That would definitely help. One thing I liked back when I played console racing games was the individual trigger buttons would vibrate, which was a super easy way to detect wheel slip.
I’d be interested in something that would give me an indication of wheel lock up. I’m not sure what it was in car or karts but I certainly couldn’t see it. I can’t think it’d be much feedback through the pedals though. It must be sound and movement (for a kart) and sound and steering wheel pull (in a car). I’m just not getting that feedback with what I have now.
Yes. I run 4 shakers in each corner with simhub.
It is night and day, sorta. I feel wheels skid, hop, lock. I feel chassis flex.
I convinced @speedcraft to do the same and after an adjustment period, I think he would say similar.
Thoughts, Warren?
I think the shakers are a bit different than the individual pedal vibrations.
Though, generally you feel wheelspin through the whole car/kart, so maybe larger shakers would fit the bill (the large bill i can imagine very soon in my future…sigh)
The built in vibrators (fanatec v3) are more of a toy. This pulls the ffb data from the game specifically tethered to tire model etc. most shakers are mounted directly on pedal base.
Not knowing what was going on with the track surface and brakes used to drive me nuts. This isn’t perfect but miles better. You need to feel load and grip to drive sim. Otherwise you are guessing.
Warren bought inexpensive Chinese made amplifier. Simhub is donationware. Parts express sells kits. Dayton pucks are currently $10. I use the more expensive 45 dollar ones.
Welcome to the sim rabbit hole.
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Oh man, i’m getting excited about the opportunity to tinker and DIY this.
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It’s a bit different but once you get used to it and everything dialed in to your liking, very helpful.
I now want another two shakers on seat. These would be for constant effects like rpm etc. I currently run 4 effects. The constant effects sort of need to be separated to be best otherwise the shaker is being asked to doo too many things simultaneously.
Since I don’t really wrench, the wood was my compromise. Ideally you’d connect somehow rigidly metal to metal. This hard wood does a decent job though. I run the amps at 50% and the effect on simhub at 50%. Way more power than I need.
These are mainly used to shake couches for movies and musicians on stage so they can feel their drums.
I was VERY skeptical about whether virtual driving would feel ‘real’ enough to fill the void of not actually driving/racing sufficiently to justify the cost. After much cajoling by Dom (beware this man, I think he works for Fanatec 
) I took the plunge. I was very surprised at how well the force feedback wheel conveys tire loads, traction and even the traction forces acting on the car.
For me, this realism is present everywhere around the track except during hard braking, and to a lesser degree hard trail braking. FFB is basically useless for perceiving these longitudinal loads, and because there is no vestibular feedback like in real racing, you have to kind of guess/calculate ‘the limit’ based on the visual feedback and muscle memory for the pressure on, or position of, the brake pedal. Probably 90% of my deficit to the aliens comes from hard braking into low speed turns, the rest is my aversion to ‘cheating’ the track limits… old habits from paying for my own repairs. 
I don’t think I get as much out of my shakers as Dom does, but I also wouldn’t go back. I’ve got a 4-chanel shaker setup that drives the larger Dayton shakers (2 under the pedals, and one on either side of the seat mount. They make the driving more immersive and more fun, and, if the software is setup well, they can convey an additional source of feedback for sensing the limit when cornering. Also, one of the software applications I use does allow configuring the front shakers to respond to slip & lockup, but for me, the resolution was not sufficient to provide any benefit.
I’m not super into the tech and tweaking, but I’ve got multiple ‘slide’ parameters setup to trigger on different frequencies so that they vibrate at one frequency as load/slip is building in the tire, and then, when the tire starts to approach ‘the limit’, a second frequency kicks in and creates a resonance or oscillation that is easier to perceive when driving. I ended up with two main shaker presets; one for cars with ‘race tires’ and one for cars that use street tires (Skip Barber & Miata). I needed different setups for the cars on radials because they basically slide all the time, so I had to tweak settings to get the oscillation to not happen all the time.
All that said, for me the vibration tends to more confirm what I’m already feeling through the wheel rather than making me more able to take the tires to the limit.
My pedals (Fanatec ClubSport v3) came with brake and throttle vibration motors, but Dom is correct that they are so weak they are a joke. At some point (when my interest shifts back over to road racing) I might look into at least adding a real shaker motor to the brake pedal.
Thanks Warren! So, basically a satisfied customer, within limits. Its far from perfect, but I really like how the shakers “broaden” the FFB coming from the center column. The shakers enhance the wheel FFB. Kart doesnt feel dead.
KZ with front brakes is a visceral experience with shakers
Last night’s GT4 race from Suzuka. Started P5, worked up to P2 after hounding the guy for 10 laps. My heart rate was really starting to climb when I was right on P2’s bumper but couldn’t get around him and P4 was closing in 0.5 a lap. Finally did a big send into the hairpin and took the spot.
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Thats deffo not sedentary. Wish I still had charger to compare.
Lol just had a brain fart and found it. Now to find watch again.
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Damn! That’s a pretty solid workout!
So did an hour of multiplayer practice sessions and recorded heart.
The peak there was a particularly intense session where I landed a bomb of a lap. I was tryharding and really pushing.
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Ran my heart monitoring huawei watch for the F1 2019 series @DavinRS and I are doing.
Peaked to 130 during my quali lap and at the start of the race then settled down to a calm 100 for the rest of race. Usually resting is 60ish.
Compared to real kart race thats pretty a little tame and different. The only race I have heart rate monitoring for has me 125 at the startline, then building up to 160 by the end of the first lap, and sustained for the next few laps until it calms down to 130 ish.
I have found that’s it’s all very situational. I did a street stock oval race last night where I lead start to finish with no pressure and my heart rate barely ever cracked 130.
Obviously it’s all based on your internal stress responses and not actual physical activity, so for me at least, the heart rate can change pretty significantly lap-to-lap or situation-to-situation.
It would appear that there is some activity (ie-100-150) generally just from regular exertion. The majority of the peaks seem to come from mental alertness, or anxiety, or emotional intensity as you push.
It seems mostly mental above 120.
You can burn 6000 calories playing chess so under extreme mental strain the brain does take up a fair amount of energy. So it’s not surprising the fluctuation in heart rate dependent on the stresses of a given race.
TJ - How’s the Cayman? Since dipping my toes back into the water I’ve tried to stick to fixed setup racing for now to avoid the time sink that comes with trying to eeek every last little bit of time via tuning vs. just driving with what’s presented to you.
Have really been enjoying the RUF challenge (most apples to apples comparison to what I drive in real life) and oddly enough I’ve had the most success in the Cadillac CTS-V race car going 2 for 2 in races at SPA last week in it.
Load cell pedals show up next week…I really want to drive more in the Imsa and GT3 cup stuff but have been struggling to adapt to the brakes with my standard G27 pedal set.
Can someone send me a link to this DIY shaker setup stuff?
On the original topic…Since I’m still trying to drop weight to move from masters down to Senior this year to run KA…I’ve found the extra calorie burn to be an extra excuse to jump on the sim every night for a little bit. I get worked up enough that I can’t go to sleep within an hour of sim racing so I have to quit pretty early every evening to not lay in bed wide awake!
Here’s a bundle but look at others as well.
I really like it. It’s not fixed, but the setup isn’t too complicated and I’ve found a pretty nice baseline on it. The key is dialing out the massive understeer, so I just have been stiffening the rear sway bar and playing with downforce levels. Really came to life after adding more ARB blades in the rear. Coming from the Miata it’s definitely a nice step up without being too overcomplicated.
The racing is either really clean and fun or just chaos. But so far, I’m enjoying it. Suzuka this week was really fun, minus the few punts I received in the one race. Multi-class makes it interesting as well.