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.

Hi guys,

I'm glad I could help you with the pdf document, no problem

Stef is correct...I bought the card back in around 2005. I did not know they have a new version since then. Very interesting, but not too surprising, given the fact that practically ALL wheel manufacturers have moved onto using optical encoders now. Pots are becoming a thing of the past. Stef or Ben....if any of you end up buying the newer version of the Immersion board, I would be very interested in knowing how easy or difficult it was to replace the steering pot on the Happ wheel with an Optical encoder. Because for sure that would certainly eliminate the interference issue.

Keep us posted guys 

Isamu m'avait donné son adresse mail l'année dernière, j'espère qu'il n'en a pas changé, je lui ai transmis le message...

Je ne voudrai pas trop m'avancer mais malheureusement je pense que seul un encodeur optique permet une résolution suffisante pour le multi tour, et c'est pour çà qu'il y a cette 3ième carte Immersion, les deux autres étant pour le Happ standard 270° avec potard 5K, la seule différence étant d'avoir l'option pédalier à 2 ou 3 pédales pour ces deux cartes...

Hello Stef, Ben and Agantye....sorry I've been away for so long, been a bit busy LOL. I hope one of you guys can translate this to French. Sorry I don't understand French and use Google Translate to read this forum :lol:


Stef I got your email my friend. Thanks. I have answered your email and I will also copy and paste my comments here in this post:


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hello Stef, good to hear from you. Wow, how did you find my youtube video lol? Glad you enjoyed it dude. What did Agantye think? lol.

Anyway to answer some of your questions....


1)My Immersion card....I was never able to use it because it got lost in the mail, so I don't know too much about it. David from Force Dynamics once told me his impressions of it, and he said it works very well with the Happ wheel. He uses it on the 301 and 401 motion sims.

2)As far as my ECCI Wheel, it does *NOT* use the Immersion board at all. It uses ECCI's own circuit board and is very powerful. The box that houses the board is very big and even has its own fan and power switch. Certainly nothing to be experimented with.

3)I have tested the Happ wheel a few months ago when I initially got it back from my friend. I though the effects were very good. But I sent it back to my friend so he can try and resolve the remaining interference issues.  I haven't heard from my friend lately but I assume he is still very busy at the moment. I definitely intend to get it back from him, but to be very honest with you Stef, I really don't know if I will even want to use it that much, after buying and using the ECCI wheel. The ECCI is ridiculously good! The forces are strong and turning the wheel is very smooth. I don't really remember what the Happ feels like that well, to be honest. I remember it felling smooth but I don't remember *how* smooth. I'd like to get it back so I can conduct a comparison, but I dunno if I want to go through the hassle of unmounting my ECCI and then mounting the Happ. The ECCI is mounted very securely, so it would be kind of a PITA to remove it from my frame. When GT5 comes out, I may or may not do it. It depends of how well I like GT5 and what the reviews are like. We will see though. Only time will tell.

4)If you do not intend to use the Happ Wheel with your PS3 at all, then yes, absolutely get the Immersion board. It will save you having to figure out all the amp and intereference issues. You will still need to do some wiring, but it will be less messy. Me on the otherhand, if and when I go back to it, it will be solely for GT5 and OOA.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So unfortunately, the bottomline is the ECCI is a powerful wheel but is a wheel that is NOT to be experimented with! I will still take pictures of my Happ when I get it back. That is a promise! Let me know if you guys have any mroe questions.

Haha. It's funny because I was just wondering whether or not my videocamera will work with Windows XP. I am going to need to locate the drivers and see if it does, then maybe I can take a video.

Yes I have the Frex wheel. There is no problem and it works except for sometimes it locks up during rotation within the game. I don't have it mounted to my frame at the moment and I'm getting ready to put it up for sale, because I need to money. I am selling it for $1600USD. You interested?

For isamu i have connected the metal part of the Happ Wheel to the ground of the AMC and the interferences have disapeared in the potentiometer...

Your AMC must be in "current mod". See the doc at Advanced motion control and no more than 24V and 4A for the motor...

That is good to hear Stef

Stef, which exact location on the Happ wheel did you ground? Is it the narrow metal strip right above the motor? Or is it somewhere close to the potentiometer?

So are you saying that even with the power on the amp turned up, you get no vibrations except for a very very small amount in the center?

If it turns out the pot itself is what's picking up interference, shouldn't getting rid of it altogether and replacing it with an optical encoder allow for a much more stable analog signal without any interference? Well, it probably wouldn't work so well with the EX pcb but who knows?

Yeah, it's a bit annoying. I'm not sure what you mean by "current mod for AMC". While ingame, it is certainly there. I can feel the wheel wobble when it's in the center.

I am starting to get the feeling that the potentiometer on the Happ wheel is picking up interference from either the motor or the amp. Being so close to the motor and with that much power I think that may be the problem.

You know what I think *may* be a solution though? Running the ground cable directly to the steering pot on the Happ wheel. Who knows, maybe that will eliminate any interference being picked up allowing the needle to be more stable.

By the way, have any of you explored the idea of using the Logitech G25 pcb instead of the DF EX? Is it possible to replace the Happ steering pot with an optical encoder, and still have 270 degrees of rotation? And what about the motor signal? Would it need to use both motors or just one?

Or how about using the Driving Force EX pcb, but *only* replacing the Happ steering pot with an optical encoder? Would that work? Or would it be incompatible with the EX pcb?

Anyway my friend now has my happ wheel. He will complete the project by adding more ground wiring and I gave him another wheel to wire. I will be able to switch between two different wheels in a matter of seconds...sort of like a quick release type feature. I'm probably going to add a third wheel as well when I get a chance

OK here's the deal guys...I have just done some more testing with some more games. I can tell you right now Stef, that I have NOT gotten *one* random button press from interference! Maybe because the wheel that contains the button connectors was sitting idle and not being moved during my testing. That's because I used ANOTHER wheel that was mounted to my Happ wheel steering column(no buttons or connectors on this wheel) while the other one was connected but sitting idle. It looks like the grounding may have solved the issue. Stef, try grounding your cable from the amp to a metal part of the Happ Wheel. That may help.

Anyway, the main problem right now is yes, I am getting vibrations in the needle in the control panel setup menu. *BUT*....only when I turn up the power on the amp. When it's turned down to around maybe 10-15% juice, I don't really get any needle vibrations, expect for a very small amount around the center. Problem is, it gets worse when you turn up the Power/VCS/Current on the amp.

This is what I feel is the *MAIN* problem that we should work on solving. If there was some way to figure out what's causing the little vibrations from the amp and get it to be stable even with much gain and power, then that would be phenomenal.

I tested Ridge Racer 7, Gran Turismo 5 HD on PS3, and  Trackmania and GRID on PC. GRID doesn't have any ffb because I need to apply some sort of fix/patch. I'll do that another day. RR7 and GT5HD works VERY WELL! FFB even with only a *little bit* of amp juice is still very strong! Ridge Racer works good, but that game doesn't really support true force feedback. Only small vibrations.

I want to test Daytona USA and Sega Rally, but the emu and my roms are on my other desktop PC, so I'll have to wait until I get it back