Wired!

At last the pedals are wired! I've had them at home for a couple of weeks now, but various distractions have delayed their completion.

I also completed some other details once I brought the pedal unit home. I added some glides to the "feet" to protect my landlady's shiny new (but very soft) Chinese oak floor, and built a heel board and attached it to the feet below the pedals. I also spent some time adjusting the travel of the pedals by shortening the plastic tubing that fits over the threaded pushrods.

Finally, this evening, after a lot of snipping and soldering and shrinking of heat tubing, the wiring is done.

I used a project box from Radio Shack to enclose the Leo Bodnar load cell controller. It's way bigger than necessary, but the next smaller size available from Radio Shack was too small. Anyway, with this one there was plenty of room for a loop of extra wire inside. And despite the extra room inside this box it was still pretty tricky to get the load cell wires into their tiny little sockets on the controller board.

One thing I'd do differently next time is to get some 22 or 24 gauge wire instead of using the 20 gauge I had on hand. I tried to get some from Radio Shack but they don't have stranded wire that small, so I figured I'd make do with the 20 gauge.

But it's harder to solder to this thicker wire without getting the little posts too hot and melting something, plus the stiffer wire is more annoying to deal with, especially within the tiny confines of that little project box. I'm sure Digikey or YouDoIt or someplace like that has smaller stranded wire.

I left some slack in the wires so I will have room to move the pedals side to side a little as necessary to get perfect adjustment of the brake and throttle for heel and toeing, and to get the clutch in a comfortable position relative to the other two pedals.

Note that a standard USB cable plugs into the Bodnar load cell controller board through an opening in the bottom of the project box.

The next steps are to slide the G25 pedals out of the way, slip the new pedal assembly into place under my desk, hook it up to the computer, install Todd's software, and calibrate the pedals. And then DRIVE!

Don't you feel flattered that I took time out to post these photos for you first? ;)

(BTW, I'm sure these pedals will lop whole seconds off my lap times and make me as fast as Greger Huttu. Not!)