Ger's Playseat Challenge Build Log

[Geraint Thomas]

Ger's Playseat Challenge Build Log

Hi! Over the past two and a half years, I've done a lot of building to make the Playseat Challenge a rig that's not only cheap and cheerful, but also genuinely great to use. To get to the point, there's no way I would, or will ever, get a permanent set-up. Don't get me wrong, I love sim racing as and when I can, but I value my office space too much and there's no other room in the house. Plus, my real life track car is where my hobby funds primarily go. I've done so much that I needed to document it somewhere for others to benefit from, so thought this would be the best place.

Grab a tea, I need to cover the past two and a half years...



It started with this:

My good old trusty Logitech Driving Force GT. It was the first FFB wheel I had bought, and I've had it for many, many years. I wasn't that much into "sim racing" (mostly Gran Turismo), so I didn't pay too much attention to the sim racing community. Then lockdown happened, and that changed a little.

Having spoken to a few new friends that I had made at a track day, everyone was singing praises for the Playseat Challenge; a proper chair that folds away, and makes it easier to set up than to have no chair at all. It sounded perfect, so I looked though Facebook Marketplace and found this for £80:

£80 is a complete steal for one of these. I figured that I'd try it and if I didn't like it, I'd easily make my money back. If I like it, it's a cheap upgrade; win win.

Turns out I loved it, especially in the limited room I had at our old house:

I then discovered the bonkers world of 3D printing. Being a VFX artist, I've already got the knowledge to 3D model, so the realisation I could model and print things was quite eye opening. Not only that, my workplace told me that I could use their printers for free.

So I did

Magnetic paddle shifters! The huge Achilles heel of the Driving Force GT (ignoring it's weakness and noise) was the paddles; there weren't any. Squishy buttons were all that were featured, so I downloaded and printed these to install directly to the wheel, soldering onto where the original buttons were.

Oh the difference they made.

I also printed some LED shift lights, and sent the wires through the shaft and into an Arduino in the base of the DFGT, so it was all still one USB cable to use.

This was my set up for quite some time (yes, that's Project Cars 2, and yes I'm sorry). After some time I started to find the weak spots in the set up. The rim itself, and the god-awful pedals.

An OMP wheel arrived in the post shortly after.

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Of course, I'd need buttons. This is where the free-to-use 3D printers came in handy, with some spare time to model up a button box for the wheel.

A little rough around the edges, but it did the job great.

Shortly after, I bought my own 3D printer to use at home, and went about creating a more refined version with the use of my workplace's vinyl printer and cutter, allowing me to create a front face.

16-LED rev lights, magnetic shifters, 12-buttons, 2 encoders, and a removable GX-12 connector. It cost less than £40 to create, and held up great.

Not that there was much to hold up against, the DFGT was a very weak wheel. So off I went to do something crazy; belt drive conversion.

Some maniac online showed a video of himself doing this, so I followed the instructions and painstakingly converted the wheel to be belt driven, along with a more powerful 24v M36N-2 motor to replace the 12v stock motor.

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Voila; one belt driven driving force GT for a whopping £35.

Honestly? It's fantastic. It's now super quiet with no gear rattle, and a lot more torque. Not quite what a T300 is, but far superior than the original wheel.

Admittedly, it wasn't the most reliable. Tensioners kept loosening, belts snapped, gear's cracked (bad 3D print techniques), right up until I finally hit the sweet spot in the build, and everything was working perfectly.

Next up, those awful pedals.

Browsing Facebook Marketplace, I came across someone selling a Driving Force Pro, with the most curious of 'upgrades'.

You can see that, right? A Driving Force Pro, with G25 pedals, within the Driving Force Pro pedal housing. The previous owner had frankenstein'd the G25 pedals to fit inside the Driving Force Pro base. Luckily, the Driving Force Pro uses the exact same pedals as a Driving Force GT, so I swapped the pedals over and sold the Driving Force Pro with 'normal' pedals, and made my money back.

In other words, free pedal upgrade.

I took the pedals out of the casing as there's no way they'd last with the Playseat. Due to the nature of the pedal bars raising the pedal box off the floor, the pressure would push these through the base of the plastic.

So I had an idea.

Yeah, that was the kitchen chopping board. As a proof of concept, it worked perfectly! Fitting just right onto the Playseat Challenge pedal bars, as you can see.

Off to a DIY store to fetch a bit of MDF, which kindly, they provided an offcut which they cut to my measurements completely free of charge (it's a Welsh thing, we're all kind here...).

Sprayed and wrapped in carbon fibre, they looked the part.

The cable ties that i was using to stop the Playseat's pedal bars from sliding had to go, in place I drilled some 3mm holes and use some M3 bolts I had lying around.

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

With making my money back on the pedals, and the kind staff at B&Q, this was a completely free upgrade.

The pedals were sliding to the left and right quite often, especially when storing the Playseat. I designed some spacers, with the middle spacer acting as a leg clamp to hold the seat together.

Then myself and my partner got married, went on our honeymoon and moved home! I didn't touch sim racing for quite a while as we were just enjoying the following months.

When I jumped back into the sim racing world, I realised how much I needed the monitor to be flexible in terms of how close/far it was. The whole point of this rig was to easily set it up and pack it away, so a monitor arm would be the answer.

And when I'm racing, it's this...

This made the biggest difference out of everything, a proper FOV and distance from me. The arm was £40.

Then came the best investment I've made. I spotted a 'faulty' Thrustmaster T300 on Facebook Marketplace for £80. After researching the issue, it looked as if it could have been a cracked hall sensor housing; the sensor would move slightly with its housing being cracked, and the wheel would freak out not knowing what it was doing.

I took the punt, met with a true gentlemen that said the following:

"I'm glad you're going to make use of it. I can't find a power lead, so do you want this Ferrari 599xx replica wheel for free?"

It was the only time I've said "...are you sure?!", but he insisted. So that's a T300 with the Ferrari 599xx wheel (in absolute mint condition) for £80.

If I could fix this wheel, this would be the bargain of the century. I just needed to find a nice crack on the hall sensor mount, and it would tell me what I needed to see.

And, as expected...

Cracked! I went ahead and printed a new one:

Wired up my Logitech pedals with an adapter:

Bought a spare power lead, and the wheel worked perfectly. No issues, nothing. That was a ridiculous find!

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Along with a black yoga matt to protect the carpet, this was a thoroughly enjoyable rig, and so far an insanely cheap one too.

The Ferrari wheel was beautiful, but the shifters let it down. I removed the springs, and designed/printed my own magnetic shifter adapter for the rear. Unlike others, this one uses the screw mounting holes on the back, allowing me to reverse it if need be.

At this stage, I've got some lovely pedals (ish, more on that later), a great wheel base, and a lovely wheel. But I'm very much an endurance racing fan, and wanted to use a GT3-style wheel.

So I came up with this design:

And started to build it

Finished

The wheel cost around £50 to build, and with a lick of paint in the office, sim racing in the evenings was now a joy.

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Hopefully at this point you can tell that I care quite a bit about design. The red of the pedals had to go, so I disassembled them and painted them black.

The one thing I hate is cables hanging off the chair, so I've ensured to cable manage the rig as much as possible. There's a USB hub installed under the wheel plate, and all of the wires on the rig are tied to the frame. The main cable sits under the desk with the USB and power tied together, allowing me to 'plug the chair in' with one chunky lead. Great for a quick and clean set up.

With my racing happening more in the evenings than in the day, I wanted to go about adding some mood lighting to the Playseat. Now that there was a USB hub on the chair, I could wire up more devices, such as...

LED lighting. A strip underneath each leg, and long the pedal bar. The strips had to be custom soldered and wired in order for there to be no wires at all on show. A painstakingly long process, but it's certainly paid off. It's full-RGB, and can be turned on/off by a button installed on the left of the wheel.

This is looking quite nice, considering in under 2 minutes, the room can transform back into my office.

Then, the dreaded happened; force feedback fade after 20 minutes of use. The wheel would become light, and after a while the FFB would fade entirely. Researching online, this is the glue weakening inside the motor shaft, causing the shaft to slip when the motor heats up. Most people at this point source a new motor, but as I couldn't (they don't make them anymore), my only choice was to repair.

A bit tricky to disassemble

That black piece shouldn't come off the shaft. After removing it (worryingly easy), I used epoxy resin to glue it back, and thankfully the wheel was like new again. Phew!

To prevent it from happening again, I've upgraded the tiny fan to a 92mm Noctua Chromax fan.

I've also bolted a 60mm fan directly to the motor, but forgot to take a photo of this. That's two fans cooling the motor, which has solved any fade issues.

But the one thing that bothered me was the standard T300 wheel. It sat in the cupboard gathering dust. So I went about another free upgrade for it.

Firstly, I removed the button box from it

My friend showed me how to use the laser cutter at our workplace, and having a spare piece of wood to hand, he told me I could use it. I whipped up a design and had it cut out of wood

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Test fit: it fits.

The handles were wrapped, and taller buttons were printed to replace the standard buttons

Another free upgrade, to add to the collection of insanely cheap wheels:

I've always fancied a screen, and I loved the idea of a VoCore screen to remove the HUD elements off the monitor, and to use the screen as my main info; quite immersive.

Someone designed a new T300 fascia that included screw slots to mount things, so I downloaded that and designed my own screen casing that was nice and slim.

It looked good, but the screen was now hitting my fingers when I had them on the paddle shifters. An extension was needed for all wheels.

(continued in next post...)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

I love the look of anodised metal, so went about ordering some gold PLA to print with. I then printed some spacers for the wheels:

Now that the wheel was finished, all that was left was the pedals. They're good, but my word are they short. Some extensions were needed, as well as some new pedal faces.

More gold!

Printed at 80% infill, I could stand on these and they wouldn't break. Especially with what I had in mind; load cell conversion.

You can buy a load cell kit for Logitech, but as I like to build things myself, I went about designing my own kit. A few variations later, and this was the solution:

The load cell sits inside a base, and the top of the load cell 'cups' the piston, rather than it being bolted to the back of the pedal. When you push the pedal, you're pushing on the load cell bar. Coupled with a lovely Leo Bodnar chip that converts the load cell to be used with potentiometer wires, and I had a fully working load cell conversion for under £20.

This was the best upgrade I've done to date. Brake pressure is a lot harder, and I'm now braking with pressure memory rather than positional memory.

Which leads us up to now.

Obviously I've spent money as I've gone along, but the current build stands as:

• Chair - £80
• Wheel base - £80
• Parts to build GT3 wheel - £50
• Monitor arm - £40
• VoCore 5" Screen - £35
• Yoga mat - £20
• 1KG PLA to print all other parts - £15
• LED lighting - £10
• USB hub - £5
• Logitech G25 Pedals - Free
• Ferrari 599XX Wheel - Free
  
  
• Total: £235

£235 for a flexible solution, a belt-driven wheel and all round seriously good fun. Considering that some wheel bases cost £1,000+, this just proves that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have a lot of fun.

I've had so much fun sim racing over the past two years, but I've had even more fun building and tweaking this rig. Keeping the flexibility of having it stored away in under 2 minutes, but the elaboration of load cells and LED lighting when it's up, makes it a properly dynamic rig.

Hopefully it's helped others to get some ideas for theirs, and hopefully it's shown that cheap doesn't always mean bad.

My god, you've made it to the end. Here's to you

 

[Deleted member 1066209]

Wow, I love your setup! Your skilled designs and flawless execution have produced an attractive and functional rig. I'm very impressed, and look forward to your progress!

 

[Daniel R.]

Very impressive, good work!!

 

[Michael Krone]

Thats awesome! Love seeing people make their own stuff, especially this kind of stuff. Cheap but good quality. Your comment, not liking all the wires hanging off your chair... Lol I might post a picture for you to cringe over.

 

[Neilski]

When you push the pedal, you're pushing on the load cell bar. Coupled with a lovely Leo Bodnar chip that converts the load cell to be used with potentiometer wires, and I had a fully working load cell conversion for under £20.

Hugely impressive list of clever mods, including this one - take a bow!

One question: I would worry just a wee bit that the loading on the corner of the plastic block holding the load cell bar (see badly-drawn sketch of what I mean below ) would gradually destroy it - any concerns about that? (It looks to be taking at least 3 times the load applied by the foot on the pedal face, but I may be misinterpreting where the reaction force is coming from.)

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Wow, I love your setup! Your skilled designs and flawless execution have produced an attractive and functional rig. I'm very impressed, and look forward to your progress!

Thank you! I have more to post, so I'll be keeping you updated shortly.

Very impressive, good work!!

Appreciate the kind words

Thats awesome! Love seeing people make their own stuff, especially this kind of stuff. Cheap but good quality. Your comment, not liking all the wires hanging off your chair... Lol I might post a picture for you to cringe over.

Oh god please no

Hugely impressive list of clever mods, including this one - take a bow!

One question: I would worry just a wee bit that the loading on the corner of the plastic block holding the load cell bar (see badly-drawn sketch of what I mean below ) would gradually destroy it - any concerns about that? (It looks to be taking at least 3 times the load applied by the foot on the pedal face, but I may be misinterpreting where the reaction force is coming from.)

View attachment 637980

Thank you! That was an issue for previous iterations, but this one seems to be fine. The corners are rounded to stop pressure building up, and the hole that the load cell slots into is very snug to stop pressure in certain areas.

So far so good with it...

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Sneak peak of my next design...

 

[Geraint Thomas]

I've just priced up my current set-up (PC not included) and have edited the previous post. But look at this...

Obviously I've spent money as I've gone along, but the current build stands as:

• Chair - £80
• Wheel base - £80
• Parts to build GT3 wheel - £50
• Monitor arm - £40
• VoCore 5" Screen - £35
• Yoga mat - £20
• 1KG PLA to print all other parts - £15
• LED lighting - £10
• USB hub - £5
• Logitech G25 Pedals - Free
• Ferrari 599XX Wheel - Free
  
  
• Total: £235

£235 for a flexible solution, a belt-driven wheel and all round seriously good fun. Considering that some wheel bases cost £1,000+, this just proves that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have a lot of fun.

 

[RasmusP]

£235 for a flexible solution, a belt-driven wheel and all round seriously good fun. Considering that some wheel bases cost £1,000+, this just proves that you don't need to spend a lot of money to have a lot of fun

Yeah you just need to be a bit lucky, very determined, have access to different manufacturing tools, a 3D printer and be highly skilled in modelling with above average skills in general

I enjoyed reading your thread! Awesome work!

 

[Geraint Thomas]

Yeah you just need to be a bit lucky, very determined, have access to different manufacturing tools, a 3D printer and be highly skilled in modelling with above average skills in general

I enjoyed reading your thread! Awesome work!

Haha, but still!

Much appreciated though!

 

[Geraint Thomas]

The mini cable ties that were wrapping the cables around the Playseat were literally slicing my skin whenever I picked the damn chair up. A nice solution: handle bar tape:

Much comfier to pick up when it's folded, and has the added benefit of hiding the wires too.

I've also never been a fan of the adapter design that I've been using; it's just one I found online.

Decided to design my own. Functions exactly the same, just a little more authentic.

The gold is a spacer in case I need to change the reach.

Better.

A note on iRacing. I've been reluctant to pay for the game. I played it a few times and very much enjoyed it, but I couldn't wrap my head around paying for both the monthly fee and the cars and the tracks. I've always thought it should be one or the other.

However, when someone told me about what I'm paying for, I started to see it a little better. Fully licensed laser scanned cars and laser scanned tracks, and one of the biggest roster of tracks in any racing game. The fact they're all laser scanned is outstanding. Secondly, stewarding for all races with the ability to protest and have your race reviewed. Lastly, and this is the most important one; the matchmaking algorithm. That's worth its wait in gold.

I've been using Low Fuel Motorsports for some time, and love the racing I've had on there. But even with the match making on that, it's still an unfair field due to the amount of people who play it. There's about 125 per race, which gets split into 5 splits, but even that results in a huge difference between pole and last, so there's never a chance of winning if you're simply 'good'. With iRacing, I've had so many bumper to bumper races that it's the only racer I've been playing lately.

They've got the match making spot on. As well as this, the damage model is great (pieces of car scattered across the track), the livery system is awesome (using Trading Paints) and there's a much, much higher racing standard than any other sim. So even though I don't agree with both the monthly payment and content payment, iRacing have me by the balls because I don't want to stop my subscription.

Also, installing ReShade brings the game into the 21st century, adds bloom, SMAA, levels and removed the classic warm tint:

Anyway, thought I'd share that sudden realisation that I'm now an iRacing person over an ACC person. Never thought I'd see the day...

 

[Geraint Thomas]

I designed a new front to the GT style wheel I made:

It's only a new vinyl texture, 3 raised areas, and some button stickers, but it makes a huge difference. The 'Rival' brand is a peek of things to come, as I'm teaming up with a very talented manufacturer of sim hardware to start a new venture. This wheel is just for personal use though, and the design won't be taken any further than this.

Away with you!

Nice new design

The raised areas have made such a big difference

The bolognese that lives inside

It all paid off though. Much happier with how it looks now. The buttons have also been replaced with metal flat-head buttons, which means the button stickers work well.

 

[Geraint Thomas]

I do love this wheel.

The beauty is that I now have the 599xx wheel for road cars, and that for GT3 cars. Mixed with the correct FOV, and it allows for some bloody lovely immersion.

My load cell mod for the Logitech pedals is starting to fail though. The plastic is starting to crack due to the way I've designed it, and the pedal feel is awful. I have to cram the spring full of foam and cut up a rubber ball just to get it somewhat right, but over time the foam compresses and I have to do it all over again. The other thing is that it's only 20kg, which doesn't take much to get to full power. It's fine, but I'm at the point where I'd like a little more pressure if needed.

I bought a 50kg load cell with designing something new in mind.

In the end, I went with someone elses design. I may design one based off the same concept, but to be honest they've pretty much nailed it.

It replaces the back piston of the pedal for one that allows those load cells to slot into.

You then print this 'plunger' kit, which lets you alter the height quite accurately to your own stiffness/preload requirements.

The spring fits around them, with a rubber piece at the top. The spring allows the first bit of travel before the rubber takes the full force of your braking pressure. I've just used a cut-up rubber ball for now, but I'm on the look for something better that's 19mm wide.

Once it's in, the plunger pushes the load cell through the hole (seen earlier), and you get a full 50kg of pressure with no lateral stress on plastic.

It's based on the Ricmotech load cell kit that costs around £160, but rather than a button load cell, it uses a bathroom scale variant.

The only reason why I'd want to design a similar one myself is to continue the fact that every mod on the rig so far was designed by myself, but if it ain't broke...