You're right, it is exaggerated, quite a lot.
I guess if you always keep your foot in the same position it doesn't really matter. Especially with left foot braking your foot never really moves anyway.
Nonetheless if OP thinks about paying more for the csl elite over the ts-pc, not getting a formula rim for his F1 games and no nice d-pad while at the same time thinking about getting csl elite pedals as a nice upgrade alongside, I'd rather point out the design flaws.
Non reliable pots and the inconsistent loadcell. It's especially bad imo since a loadcell pedal is bound to give you consistency, yet the design contradicts that pure purpose in some ways.
I'd rather see OP getting happy with the ts-pc and his existing t3pa and then getting used heusinkvelds or something like that at a later point
About the construction issue and other pedals being similar:
Sadly, I can't calculate you the linearity of the loadcell sensitivity over the change of leverage.
I'll try with words though:
With normal pedals where the pressure is measured at the "push rod", axis, piston, master cylinder, whatever:
If you move across the pedal arm/face, the leverage will increase or decrease and the force you will feel be less or more.
You will feel, that pressing the pedal is easier.
This happens in a linear way.
The force of your leg will always fully be registered. Pressing at the very top will add some force due to the leverage.
Now with the loadcell in the csl elites which registers the bending of the pedal arm, the sensitivity varies a lot more.
The problem here is that the whole pressure detection depends on the bending and therefore the leverage.
Pressing the pedal arm below the loadcell bending point will result in zero brake input. No matter how hard you squash those elastomers.
On the other hand due to the position of the loadcell bending point and the pedal face, you can easily double or even triple the leverage, and therefore directly the brake input.
Imagine that you wanna calculate the difference.
With a normal loadcell design you will have:
- pressing directly where the axis is:
Loadcell pressure = leg force * 1
- pressing at the very top of the pedal arm:
Loadcell pressure = leg force * (1+the tiny leverage)
Pedal will be easier to press and will register a little bit more.
Now the csl elite design:
- pressing at the axis:
Loacell pressure = bending of the pedal arm.
Which is none! None at all. The loadcell is above the axis so this will result in zero pressure being registered no matter what you do. (impossible though because the pedal plate/face is above the bending point)
- pressing at the middle:
Loadcell pressure = bending with normal leverage
- pressing at the very top:
Loadcell pressure = bending with doubled or tripled the leverage = 2-3x the registered force
It's difficult to explain for me but the difference is that the leverage with a normal loadcell design isn't changing much. Maybe 1-10%.
With the csl design though, depending on the position it's changing between -100% to +300%.
Pedal face restricting it to -30% to +50% or something like that.
There are videos out there where people get to 100% with their big toe pushing at the very top, while they can't go to 50% with the full force their body can give if they press at the lowest position...
Now a good point though as mentioned:
due to the pedal face being rounded and always being slightly above the loadcell bending point and the foot being mostly in the same position, the difference might only be 10-30%.
But we're talking about trailbrake consistency and looking at telemetry from really good drivers you can see that they brake within a few percent lap after lap.
A deviation of 20% just because they move their foot a little is pretty crucial for winning the next fight into a corner.
Hope that clears it up
If not I'll do some drawings hehe
