Simucube 1 vs simucube 2

About time to separate the men from the boys!

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Pretty sure all the men are here and the guys at GD have this covered.

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Hope Meanwell holds better than single brick PSU Fanatec chose.
First report of it going up in smoke.
https://forum.virtualracing.org/showthread.php/104725-FANATEC-DIRECT-DRIVE-infothread?p=2463852&viewfull=1#post2463852

That’s a bad start if indeed that did happen.

And just after I watched a YouTube video that included a little dig at GD and the route that have chosen for the Simucube 2.

Question for the GD team.

If in the future a new, single power supply for the Pro model was found by you and met your testing criteria, where would us initial buyers stand.

Would we be asked to purchase that separately if we wanted to upgrade for our convenience?

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@Andre: The reason the MW psu-range was chosen for this new product portfolio from GD is due to their renowned /hard-earned reputation in the industrial automation sector.

Even so, Team Granite did a pretty comprehensive deep-dive into selecting the best match from that portfolio. As have been stated, that specific psu used on the Podium series featured early on in the selection process, but they were quickly discarded due to problems surfacing very early on in the testing phase, often becoming rather noisy after just 30-60 minutes of testing.

Put it this way: I have tortured a range of MW psu’s over the last 5 years working with DD wheels, consistently more so than anyone else, or any other dd wheel supplier out there, and I have yet to see one fail.

Even on my current Bogeyman monster setup, I am running the wheel at close to max torque, Ioni is set to 25A POS, and psu is an SDR-480, no issues with it over the past year. These MW’s are super-reliable in this application, if they survive torture-testing in my hands, they will survive anywhere, tbh.

Cheers,
Beano

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That the first thing that came to my mind when I read on that accident, is that why GD discarded them.
How that MW 280W PSU stack against SDR-480, just as reliable, I hope?

Question for the GD team…

On the Pro, if only one PSU was connected, could the base be used in low-torque mode without issue?

The 280W /dual-280W has been selected for the Sport and Pro series, to provide a good overhead capacity - the reason why the wattage seems low, has to be attributed to the very good efficiency of the servo-design used in the SC2.

They are significantly more efficient than anything we used in SC1 thus far, whilst being smoother too. I tortured the Sport servo at as high as 25NM at GD premises about a year ago, the servo did not complain much…nor did the supporting circuitry.

One thing that is not often said, but hinted at by other players out there, is about stall-torque vs peak-torque, servo response and a few other parameters…but it is only hinted at, not truly explained, probably just to confuse end-users…perhaps one day I will do a bit of a write-up to explain why these specific servos were used, including things like inertia, efficiencies, high-res encoder, response and torque-characteristics…

Might make for interesting reading.

But rest assured, neither psu, nor servo, will go up in smoke if tortured at the limit of it’s design-specifications :slight_smile:

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That would be great because there are a lot of new terms being thrown around lately. Im sure im not the only one that would like a real explanation without the marketing thrown in.

"One thing that is not often said, but hinted at by other players out there, is about stall-torque vs peak-torque, servo response and a few other parameters…but it is only hinted at, not truly explained, probably just to confuse end-users…perhaps one day I will do a bit of a write-up to explain why these specific servos were used, including things like inertia, efficiencies, high-res encoder, response and torque-characteristics…

Might make for interesting reading."

Thanks for your post, Phillip.

I’m another who would very much like to read what you have to say on this subject if you should ever get the time to write it down.

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@ [EsxPaul] Personally mate, i wouldn’t worry about it one bit. I too have the 20nm i bought june 2018. i am so pleased with it. I have never gone over 55\60% of its power and to be fair, are you really going to notice the difference the small new features that come with version 2? i doubt it. Just enjoy what you have my friend and be blessed with the knowledge that most sim racers cannot afford any type of DD wheel

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I don’t think anyone is worried about it but its nice to have an understanding. At least for me I find it interesting on how much really goes into this stuff when deciding on pieces.

Thanks for the words of encouragement mate.

I had settled on sticking with the original osw before I took delivery but it turned out that there were a few issues with the unit and so it ended up being returned anyway!

That really made my mind up and I ended up pre ordering the new Pro model.

I’m looking forward to what it will feel like when I bolt it up in place of my G29 :yum:

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Yes, we did torture test the hw here in our premises quite a lot, as @Mika and @phillip.vanrensburg mentioned. Other power supplies, at least the several models we tested, (including 480W desktop power supply from the same manufacturer that one ffb wheel mfg. uses), the quality in those was not at the level we want to use in our products and sell to our customers. Anyway, overall quality, reliability, characteristics, such as acoustic characteristics may have improved in those other power supplies since January 2019, hard to say. However the previous being said, we went with Mean Well due to their quality control processes (and characteristics such as these producing low noise or being completely silent power supplies, (no fan, no coil whine no other weird sounds). Mean Well is trustable Taiwanese company. Almost 100% of the SC1 builds are built with Mean Well power supplies, and we have not heard that even single unit would have been defect or broken unless some natural hazard has happened such as lightning…

Should suitable & reliable psu be found with reasonable price and that meets necessary regulations, and if such other compatible power supplies are sold separately by us at a later time and if the customer wants to change the power supply for their convenience, then yes, the power supply should be purchased separately.

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I don’t think much improved in acoustic department as people are complaining about loud buzzing/whining noise on virtualracing already. Exactly as Mika said earlier.
What are our options for extending PSU to motor cable, is it only 1M long?
Are there extension cords that can be purchased separately perhaps?

When are reviews expected to hit the market?

We expect to release a first real version of the firmware and software this week to our testers. A round of polishing and then we should have more units to ship for review purposes.

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So when can we expect to see the preorders start shipping? Obviously im not holding you too this.

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I have a question … !

When GD were sitting down and planning SC1, there was possibly a roadmap about where it could, would and should go. Filters, bumpstops, buttons, pedal connections, software, hardware etc, etc. There are a myriad of connections on the board that would possibly serve a purpose at some point in the future as they wouldn’t have been added if they weren’t needed.

So, is there anything that was originally planned, hardware or software, for SC1 that hasn’t yet been implemented? Or anything you wanted it to do but just haven’t got around to building?

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