MOMO Racing Wheel [ 국외 자료링크 ]

[正漢*^^*]

국내 판매되고 있는 모모레이싱휠

MOMO Racing

The exterior appearance of the MOMO Racing vaguely resembles the Force. Like the Force, the Racing has a 9.5” three-spoke wheel, six programmable buttons, and two paddle shifters. The Racing also adds an adjustable stick shifter. In contrast to the Force, the Racing wheel is constructed with less durable materials and does not have the solid, sturdy feel of the Force. The wheel is rubber and not leather covered and the paddle shifters are plastic as opposed to metal.

The stick shifter can be removed and configured for left-handed or right-handed shifting.

The clamping system on the Racing has been re-designed from the Force. It is now possible to have all three clamps secure the wheel housing to the desk without the need for drilling a hole in the desk. A cover must be removed from the top of the wheel housing to gain access to two of the mounting clamps. This cover tended to fall off frequently when installing/removing the wheel and eventually became a slight nuisance. Since the cover is only for aesthetics, many users may eventually choose to leave it off.

Aside from the annoying plastic cover, the new clamping system holds the Racing extremely firmly to the desk. The additional third clamp really stabilizes the wheel and will allow for those hard, quick turns at Sears Point without the wheel ending up in your lap.

The Racing’s pedals differ significantly from those of the Force. First, the pedal base is constructed entirely of plastic ? no metal skid plate. Second, the pedals are fixed and do not pivot. However, the fixed position is at about 45º, which does provide a comfortable driving position.

The bottom of the pedal base is equipped with four non-skid rubber pads to reduce sliding on hard floors. For those with carpeted floors, Logitech has developed a clever non-skid strip that can be engaged to provide additional traction. This strip can be disengaged for use on hard floors.

It is now time to open up the Racing.
Since the Force and Racing wheels look similar, one would think that the assembly (or disassembly in this case) would be the same. Not quite. The six hex screw heads on the front of the Racing wheel are purely decoration. They are simply molded into the wheel face. To gain access to the inside of the Racing does not require the removal of the wheel. By simply removing several screws from the bottom of the wheel housing allows the top cover to be removed.

All of the gears and motor can now be easily accessed. The mechanics of the Racing are significantly different from the Force. Whereas the Force utilized large metal bearings in its force feedback mechanism, the Racing has only a small plastic “bushing” (actually, two plastic halves with some lubricating grease).

The motor for the Racing is smaller than on the Force. To determine wheel position, the Racing uses a “pulse wheel” on the motor combined with a “centering sensor” located on the steering shaft as opposed to the potentiometer system used on the Force. The reducer gear simply rides on a metal shaft, lubricated with a small amount of grease.

With the cover off, one can see the left and right-hand stick shifter switches.

Accessing the pedal mechanism required the removal of several screws in the base. Of course, four of those screws were hidden behind the rubber pads, which had to be removed to gain access to those screws. Several differences between the Force and the Racing pedals were noted. The arms for the gas and brake are of equal length on the Racing. The Racing’s pedals also used torsion springs for tension as opposed to the compression springs found in the Force. It would seem that compression springs would be more durable than torsion springs in this application. Like the Force, potentiometers keep track of the position of the gas and brake pedal in the Racing. To provide additional resistance to the brake pedal, an additional larger spring was added.

As with the Force, the bottom portion of the base contains the other half of the pedal arm mounting channels as well as rubber stops for the pedal arms. Two metal blocks are also mounted in the bottom of the base to add weight to reduce slippage while in use.