Chip board V1 complete

Version 1 of the controller chip is now complete and will be attached to the wheel and finally I will be able to produce a video of a working customised wheel. Using the rotarys for fuel selection and tyres.

Hopefully a video will be up by the end of friday night. With the weather being 27Degrees last weekend in the UK not much was done.

The wiring up starts....

So the buttons have been wired up now. Next will be the rotary, instead of resistors and transistors to make it work, we may be looking at a 2nd chip to do the job instead.

Electronics Proof of concept

So the man in the know to electonics has it on a test bed. The below video shows the chip programmed for basic commands(at the moment F1 2011 commands are unknown)

So the switch on the left is the equivilant of twisting the rotary to different positions, so 4 points...bit like the 4 tyre selections and the LED's represent the D-pad. As you can see changing one switch then does a required pattern.

What I wanted the wheel to do.... the benefits

Once I knew my wheel design, I had to decide on the layout and how I wanted it to work.I had seen some button relocation blogs before for the X,B,Y,A buttons but not for the D-pad. So what did I want to gain from this wheel;

* Easy ability to press DRS & KERS at same time
* Easy ability to use the buttons - full stop
* Easy ability to switch tyres without pressing the D-pad alot & now with fuel mapping this yr the D-pad would be used more then ever.

So the Kers / DRS buttons were easy, thye would be relocated to the top of each grip - Simple. The other buttons were not as critical so could be moved around.

I then came up with the idea that down the bottom of the wheel i would have 4 buttons.....Prime, Option,Intermediate,Wet. When pressed they would send the required sequence (Left > Left > Up) to the wheel so rather then fiddling with the D-pad i could just push a button.

Time to talk to my Electronics Guy.....