Recieved my brake mod from
http://www.apelectrix.com/index.html on Thursday
First impressions: It's had a lot of thought put into it, this is very well designed, it isn't a bodged together mod at all. It's small & appears simple on the surface, but it looks like that as a result of being designed that way, not by accident.
Everything I look at from the alloy plate spreading the pressure across the load sensor, to the 2 stage spring and rubber "feel" to the nicely labelled connecters that allow you to connect it to the G25 without screwing or soldering wires is.. well.. impressive
Installation: I've installed it, which was just as easy as I hoped, although the number of screws in the G25 pedal unit means it takes a little while. The instructions on the apelectrix site are spot on and easy to follow.
Calibration: This is certainly the weakest part - I'm still playing with this, I haven't had much time to use it yet but the calibration is fiddly. In defence of the mod itself this is more of a windows issue I guess, it's not really a hardware issue..
I ended up downloading utility called DIView, which lets you see the raw values coming from the controller (any USB DirectX controller by the look of it) and re-set the starting, ending and middle values as it maps to DirectX values. A little confusing at first but not too bad. So far I've trimmed off the first bit of pressure, it was so sensitive that I think blowing on the pedal would have put on a few % brakes lol. I've also trimmed off the last bit. To get 100% brakes in rFactyor I had to put a lot of pressure on the pedal, some may like this but it was just a bit much for a weakly pathetic office worker like myself lol. I'm not suggesting this was too much though, certainly some older cars to lock brakes at high speed you probably did have to put a LOT of pressure on the brake pedal
Using it: Very wierd at first, I think it's going to take me some time to get used to it, especially since I've spent so many hours using the standard G25 brakes, this just feels sooooo different lol. I need to re-learn braking from scratch it feels like.
For example with the standard G25 travel, you get feedback when you have full brakes.. the pedal stops moving! but with presure based, you can just keep putting on more, and more pressure - when have you put on the maximum? for cars that lock up easily in game, yep no point putting more pressue on, but if there's no lock-up how hard do you push lol... it's not an issue it's just a re-learning process.
One thing I'e already notice though even with the little time Ive used it - is that easing off the brakes feels much more natural - with travel based you are lifiting the foot as you approach the apex which never has felt right to me.. but with this mod it really does feel better and I think a bit easier to do. just relax the pressure as you approach.
Results (IE laptimes!): So far using a car/track combo I know and have a good idea on what laptimes I can consistently do, as well as my PB - In the first hour I was about 2s off my "normal" time.. that was Thursday night. Last night I did some more laps and was around 1s off my normal" time. Given how different it feels and how litle time I've spent using it, thats pretty good I reckon. I think with a reasonable amount of practice I will be at least back to the same pace, wether or not I can go quicker remains to be seen lol
Problems: This isn't a big issue but something to know, the first time you load rfactor and plug in the G25 the brakes are partly on - a pump on the pedal resets it. As I say not a big issue, it's like the sensor is so sensitive it's stuck on a little bit until it's been used, but something to be aware of I guess. Aside from that it's just getting the calibration right thats a bit of a pain, but once it's set you shouldn't need to worry about it again.
Re: G25 Mods
Originally Posted by Crash
Recieved my brake mod from http://www.apelectrix.com/index.html on Thursday
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