Simucube 1 vs simucube 2

i recommend rcon 8 for all games and signal speeds.

Mixed emotions, but I do congratulate you guys on what looks like a solid product.

The move to an OSW is not an insignificant choice for many, when you add rim, button plate (ascher) etc you are well over $2K. And then the rig to support it.

Hopefully the talk of development features rolling down to current Simucube owners isnā€™t just to pacify, because that would be pretty shitty.
Thereā€™s obviously some bad blood already.

I think this would be a mistake to leave existing Simucube owners in the past, because there would be no Simucube without them, and as of right now Granity Devices is barely relevant in comparison to Fanatec, Thrustmaster in terms of market share, influence in game development etc.

I am not a fan of Fanatec as a business, but right now if I was about to buy a new DD wheel, I would go with their podium series for similar price, knowing that they have their ecosystem of products that can be carried across from generation to generation and they have a history of sticking to this philosophy.
Thereā€™s a lot of value in that, and itā€™s obviously a well thought out decision to ensure they build a loyal customer base.

Of course I am only one voice and one ā€˜walletā€™, but I get the feeling Iā€™m not the only one thinking hard about trusting GD with another significant financial commitment for a hobby given the 180 thatā€™s pretty much happened.
If the development stops and the product archived, that changes a lot.

Iā€™m of course still very happy with my Simucube and all the equipment I built around it, and hope that it remains relevant for years to come. Iā€™m sure the new development will have subjective feedback on whether itā€™s a lot better than existing builds or not.

Offering some kind of bespoke upgrade path would be a smart decision, but Iā€™m guessing thatā€™s not in the plans.

7 Likes

How do you know there is almost no open source interest? The main reason I bought into SimuCUBE was the open source firmware. I bought my SimuCUBE wheel back in May 2018. And up until now there has not been an up to date version of the firmware on the Github repo. I would really like to contribute to the firmware,
but it seems that you donā€™t really use Github for your open source development but use a closed repository? I believe that an open source project should be developed using a publicly accessible repository, this has not been the case so far. I guess there might be good reasons to do so, but to me it does not sound fair to call it open source and say there is no interest since there is not even a real open source project.

At the beginning I though I just needed to be patient. But I think 11 Months is quite a long time. So perhaps you can elaborate a little on when the SimuCUBE-OpenSource-Firmware repository will be updated, if you are going to use the repository for actual development or just push an update every now and then. And if this update will include all the current fixes and wireless controller support for example (I still have to get up to speed with the BGM111A256V2 IC but it all sounds interesting).

About the move to SimuCUBE 2, it all looks really cool, good job! I already informed some of my friends about these cool new products. Iā€™m not too worried about more development time will be put into the SimuCUBE 2 platform, I guess thatā€™s fair enough. But it all depend on how Granite will further develop the code base. Will both product still share the same code base and repository or will every little thing have to be ported or copied to the ā€˜oldā€™ SimuCUBE (1) repository? Will there be enough information and source code to actually port new features to the SimuCUBE 1 code base and so on.

Sorry for the many question, but I have been patiently waiting for quite some months now and would really like to know where this is all heading. Thanks.

6 Likes

Guys, could anybody guide me to a picture of the 2 power supplies that will be used for the Simucube 2 Pro?

Iā€™d like to see how they are wired to the motor. Thanks.

It uses 2x 280W MW brick-style power supplies, each connected to the servo by a dedicated 6-pin moulded Molex connectorā€¦similar to those you plug into your pci-express power ports on your pc graphics card :wink:

But the cables are of course custom and for external useā€¦heavy-duty stuff ā€¦

1 Like

Thank you, SKeijmel. Iā€™ve been running rcon 8 on rf2, AMS, and Assettoā€”and I must say it feels very nice, with no real loss of fidelity. Very rubbery, and enables increased gain to bring back the details without turning the wheel into a rattle trap.

1 Like

https://www.meanwell.com/webapp/product/search.aspx?prod=GST280A

2 Likes

Thank you, Andrew :slightly_smiling_face:

I know it was mentioned to swap wheels you need to press both shifter paddles but what happens when you donā€™t have paddles on one? Also are you mounting the ultimate with the normal 8mm bolts because finding 9mm bolts is almost impossible.

If button plate manufacturer makes a product without paddles, then he should indicate which buttons are the paddles.

8mm bolt goes through 9mm hole. The holes are not threaded on Ultimate.

I think you misunderstood or I wasnā€™t clear. If you are racing say stock cars the wheel wont have paddles or buttons. Same would go for a wheel from a vintage car. So how do you swap that wheel? Was this overlooked when deciding on using the paddles?

Ah, ok. There is no need to use the wireless wheel functionality. User can use any rim as before.

So it wont matter if it doesnā€™t see the wheel its normally linked to for a certain profile?

Correct, it does not matter. We are not planning to switch profiles when user switches rim either, as there is much larger amount of simulated cars and game titles than there are rims at typical users home.

But we are considering such an option.

1 Like

Hi,

Just after we released 0.10.4, if I remember correctly, we started to develop the wireless wheel functionality. We didnā€™t want to disclose any of our technology choices at that point, and development had to be done in private.

Also, in summer 2018, we re-did the settings management to something that makes much more sense, and I would be glad if we would have pushed that out to repository. However, by that time, the code was full of IFDEFs for SC2 development, so that just couldnā€™t be done. Since then, we have made a hardware abstraction layer of our own for SC1/SC2, but its not perfect solution. However it is still something we could release for SC1 open source repository. But we are not happy with some features right now and code needs a good cleanup as well.

Update every now-and-then is the plan. We have many ongoing projects that we canā€™t disclose.And as you probably know, some parts of the project will remain closed. Those closed parts include the Wireless wheel functionality source codes, the multiple fixes to ST HAL USB library (which is still not bug-free!) and the utilization of some functions with the communications to the IONI servo drive through the simplemotion library. There we use some undocumented features that we do not want to disclose.

Current Simucube 1 repository is 100% the same as the Simucube 2 repository. Obviously the build Iā€™m running at home with Simucube 1 does not use the features that are only in the in the Simucube 2 servo drive firmware. Those features remain closed, similar to IONI firmware. All other bug fixes and FFB-related improvements, such as increased torque update rate stability are already ported, but one detail addition to IONI firmware is required for full compatibility. We will get it done as soon as we get over the Simucube 2 release, as we are very busy getting the production running.

Regarding open-source development in general, we embrace it, but we do need to keep our own IP in our hands. The Simucube Wireless Wheel system is open for all manufacturers to build devices on, but is is closed software/firmware.

The original idea of the open source repository for Simucube was

  1. increase hardware features (LED displays? etc). Simucube 1 has many still unused features!
  2. make better FFB effects and filters

Us not updating the open source repository has NOT stopped anyone making these hardware addon nor FFB developments for Simucube, and if someone would have made developments, we would have of course included them in the firmware and the Configuration Tool. But we saw nothing happening. Silence is not good from the communitys part either - at least I have written multiple times that if there is any interest in development, contact should be made.

1 Like

I didnā€™t understand a thing, only the wireless receiver on the base or even the wheel side is included in the packages

Base has integrated wireless receiver. Wheel side transmitter module is available for resellers. It is not meant for diy use, but we wonā€™t restrict sales of it.

1 Like

That makes sense. Looking forward to May 5 when my Ultimate gets here.:smile:

One other thing. I realize the 8mm bolts will fit in the 9mm hole obviously but you havenā€™t had any issues with it working itself loose like that? Seeing these are constantly vibrating maybe a sleeve to put in the 9mm holes to make it 8mm would be a good idea?

Use locking nuts and sufficient tightening should be enough.

1 Like

I have been using M8 bolts in all my servos for many years and never had any issues.

You will be fine.