Kick Ass - Pt2

 The long-awaited sequel to my ordering of a rumble motor is here!

The question to answer first is, is it worth it?

Yes. Yes, it was worth the $250 or so I spent on DIY. And No, no it wouldn't be worth the $600+ (Aud) you'd spend on a kit to do exactly the same thing. Right, now that's out of the way, as you're doing this anyway, to the build...

Installation was easy. There's any number of gadgets and plates you can buy online to fit a DaytonAudio shaker to 8040 profile rigs. All of them look terrible.

Why? You want your shaker to be as tightly coupled to your rig as possible, any flex is lost fidelity. And looking online various Etsy and eBay sOlutions looked great, would have been a pain to fit, and would have ended up with something akin to a big guy on the end of a diving board (ask me how I know what that's like). So rubbish... 

I did briefly toy with 8040 cross members (two of them) and all the accompanying bracketry and in that the price went through the roof - so I decided to go ghetto on it, behold;

The only sticker on my rig. Tasteful.

Yes, it looks crap, but read on!

It looks like a poor fit, but in fact, works really well... the reasoning for this two-bolt approach?

Essentially the magnet being flung about inside is only going up and down, there's no lateral movement, so no need to worry about the thing rocking back and forth.

Fitting like this I drilled out the mounting holes to take the standard t-slot (M8 I think) bolts, then bolted it down directly to the rig. Above you can see the seat, so it's directly beneath my butt. Perfect placement in fact.

As an aside, there's a soft pad that sits on the base of the speaker. I get that if I were fitting that to a sofa or something as a movie kicker, but I want the full flex, so I re-tightened it a few nights later and sure enough, it had relaxed. 

Are there better ways to fit it? Not for $0 there isn't. I'm not sure if another way would get more "action" out of the kicker, but how I have it is plenty so I'm happy. If I'd not been I'd have invested in something more designed. Try this approach first!

I had a win on the amp side of things too! With my original rig purchase, I bought a keyboard and tablet mounting rig, it was ridiculously over-engineered, resembling an armored car mounted on the end of a Waldo arm. So I had spare parts (I should post all the places I've used the kit, it's impressive), specifically the lower clamp bit for the keyboard, hard to describe, but it mounted under my mouse plate like this:

By Design!

I don't think it could have fitted better to be honest. Loose cabling has since been sorted with Etsy cable clamps which is far cheaper than the official - no way I'm paying $20 postage for 10 tiny bits of plastic!

Configuration

One of the key reasons I shunned a proper solution was reviews talking about using SimHub as a driving app for the "proper" kits - so there's no benefit in having to pay for the software, and then it becomes easy to buy the hardware (see Pt1).

I'll not bore with the technical details of connectivity and running a usb sound card to the back of this amp, it's all simple stuff.

SimHub is comprehensive, I found that out the hard way, and you can set your rumble shaker up to basically be on all the time, it's easy to saturate the effect. 

So I took an informative + immersion route and set this:

What do we have...

• RPMs - set to a slow(ish) rumble at idle, and then cut out at any revs. 
• This is for immersion - as I join the grid or am in the pits my whole rig rumbles like it's a lumpy idle. Excellent.
• Gear Shift - set to kick on up/down shift. This is really apparent in paddle and sequential shifting,
• This is immersion - it's just cool to feel a bit of a kick on shifting - most reviewers have this on too, and I can see why.
• Wheels Lock - set to screech (high frequency) on locking. Overrides every other setting.
• This is informative - it really is a shocker when you lock up. Feels horrible, training me nicely!
• Road Impacts - set pretty low, still rubbish on Bathurst
• This is mostly for immersion - it does let me know if the track is really bumpy, as in losing traction. I don't have this setting very high as it can saturate the shaker easily.
• Road Rumble - set for curbs etc.
• This is informative and actually does help with immersion. This is an excellent setting that means when I clip a curb I feel the rumble. That coupled to sound in headphones and I'm tricked into 'feeling it' on the left and right-hand sides respectively. Very cool.

And that's it. It's worth noting I'm using a DD1 with a 918 rim - which has rumble motors in the wheel itself. I'm also using V3 Clubsport pedals which have near-useless motors in the brake and accelerator. All of this in a fairly stiff rig means I get an absolute ton of feedback, any more and it would be counter-intuitive. 

As it is, I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste, we all want different things and indeed race in different environments. But for me, it's just right, I use this profile on every game I race on (AMS2, ACC, AC, RRRE, Forza, and so on) to get a consistent feedback experience, and I love it.

Would I do it again, yep, it's worth the initial cost and effort to set up for sure.