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G27 losing centering while driving (fix inside)

gorgias1976

Gorka Santisteban
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At yesterday's event at Essington I suffered at both races a wheel problem; the center of the wheel started veering left. This means that for keeping car straight I had to keep my G27 slightly veered to the left (as when you have damaged your car after a crash).
This happened in both races right after "fighting the wheel" in an oversteering situation. I ended up crashing and retiring both times as it was quite wierd to drive.

I went then for investigation and I've found that it is quite a common issue for this wheel, once it starts happening it won't stop. Once you fight a strong FFB kick the wheel will start losing its center and won't recover it untill you unplug and plug it back in the USB port (so wheel gets recalibrated).

The reason why this happens is at the wheel position sensor failing due to vibrations and also for this sensor not correctly glued to it's axis and therefore slipping at quick FFB corrections. This sensor is a small wheel, very similar to the ones the old mouses had inside (if you ever dissasembled an old mouse to clean its inside, you know what I'm talking about).

So there are two posible solutions.
First: the sensor screws get loose, and screwing them back does the fix.
Second: Putting some epoxy glue (plastic against metal) at the sensor wheel's axis, so it won't slip at strong and quick FFB corrections.

As I don't have an epoxy glue at the moment I've gone for the first solution, and if the problem reappears I'll go for the second.

What you need:
-An hexagonal Allen key (If you have some Ikea forniture any of those hexagonal keys will fit ;D)
-A phillips screw driver-average size
-A phillips screw driver-small size

Steps you need to make (Pictures are from other sites, not mine):

1-Dissasemble wheel
1a - Using an hexagonal key (Allen key we calle it here) remove the front part of the steering wheel.

1b - remove the small board (2 screws) and unplug it from the wheel case.
G27_1.jpg


1c - Remove this three long screws to be able to get the paddles off the steering case
G27_2.jpg


1d - Unscrew all this screws and you'll be able to remove the cover
G27_3.jpg

G27_4.jpg



2-Looking for the position sensor.

This sensor is in the right servo-motor as shown in the picture, the one with a black cover (no need to disassemble them as in the picture)
G27_10.jpg


2a - carefully remove the plug that avoids the black cover from the servo-motor to be remove.

2b - Now remove the black cover and you'll get to the see the sensor (the pictures shows the servo dissasembled, but as I said, there's no need to do it)

2c - Remove the small board that surrounds the sensor wheel. And screw the screws that hold the sensor to the servo-motor (mines where quite loose. You'll need the small phillips screwdriver to access on of the two screws.
original

original


2d - If you have epoxy glue, apply it at the axis of the sensor wheel, to make it sure it won't slip again when high fast forces are applied.

original



3-Reasemble all parts and wait some hours for the glue to perfectly dry (if you used it).


Hope it can help.
 

Fergy

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Looks like mechanical failure needs to factored in to our racing now. Good luck fixing it Gorka.

Your 3rd solution.... Fanatec ;D
 

DJCruicky

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Thanks gorgias, if this happens with my G27 I now know how to fix.
DJC
 

DJCruicky

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Wondering if mine is on it's way out now. Sometimes after turning pc on and play game I find the wheel off centre. I have to recalibrate it and all is fine after. How's your wheel doing after fix?
 

Hectari

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I had the same problem DJ, each time my wheel calibrated it would end up with a slightly different center and i'd have to re-center it in rf2. The calibration would also finish without stopping the wheel dead straight like it did when new, it would just coast by a fair bit.

Then not too long ago someone posted over at ISI about tightening that screw next to the optical encoder so I took it apart but it was still very tight. Then I had a look at the optical encoder and noticed it was cracked in 2 places and also had a split! The split meant that there was a sizeable gap between the notches of the encoder at one point, definitely messing with the calibration. I took it off and super glued it using the head of a pin to apply along the cracks while holding it between thumb and 2 fingers around the circumference to keep it nice and tightly together. Put it back on the metal shaft, pushed down too far away from the center and snapped it completely! I thought I had totally killed my wheel until I could get a replacement part but managed to superglue it good as new again and stuck it back on(also had to very carefully glue one of the notches in place to get back the even spacing since one broke at one end when I snapped the whole thing). It was also a very tight fit on the shaft so didn't have to secure it that way like Gorka, no way can mine slip... for now! It's probably a lot stronger for purpose now than before anyway, it's a very brittle part it seems.

Once I put the wheel back together I had another problem and the wheel wouldn't calibrate, but I discovered later that I just hadn't set the rotational slider thing in the correct position for full lock to lock movement, once I did that and calibrated the wheel for the first time it did it just like it did when it was brand new and now i'm no longer having to recalibrate it, always exactly the same now.

It's really strange that the optical encoder would crack and split when it doesn't come into contact with anything but apparently it's a very common fault with these wheels. I was totally shocked when I saw the state of mine! There is a company that makes metal replacement optical encoders for about 30 quid I think, but if you also have a broken encoder like me you should be able to fix it up nicely. Even if you snap it in two like I did you can still bring it back ;D
 

gorgias1976

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DJCruicky said:
Wondering if mine is on it's way out now. Sometimes after turning pc on and play game I find the wheel off centre. I have to recalibrate it and all is fine after. How's your wheel doing after fix?

It was about 1 or 2 months ago when I fixed it again using one of those pattex strong glues that can bear torsion. I glued the wheel to its axis as I felt it was quite loose. By the moment everything is going fine.

BTW, yesterday I did a short practice to test top speeds at Brianza (to adjust heights and top gear. No surprise F1C seemed to work best at minimun heights oppose to F1B which needs rear to be a but higher to comensate the downforce created by the wing). Wheel was rattling quite a lot at the banking (even with flitering at 12). That will be a big test to the wheels.
(As wheel gets hotter rattling gets slightly reduced. Well, in fact I've always felt that general forces get slightly reduced as the wheel heats up being quite stiff when the wheel is cold)
 

Hedlund

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I have also had this problems, a year ago. I glued the encoder and no problems since :)

Everything needs to be fixed sooner or later... Wheel, shifter and pedals :p
 

DJCruicky

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thanks for all the info. Not opened mine up yet, may try tomorrow. Looks fiddly, i been watching a few videos.
@Hectari Think I would die if I do same as you and snap it in two :D.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhYpWAmZVjQ[/youtube]

That black plastic cap looks hard to get off.
 

Hectari

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DJCruicky said:
That black plastic cap looks hard to get off.

It's actually not as bad as it looks, when it did snap off I thought for a moment that I was gonna break something under it but the couple times I did it I didn't catch anything as it came off, just be careful and you'll be fine. The circuit board connectors were more of a pain to get off for me and I ended up using a small pair of pliers because I was afraid of pulling some of the wires out, the connectors were stuck in pretty solid and I couldn't get much purchase on them without my fingers also pulling at the wires and getting a bit of slippage on the plastic made it worse. Need to be careful with pliers too, but much easier!

Also in hindsight I wouldn't take the optical encoder off the metal shaft to glue the cracks/split, i'd just remove the sensor circuit board and fix it up where it is and hold it while the glue dries and superglue takes no time at all when spreading it finely. But that's because i'm an idiot and broke the bloody thing! Also it required a lot more force to slide it onto the metal shaft when it was fixed. Results may vary! Good luck with whatever gremlins you find when you open it up!
 

DJCruicky

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My wheel is now all in bits. Yes them white plastic connectors were hard to remove.
Indeed, my encoder wheel is split. 3 hairline cracks from middle to 75% to the edge. I took your advise not to take it off the metal. I added superglue to it. I also found big cracks in the black casing that holds the gears. I'm in process of reinforcing it by supergluing bits of plastic to the cracks. The plastic from them old 3.5 inch floppy discs are great for that.
I'll put it back together tomorrow as it's getting late, and hope it works (if i remember how to put it back together).
DJC
 

Hectari

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Good stuff, just remember when putting it back together that the sliding plastic thing that moves from the wheel rotation is very important to get spot on for calibration(or in my case a wheel that will work at all), I totally messed it up the first time not realising it was important and where it should be. When I went back in to fix it I got my head around it.. eventually!

Also I managed to swap my wheel button wires lol. Look left looks right... fixed in wheel profile though so not exactly an issue ;D
 

Hectari

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Oh and the important thing with the optical encoder is that all the divisions are the same size, hopefully you've managed to fix it so that they are and it's easy to see if you look closely.
 

DJCruicky

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Before putting it back together again today. I noticed I made a boobie, even though I was careful, I noticed I got super glue in 3 or 4 of the encoder holes. Could not even stick a pin in them to remove it :(. Testing wheel after putting it back together I now have big problem wheel looses centre after a few minutes driving. Was hoping it would work as the glue is transparent. Buggered it big time I did.
Apart from buying that brass one, I'm out of ideas. I guess I will be wheel less until I sort it.
 

Hedlund

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:eek:

https://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=78893

Maybe you can still fix it, if you are more careful than that guy... But I guess it's almost impossible :(
There is no way to dissolve super glue without damaging the plastic?

https://www.google.se/#q=how+to+dissolve+super+glue
 

Hedlund

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"Super glue can be easy to remove from plastic. Use rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab to make the glue soft. Once the glue softens you can wipe it off"
 

DJCruicky

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You both found the same links as I did. Maybe I'll try the alcohol. (see you at the pub).
Would be hard to rub when it's inside the holes. I contacted Logitech to see what they can do for me, they going to get back to me (they already confirmed they don't do parts).
 

Hedlund

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DJCruicky said:
You both found the same links as I did. Maybe I'll try the alcohol. (see you at the pub).
Would be hard to rub when it's inside the holes. I contacted Logitech to see what they can do for me, they going to get back to me (they already confirmed they don't do parts).

Instead of rubbing, maybe you can try with a needle when the alcohol has dissolved the glue a bit?

Hope you can fix it!
 
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