FTO AUSTRALIA

That looks like it's coming along nicely.
Have you given any thought about using a projector + projection film on the windscreen, instead of the TV?

side note: there's so much of the original car here... anyone considering a drive and steer by wire conversion?

Have you given any thought about using a projector + projection film on the windscreen

Briefly, but a couple of issues:

- Because you are sitting so close to the screen, half of the picture would be on to the driver

- Vignetting would be a bitch because of the angle of the windscreen

In this case, the windscreen is removable. When playing the game it wont be there.

dstocks wrote: - Because you are sitting so close to the screen, half of the picture would be on to the driver

- Vignetting would be a bitch because of the angle of the windscreen

Sorry I probably should have been more specific - rear projection; as in mount the projector on the outside of "the car".

i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RYMR2LMVmQ

You can also play around with distance and height of the projector, to adjust for any distortion because of the angle of the windscreen etc.

Since I just had to Google what vignetting is, that's obviously well over my head. But would mounting the projector on the outside resolve the problem as well?

Anyhow, just a passing thought. The suggestion is more for the immersive experience, as opposed to cost; since a good projector will cost a whole lot more than a cheap LCD. (...and someone might want to buy that strut brace? )

Got the playstation yesterday and.....

IT WORKS ..........

Tested with GT6. Brakes are too hard, so have to de-tension, but everything else is about right. Having said that, the logitech gearstick is a little difficult to get used to. Would be better if it was less sloppy. I guess itll just take some getting used to.

Next step, add hydraulics to simulate the car movement?

Yep, alreadylooking at electric actuators. Wondering if 150kg actuators will be enough the pull the corner down if mounted near the front shock (may need to remove spring)

Does the game have a signal for that, or will it just work off of the pedals and steering inputs?

Thought I could just trigger it off the steering wheel

Wouldn't you want up/down from the throttle/brake, and maybe a jolt when the clutch is released to simulate a gear change?

Would love that, but im no Vectose (that would require circuit boards and resistors and stuff. May as well be another language). Anything that I implement is going to have to be primarily mechanical with a bit of basic wiring thrown in to make it work. So any ideas along those lines would be great.

Added paddle shifters to a stock FTO wheel for the simulator. Interestingly, these would work on a real FTO as well:

Electric windows now working. Have also bought some electric actuators for something a little special. More to come on this.

Nice job on the paddles. Should show that to Rob or whoever it was who was trying to do it. I suppose it is just wired into where the gear stick generally effects the gear changes from in the console?

Fan (climate control) now working on all settings. Obviously no heat, aircon, but other than that, everything working.

Actuators working but not adjusted. These pull down the strut towers when the steering wheel is turned. Have yet to test out how they feel, but hopefully will make a difference. Used 4 car relays to swap polarity of the actuators. Will need to put a microswitch on each side to stop the actuator pulling down too hard as ive already burnt one out and had to rewire it. Cant cope with the springs fully compressed. More Pics coming soon.

Most recent pics:

Making nice use of that strutbrace lol.

View from cockpit with Tele on?

Will take some and post up

That's very cool!
What are you using to hook it all up and make it actually work?

Im not understanding. Hook which bits up????

- Steering wheel has 2 steering columns. One in thenormalplace and another attached to the end of it. The 2nd one has a custom adapter plate on the end that screws into the logiteh wheel.

- Pedals are connected via levers and cables.The levers are made from FTO top shifters and the cables are tip shift cables. The levers are needed to change from a push to a pull as im pulling the pedals on the logitech pedal set down.

- The shifter is in place.

- The electrics of the car are driven by a 20 amp regulated power supply. This is just hooked up to the positive and negative wires thatwould normally be connected to the battery.

- The electric actuators are connected to the regulated power supply. They are currently triggered when turning the steering wheel, but im not getting enough fine adjustment, so may have to change that. Im reversing the polarity of the actuators using 2 automotive 5 pin relays. Ive also had to add a circuit to stop the actuators when the pressure on the springs get to be too much as I burnt one of the actuators out from this issue and had to rewire.

- The tip paddles still have tobe connected, but I need to modify the logitech wheel for that and ill be wanting to do that on a spare at the right price, so in a holding pattern

- Handbrake will come from a custom wire soldered to the shifter circuit board. I have already killed one board trying this. I have another on the way.

- Fuel gauge will be sorted using a real fuel gauge. Made the mistake of cutting the loom some time in the past, sohave to re-solder these wires to get this working.

- Temp guage will be sorted using a 150 ohm rheostat (hopefully). Should be able to twist to get the right temp

- I believe some of the more in-depth PC sims provide tacho and speedo data export capabilities. Apparently using an arduino board and some code, you can actually get the speedo and tacho working.

- Have a vibrating sound cushion in the back of the seat. Bought this years ago.It turns the sounds into vibrations. Have put this in the back of the drivers seat, but it is having trouble working through the foam of the seat.

- Sound is transferred from the TV into the stereo inside the car using Aux in. I have a cheap DVD player on the way.Im tempted to pass the videoin as well.

- PS3 is currently hooked up, but am also planning a PC build.

Thats about it. If I havent answered your question, give me a little more info