulator now fully supports force feedback (and GT5 is coming!), i bought the machine with the intention of converting it to a multi platform driving cabinet. I collected the machine in 20 odd bits, in 2 vehicles, took it home and re-assembled in position at home. it didn't take long to sell all the internal hardware on an auction site.. and luckily, i managed to recoup more than the initial cost of the machine by selling the parts i didn't need.

next i had to decide which steering wheel i was going to use. the steering wheel force feedback motors in sega cabinets cannot be interfaced with a pc without some serious wizardry (they have a clutch), however, HAPP controls do a belt driven active FFB steering wheel with a simple DC motor, as used in many arcade driving machines, this wheel can be interfaced with a pc, by hacking it onto the pcb of a cheapo logitech ffb steering wheel.

the other option would to use an expensive logitech G25 or fanatec porsche steering wheel, but i decided that the best of the best ffb steering wheels are found in arcade machines- built to take some serious abuse and last for years. no home/end user flimsy steering wheel ive ever bought has been able to match the quality of the experience an arcade wheel provides..

i have used the belt driven HAPP controls active ffb steering wheel..



http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50010200.htm

I hunted the web for an old atari or namco cabinet with a HAPP ffb wheel, i got the one i used from a crusin' world cab.

to make this work,  i used a logitech driving force EX ffb steering wheel for ps2 ps3. basically, theory is to connect the pot on the logitech wheel to the happ wheel, connect the pots from the logitech pedals to the pedals on the arcade cab, hook the wires going to the logitech motor to the HAPP motor...

donor logitech wheel..



sounds easy, but not so simple.. the pots are different sizes for a start, (you need 2x 50k pots for the pedals and a 100k pot for the wheel), and the power going  to the tiny ffb motor in the logitech wheel is insufficient to power the large HAPP motor. Pots were easy to sort (maplins, RS componets). to boost the power output from the logitech pcb to the HAPP motor, ive used a servo amplifier for brushless motors, and a 24v dc psu to power the amp.

the servo amp i used..



for the buttons, gear shift and dpad, i hacked the pads of the logitech wheel and installed them into the dashboard from a SEGA touring car (which came spare with the cabinet) along with 4 VR (view change) buttons from daytona. mapped as follows-

start-start,
select-credit/insert coin,
4 action buttons- 4 VR buttons
d-pad- 4 way shifter
L+R- sequential shifter buttons mounted on the wheel

every button taken care of for both pc and console use. thankfully, after many weeks of hard work.. IT WORKS!

work in progress pics..

before.. (note the tiny ffb motor lol!)



after.. (note the HUGE ffb motor and amplifier!)



closer look..



the HAPP wheel and amp..



how its wired..



as the HAPP wheel assembly was never meant to fit in a SEGA dashboard, i had to make a mount from MDF board that i could affix to both the mounts on the rear of the dashboard and the mounts on the HAPP.. you can see here..



the pad hacks for the buttons.. very tricky work!

started off like this when removed from the logitech..



each button got a wire soldered on and hot glued fast in position..



testing the buttons on the pc using the logitech software..



hooked them all up to the buttons on the dashboard..

 

originally a sequential shifter in the dashboard, i drilled it out for a 4 speed, wired up a happ 4 speed shifter and fitted a minty fresh NOS sega shifter cover...



the sequential shifter buttons will be installed in the steering wheel using small red fire buttons, all bases covered- hi/lo shifer, sequential shift, 4 way shift... good for almost any driving game. pedal post and sound was wired up using a 5.1 pc sound system hacked onto the original sega speakers in the seat, the sub in the seat base, the ones either side of the monitor i installed myself as this cabinet only had speakers in the seat- needless to say, it sounds great. the pc was simple enough to set up, ive used the same monitor that was in the cabinet.

a video of the 1st test of the components.. all working, ffb strength is very powerful!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24H1q1SCSdA

and a video it it working, mrs sharkfactor playing daytona..!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eBnwNK5vfM

im very impressed with the ffb, its emulated very well in daytona, sega rally and sega touring car.. very powerful, ive had to turn it down to 50% in the settings to get it to feel right. very smooth, elastic like feedback in each game, and it sure tears the wheel from your hand if you bump a wall or another car. real arcade quality force feedback.. cant wait to get the ps3 hooked up with some GT5, outrun, gti club, sega rally3 and every other racer with ffb ive been missing out on playing properly!

better videos to follow..!

cheers:)

a quick update on how she stands today..



..shown playing outrun online arcade (outrun2SP) on ps3's PSN..

UPDATE: PLAYING gt5!!

GT5!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=668FpSPlOPM

11mins long, best viewed 480p.  apologies in advance for the poor direction, editing and presentation! :lol:

cheers

shark!

[Iro]

Good job and welcome !!
Could we have some explanations about connecting the PS3 on the original screen ?

And nice french touch for your cab's buttons

[thesharkfactor]

hi iro,

certainly, i can tell you how to connect the ps3 to the original arcade monitor...

the monitor in the cabinet is 31k with a maximum resoultion of 640 x 480 (or 480p). a UK or EURO (PAL) ps3 does NOT output 480p.

to get 480p we have to use a USA (NTSC) ps3.

to connect the NTSC ps3 to the original monitor i used an HDFury hdmi-vga converter.



to get this to work you also need..

NTSC ps3, hdmi out> hdmi to dvi cable> HDFury vga out> vga in arcade monitor.

the ps3 plays crystal clear perfectly with the HDFury..

do not make the mistake of trying the cheaper option "ps3/wii hdmi>vga converter cable" it does work, but the picture quality is very poor and with a nasty red line down the screen!

cheers!

[Baddy]

Nice work m8 !

[Wil2000]

Hello and welcome to you 
Very nice story, with interesting pictures, I suppose most people of this forum secretly dream of such a racecab in their house, and you cab on the left seems very nice too! 

[ggya]

Hi sharkfactor,

WELCOME on GAMOOVER forum!!!

You have done a nice job with your Sega driving cab.

Have you test it with PS3 "arcade" racing game, such as Sega Rally, Wangan Midnight and Initial D, it must be great!

Concerning video conversion, I also had another solution with my Naomi Universal Cabinet monitor:
I took a PS3 YUV cable connected to a cheap "RGB/CGA/EGA/YUV TO 2VGA VIDEO CONVERTER (ARCADE - VGA)" link to the monitor with a VGA cable.

The advantage that I have found was that with this kind of video converter I was able to increase the resolution of my PS3 over the monitor VGA resolution (640X480) and that the converter made automatically its job and convert it with standard VGA resolution. and the result was better than a simple connection between the PS3 and the Naomi monitor via a standard VGA box.

But not sure that my picture is better than your, your GT5 video is just impressive.

And let talk a little bit about you, were are you from?

And as IRO said "And nice french touch for your cab's buttons ", do we must understand that you support french soccer team? 

[BadGuigui]

Hello and welcome in Gamoover!!!

You have done a very good job with this driving cab!!! This is the most beautiful tofu delivring car that I have seen!!

GT5 video is amazing!!!

Thanks to share your work with us!!

[Stef Bord]

I have seen your job in english forums yet, Great job man your cab adaptation is wonderful...

If you haven't made it, I suggest that you use a 12V Power DC alimentation for the logitech card, because the signal ref-, ref+ in the AMC card must be between 10-15V...It's better for the longevity of the material...

[Aganyte]

I have seen your job in english forums yet, Great job man your cab adaptation is wonderful...

If you haven't made it, I suggest that you use a 12V Power DC alimentation for the logitech card, because the signal ref-, ref+ in the AMC card must be between 10-15V...It's better for the longevity of the material...

Rhoo là là stef, il me semble que tu l'as même pas fait sur le tiens 

[isamu]

WOW look who's joined the party!!! 

Wassup factor, glad to see you 'round these parts of the net Nice setup and as usual very excellent and detailed description with pics. I'm sure Stef, V8 Ben and Agyntye will be able to help answer your questions and likewise, I'm certain you will be able to enlighten them on a few things regarding the Happ Project as well.

Sadly, I've been unable to muster up enough motivation to go and retrieve MY Happ Wheel from my friend, and plus he's not quite done with the final tweaks anyway. In addition, I've been loving the hell out of my ECCI 7000 FFB wheel a bit too much, to the point where even if I get the happ back, I'd be very hesitant on setting it  up while removing my securely mounted ECCI wheel. But...one of these days, when I'm finally jonesing for some serious GT5 action, I'll go ahead and get my Happ back. Stay tuned 

How are you liking GT5 by the way? I was very excited about it until I read about it not being all that cracked up to be, and a few of my friends were not so satisfied with the final game. When I heard about some of the cars and tracks looking less than average due to them being direct ports from GT4, I was kinda bummed out.

[Stef Bord]

Rhoo là là stef, il me semble que tu l'as même pas fait sur le tiens 

Lol, si si je l'ai fait professeur...

[thesharkfactor]

@ggya..

thankyou for your welcome.

i live a small village not far from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

yes, certainly i play many more games in the cabinet!.. i have a pc i that i use with both the arcade cabinets. on the pc i have all the MAME games and all the console emulator games too. i alos have the sega model2 emulator on there too..
one of the main reasons i built the cabinet was to play sega rally and daytona with real force feedback. i play alot of sega rally and daytona on model2 emulator and outrun2 on PSN. i have also tried NFSshift, DiRT etc.. all good!, 

i have played a lot of sega rally, infact, i have set a very fast time!

Sega Rally
3.22:52



..i think this is a good time? the fastest i can find on youtube is 3.23:xx..

about the video converter..

i did try a cheaper alternative.. it was a PS3/Wii > vga video converter..



..this did not work well. yes, the ps3 would output a higher res and the converter made it fit on the arcade screen, but the picture quality was very poor.
the cable did not use hdmi on the ps3, it used the multi-av out. the picture had washed out colours, i had trouble fitting it on the screen and it had a white line down one side.

i would not recommend this cable to anyone with an arcade monitor.

i would recommend the HDFury, it is expensive but it works perfectly and the picture quality is perfect. i did not know about your method of connecting to the monitor when i did mine.. but i will keep in mind to help others with the information- thankyou.

lol about the french flag buttons..  this is for Street Fighter2- punch/kicks.. Blue-weak, White-medium, Red-hard..

@stef bord..

thank you for your information about the PSU for the logitech pcb. just now, i am using the PSU that came with the logitech wheel. are you suggesting that i should change the logitech PSU to a smaller one with DC 12v?  also. i am using a DC 24v PSU (a battery charger) for the AMC servo amplifer, is this ok?

24v DC PSU (battery charger) for the AMC..


this is good, yes??
------------------------

i have another question i posted in the other thread- i hope you can help.. can you tell me if it "calibrates" properly? you see me in the video of gt5, turning the wheel full lock left/right a couple of times when i load up gt5 (or any game). upon start up, all the wheel does is twitch left to right a few degrees.. but before the modification, the logitech driving forceEX would turn full lock left to right.

why does the happ wheel only turn a couple of degrees instead of full lock left then right? are my AMC settings wrong?

---------------------------

the force feedback is very strong and very powerful, i have all the volume pots (LOOP GAIN, CURR LIMIT, REF IN GAIN) on the AMC turned up as high as they will go before the wheel/motor starts banging or knocking.. (if i turn the pots any higher, the wheel bangs/knocks when you turn it)

is this ok, or should i turn the volume pots down..?

---------------------------

my switches are..

1 off
2 off
3 on
4 off



is this ok?
----------------------------

thankyou for taking the time to answer my questions, i hope you can understand what i mean!

@isamu..

cheers buddy.. nice to see you in here too! this seems to be the forum for driving cabinets! i just wish i could speak french now! lol..

im enjoing gt5, but i have 2 ps3's and we are not allowed to backup our save games- which means i have to play the game twice! so for now, my racing cabinet game is well behind my tv game, as ive been playing into the small hours with the controller!

i like the game alot.. the driving model is very realistic and it plays very well with both a controller and a wheel. loading times are a deal killer im afraid. every scene takes a while to load, this is frustrating.

also, you have to "grind" through alot of boring low powered cars races before you can get any decent cars. another complaint- ive been playing for over a week and still i have not ""unlocked" my fave track nordschleife.. i want that track right now- begining of the game not after 40hrs playtime!.. man that sucks!.

however, see past these shortcomings, when you do drive and get into a race, it drives great! and that is what is important to us "real" drivers correct? gt5 drives great, presentation and access to content from the start without need to unlock, could be much better.

if you like to drive, get gt5.. simple!

man, i would love a FREX!.. im gonna go watch your videos again!

cheers for now!
   

[Stef Bord]

For the AMC the 24 VDC power supply is OK.

And yes for the Logitech card use a 12 VDC power supply because the operating range for the inputs signals of the AMC must be between 10, 15V.

Your switches are ok.

Loop gain must be fully CCW (12 turns)

Test current limit 6 turns and then turn reference gain. When it's ok you stop.

For the degrees of rotation for me it's ok, because when you play you use all the rotation of the wheel isn't it...

[Aganyte]

3"21'63....sorry 

[Stef Bord]

Lol, Aganyte, c'est plus fort que toi...

[Aganyte]

Je complexe un peu depuis le record de mon collège sur le pc de bureau alors quand je tombe sur moins fort que moi j'essaye de me consoler....oui je sais c'est petit.