The Chicane Podcast

Exploring Cutting-Edge Gadgets for Sim Racing Part 2

• TGS Sim Racing • Episode 10

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Ever wondered what it takes to move up the ranks in iRacing? Join us as Jeff shares his thrilling journey from the rookie class to earning his D license, all while mastering the F4 car. We also debate the age-old question: is it better to specialize in one game for mastery or to spread the joy across multiple titles, like Jason’s recent adventures in WRC? Experience the rollercoaster of emotions that come with intense practice, maintaining composure, and the sheer joy of progress in the sim racing world.

Imagine transforming your racing setup with the power of Hue Lights! In this segment, Jeff and Jason bring the magic of dynamic lighting to life, showing how LED bars like Philips Hue Play can replicate screen colors and enhance the realism of your sim racing experience. From the impact of a dark room to the heightened immersion of night races, discover why investing in quality lighting is a game-changer for serious sim racers. Plus, get expert recommendations on the best products to elevate your setup.

Shifters, seatbelt tensioners, and the latest F1 highlights—our episode has it all! We compare various sim racing shifters, from sequential to H-pattern options from top brands like Fanatec and Sim Magic, and discuss the innovative use of Philips HuePlay Smart LED Bars for in-cockpit light indications. Our conversation shifts to the fascinating world of sim racing seatbelt tensioners, their costs, and practicality. To wrap up, we bring you exciting news from the sim racing community and a dramatic recap of George Russell’s victory in the recent F1 race in Austria. Tune in for a packed episode of insights and excitement!

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Jason:

The Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in the sim racing world. I'm your host, jason Rivera, and I'm joined here by Mr Jeff Smart. How are you doing today, sir, and I'm joined here by Mr Jeff Smart.

Jeff:

How are you doing today, sir? Yo Jason, I'm hyped man, Been in the rig a bunch this week driving my new car, the F4 car, Moved up a class dude, I'm ready to get into it today, man Ready to get into it.

Jason:

Hell yeah, man, I've been on the returning from vacation mode where I'm still not here and I'm I'm still over in europe, and then the games are on, and I don't know. I just been, I've been on the wrc a little bit, that's uh, streamed that earlier, uh, today, um, and I noticed that you've been hard on the I racing lately, like way harder than than than ever, dude, you're yeah, there was only somebody.

Jeff:

If there was only somebody that was telling me about this months ago, to get into it I know right, shame.

Jason:

Yeah, man it's, it's a blast.

Jeff:

It's a blast racing other people, you know.

Jason:

Any times it's awesome okay, but, jeff, just don't forget that iRacing isn't the only platform for that. I mean just saying you know, I know it's hard to get an LFM license and probably our listeners are some of you. Hopefully all of you have a license and if you don't, don't give up, it's worth it, but, but, but. But. F1 is Jeff's thing and iRacing seems to be satisfying all corners of the F1 drug.

Jeff:

If you may, yeah, man, I kind of do like binge games at times, like I don't jump around from game to game to game. I'll, like I'll spend three hard weeks grinding in one of the games or one car and then jump to totally different, like you were just talking about it. You're spending. You know been jumping in WRC lately, yeah, I. And then jump to totally different, like you were just talking about it. You're spending. You know been jumping in wrc lately. Um, yeah, I do the same thing, but just I'll stick in something.

Jason:

Once I find something, I'm gonna grind it out and see, that's the better way to go about things, man and better it's always, I think it's better honestly it's better because you know I can't be a master at something if I keep doing all of the things. You know what I mean. I can't master one thing.

Jeff:

I'm like a jack of all trades man, that's what I've found too, is when you enjoy a little bit of everything, it's hard to be super competitive in one of them.

Jason:

Right, you go against somebody that's like he's been on the track all morning, all day, all week, all month in some cases, and then you're just trying to go in there and like, all right, man, let me see what's my lap times. And you're like, damn, like, how can I? You know?

Jeff:

Yeah, like that dude's got his breaking points down to like the inch. You know where he's hitting that spot. Yeah, I, I mean it's hard to compete with that when you enjoy a whole bunch of stuff yeah, and I'm hearing that you did really well in the rookie class.

Jason:

So congratulations. And I'm really telling you this because a lot of people get stuck in the rookies man, they don't, they don't ever leave because they get into wrecks or they push too hard. You were, you were um, you held your composter, you were safe and you were also fast. So I mean that's kind of impressive.

Jeff:

So thanks, man, I am the uh. For those that are listening, I don't think I had this last time. We were uh recording, but I am the the newest D license holder in the Formula class for iRacing.

Jason:

So yeah, it's awesome, it's nice and shiny, it's nice and shiny.

Jeff:

That F4 car is head and shoulders above the CV. And what is it? The FF1600.

Jason:

I mean like head and shoulders, yeah the 1600 or something like that. It has no downforce you said right.

Jeff:

They even advertise it as zero downforce. It looks like a toy man it looks like a soapbox car that they do that downhill stuff in with it, just gravity and they just let the brake off and fastest into the finish. Yeah, it looks like that, but it's got a little like 1600 cc motor on the back, little big lawnmower engine. But it's fun. It was fun actually.

Jason:

It's great wheel-to-wheel racing yeah, I actually had fun racing with you the other day. We we got on track together. I think it was a practice round and that was fun. This dude wrecked in front of jeff's car and jeff dodges him and I'm like, oh snap, the car's like coming right at me, flipped over you and just those little things my head. Yeah, I was like dude, I almost hit this guy, but anyway we got some good stuff today yes, yes, we do.

Jason:

Today is actually a part two of the hardware tools that are commonly used in sim racing, and the purpose of all these episodes are to make sure that we cover as many questions. You may or may not have right, so feel free. The podcast has an email now it's called the chicane podcast at gmailcom, which you can email your questions, comments, concerns or stories. I want to hear all of it, we all want to hear all of it, and we'll read them here live on the very next, you know, the very next time we we get into the studio yeah, absolutely tell us your story you want to hear.

Jeff:

You know how you got into. You know sim racing. You got any questions? We'll try to help you out. Um, yeah, just tell us your story. Tell us you're listening, what we're doing, what we can improve on yeah, because we can all learn from it.

Jason:

You're, we're still learning. It's not like we're going to sit here on a high horse saying that we know everything. This is still a growing community. It's a learning curve and things change constantly and we're trying to keep up with it, and that is one of the reasons why the podcast exists, right? So, without further ado, I'm going to open up the first tool that's on our list today, or the second half. Right is wind simulators, so wind simulators simulate wind. Right, so you'll have typically two. Uh, they look like. What do you call those tubes, jeff?

Jeff:

they look like, um, they're like mini ac ducks yeah, like washing machine tubes or something like that a little smaller, maybe, like what, three and a half inches in diameter.

Jason:

So yeah, and then it has like a like a pc fan attached to one end of it and then just a simple control board that controls the fan and the speed and again SimHub, which we're going to cover. That's, we're cooking. We're cooking the pots up to get SimHub ready. Simhub is the master controller to everything For me. It is awesome, jeff. You have an AC system inside your rig. Literally, you turn the engine on and I set mines to idle at 10, whatever level you you got to play around with it, based on the model you get, um, and it just constantly blows air, kind of like an ac. And then when you speed up it it throws more air and when you go into the turns it actually changes the wind direction. So the wind will blow from one side. If you're, if you're, turning right, then it'll blow. You know what I'm saying so.

Jeff:

That's why they have the two, the two ducts. Okay, that's interesting, I did not know that yeah, and drafting.

Jason:

So sim hub has a mode called draft mode. So when you're behind, when you're directly behind a car, you could set the intensity. I set mine at 100%. So what that means is if I'm behind the car I get no wind whatsoever, but the minute I go for an overtake I just get hit by a damn storm in my face of wind to simulate speed. It's kind of like a yeah, I see you thinking about it.

Jeff:

I'm like hey man, yeah, that's pretty rad, that's pretty cool.

Jason:

Yeah, man, it is again these tools. None of these tools are really necessary, but they help with immersion and for me they're invaluable because they keep me cool in the rig. The rig is hot, even though I have central ac in the house, you know, thank god. And then I also have a fan above my rig and still, you know, having 332 inches and a pc in the back, it will get hot, doesn't?

Jeff:

matter what you do, because, yeah, I I do. You know, I have a you know my rig in a little small bedroom and I do have an air you know central air in here, but it does get warm and I still have a fan overhead and it still gets hot. So, uh, at a minimum I might have to look in that just to keep it cool. Hey, I got a. I got a question for you Do you have different settings or do you notice an immersion, uh difference, when you're in a formula car that IE doesn't have a windshield, versus, like, a GT three car? You know that is more of your traditional car.

Jason:

That's the only limitation is that at at. You can disable whatever you want, telemetry wise. But like for truck simming I you know I drive a truck I don't set the fans to blow at full blast when the truck reaches I don't know 60 miles an hour, because it just, it's just not realistic. So the only thing I leave on is that constant AC blowing, because you know you're in a truck, you know you're going to have AC on. I hope you do so, but I hear what you're saying.

Jeff:

You know what I mean. I mean, I imagine never driven a GT3 car on the road, but I imagine that there's still probably some type level of airflow that comes through the car, or even if it's just the sound of the wind over the car.

Jason:

So you're right about that. There is, and it looks very similar. It has duck-duck system, but the driver has a full suit on and a helmet.

Jeff:

He's not going to really you know what I mean.

Jason:

Yeah, fair enough, he's's not gonna really feel that I mean an f1 car probably the most realistic because, yeah, the guy has a helmet on but he's doing 200 miles an hour. He's gonna feel something.

Jeff:

You're gonna feel something. Yeah, that's fair, that's fair yeah, I mean I was gonna ask you I wouldn't put it past you that you have some type of setting when you're driving your truck that you know, because you have a bunch of settings with your windows. You put down the windows, the fan turns on, or something like that. I'm sure there's a bunch of different settings that you can mess with that, but it's yeah, man, it's cool dude, I, I dig it, that's, you know I. You always say, oh, I'm done, the rig it's done.

Jeff:

You're not done, bro, but I ain't never done I think that's probably up there on my onesies, twosies of things that are on the list of the next things you want.

Jason:

Right and win sims. Typically I mean $250, the cheapest one, the one I have was $300. I'd say pay the money, get the better one if you can, because you're only gonna save a few dollars, maybe 50, and you know god knows how long that's gonna last, and no warranty. So I've had these for about a year, I think, and they've been good. I broke the control box a few months back and it was my fault and I had to order another control box. But it was cool because it's a company and I can actually go to them and say, hey, can you send me this part? You know what I mean. I have this part broken and it was like $50 for the control box replaced it. I got pretty demolished with shipping because with shipping, because shipping always kills us out here, but I needed it and that was the case right there that I needed it.

Jeff:

It is what it is right. You got everything else. You need the control box. You got to do it.

Jason:

So, to wrap up, winsims, they're available on etsy for the budget-friendly ones, and we'll, we'll, we'll cover etsy today as well, what it is and what we use it for. And then the one I have is from srs and it's called the hurricane. Oh so all right, well that. Oh so All right. Well, that covers when Sims. And again, guys, I'm a mention it one more time If you have any questions on any of this stuff, I am more than happy. We are more than happy to go further into detail. Ok, but this is just a quick synopsis of each thing. So the next one on the list is Hue Lights, and I'm going to give this to jeff to cover jeff, please yes.

Jeff:

So just to cover what hue lights are um, they are about a six to eight inch uh led bar, that they come in pairs, um, and what they do is you can select a portion of your screen that the program that the lights are tied to will duplicate the color that is on the screen at that time. So what I do is I have mine that are mounted above my rig, so I think maybe maybe a foot, foot and a half above my head, there's two of them and then I set the area that the program will. The color it will read is the. So if I'm in my gt3, like the mclaren 720, I'll have it take uh, read the the dash.

Jeff:

And the reason I do the dash is because what I really wanted to simulate is the daylight and the shadows as I'm driving my car through the. In the sunlight, the dash is bright and the shadows as I'm driving my car through. In the sunlight, the dash is bright and the lights overhead will be a bright white, and as I move my car, drive the car through the shadows of the trees and that dash goes a little darker, the lights dim a little bit and that provides a much more immersive feeling in the car, inversive excuse me, immersive uh feeling in the car. Uh, really, where it really provides a lot of immersion is when you're racing at night and you're coming through the backs, the, the straightaway, where they have the stadium lights, and as you're going through the, you know where it's light and it was dark and then, like a football field, later they have another light.

Jeff:

Awesome feel. Later they have another light like you get the overhead though, as it's picking that up and it's, it's wicked, um, but through sim hub it lets you set each car for. So, if you jump, I have different places on my screen that it'll read the, the color. Um, when I'm in the gt3, when I load f123 and I'm in uh, you know the mercedes, I have different places that it reads the light and I have it on like the uh for lack of a better word the fuselage of the car, um, like, right in front of right in front of me, where the the halo comes down.

Jeff:

So the light.

Jeff:

That's a good idea of that, um, it picks up off that area, um, but it's really cool when you're driving at like sunset or dusk and you get that glare coming in off of the, the, from the sun, as it's low on the horizon off the hood and dash and then really into your eyes, is.

Jeff:

It magnifies that feeling, um, and you can see it on your arms like you would if you were in a real car, like the light is going to come through the windshield and hit you in your body, in your arms, where this provides that light in your in the car, quote unquote and it'll light your, hit you in your body, in your arms, where this provides that light in your in the car, quote unquote and it'll light your arms. You know your, your steering wheel and such. And yeah, it's all different colors green, purple, red, you know right, it would come up as it displays and it, the immersion it provides, is next level yeah, it's awesome um my recommendation would be uh, you really need to try to get a dark room to set your rig up there.

Jeff:

You go and then I try to drive with the lights off, um, and then you know, turn the room lights off and then turn the hue lights on and it really magnifies that immersion with the. You know lights dimming and especially like driving through a track like monza that goes through the forest, um, and you get the, you know where the, the trees are breaking up that sun, you know many times a second. Or you know many times through the, in, through the straightaway, and you get the lights and it just adds a really cool environment. Uh, it's pretty rad.

Jason:

It's pretty cool, it's pretty dope. I ain't going to lie either.

Jeff:

Yeah, so like go ahead.

Jason:

No, no, please.

Jeff:

Yeah, there's a couple. I know I think Groove, I'm going to go. V is, I think, how you pronounce it. I think they make some products too. I got the Govee for my TV for some immersive lighting. I for some immersive lighting. I think you can do it. I use the Philips Hue lights, but SimHub supports Govee and Hue. They might do one or two other companies, but my recommendation to anybody listening would be stick with those two. I think the Hue is probably a little bit more common in the sim racing world. I think it's a little more expensive, but if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know you get what you pay for in this world. So I think little more expensive, but if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know you get what you pay for in this world. Uh, right, so I think the hue lights are great. Uh, good mounting options. We'll get into the etsy, um when it comes to some of the mounting things later.

Jason:

Um, jason, you run these right? Yeah, I run these, yep, I run.

Jeff:

What do you think?

Jason:

of them. I love them, so they're awesome. I've had them for two years now. I think that was one of the first upgrades that I did to the rig. And just if you're going to go Jeff is right you can use Govee or Philips. I can't speak for Govee, but I know Philips you need the control box, so make sure that when you buy them and they're called the hue play lights right, the play lights, I believe yeah, you'd have to.

Jeff:

You might have to, uh, do some research on that, but I'm not sure. But I think, yeah, play lights or the, the phillip hue lights or something like that, but you'll know when you see it. It's about eight inches long. They're coming two pack, um, I think you can actually run three off the control box, um, but you need to get the control box.

Jason:

You need the control box. Yep, you need to get the kit that comes with it. I think it's called the starter kit. So I love them. They're awesome. They're great. They don't make you faster.

Jeff:

Okay, this is a straight it's a good point, that's a great point you know what?

Jason:

you're gonna see some crazy stuff if you spin out. You know. You know it's gonna be flashing lights all over the place when you spin out. I got a quick story.

Jeff:

So I was racing uh one of the ace, the set of course uh uh servers online. Uh, you know where you're racing the japanese uh highway system.

Jason:

You know driving some car at night you know, just hammering it, it was just you got the highway lights right, it's awesome.

Jeff:

and then you go through the tunnel and you know, then it goes like a yellow light overhead and then you know you come out of it, turns off, and and then I was jiving and jiving it, you know, in and out of traffic and then I ran out of talent and I clipped the car dude and it was like I don't even know how many times I rolled the car. It looked like a party.

Jeff:

Yeah, the lights were like wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, but they're cool, they're pretty cool Again. Not going to make you faster, but it'll make the immersion better.

Jason:

No, they won't make you faster. But I do have one thing to add with these lights and this is a recent thing. You might want to check this out, jeff, if you haven't but Daniel Newman, from Daniel Newman Racing, created a profile for these lights and if you want to use them in a different way, you can have the lights flash yellow when there's a yellow flag or when there's a red flag, but, to be honest, to me the lights need to remain that part of being inside of a cockpit, like Jeff said. Like Jeff explained.

Jeff:

You know what I mean.

Jason:

If you want that, get the little cube there, get a screen, get an LED, get your wheel to do it. You know so many different things.

Jeff:

Yeah, go ahead, so I looked it up here it's the Philips HuePlay. Smart LED Bar 2-packpack and to jason point, you need the bridge. The bridge is what connects to your wi-fi and that communicates the lights. You can put it anywhere in your house, it'll work.

Jason:

Um, I think I have it on like the total part, opposite ends of the house and there's no slow down or anything right, and it used to be way harder, because I remember when we were setting this stuff stuff up excuse me, sim hub did it wasn't compatible. It only became compatible with sim hub recently, so we had to use the philips software to trick the thing. Do you remember how we were?

Jason:

yeah, you have to move this icon that looked like a, it was like these two stanchions that looked like lights and it was in front of a tv, in front of a couch and I'm like what the hell is this?

Jeff:

it's like, it's like, maybe, maybe a half inch by a quarter inch tv on your iphone that's simulating your 32 inch. You're like, bro, this is impossible. But sim hub saved the day, as they do all the time with everything, so yep no one's gonna worry about that anymore.

Jason:

Sim hub saves the day I'm telling you, sim hub is the best ten dollars for a lifetime license that I've ever spent like hands down. Yeah, yeah I mean I would pay more for it. I don't know why he doesn't I mean nicola the creator. I don't know why he doesn't charge more, but you gotta respect the man. The guy puts his heart and soul into this thing. Every time Jeff and I get on the rig, or something like that every week, sim.

Jeff:

Hub needs to be updated.

Jason:

Yeah, and it's not just fixes, it's features, features, features.

Jeff:

If you're in the sim, racing world and you've spent gajillions of dollars on a rig and equipment. Pay the $10. It'll be well worth it.

Jason:

Yeah, and PC only, guys, so sorry. I mean, it's compatible somewhat with consoles, but, dude, if you're on a PC 100,000% you need to be running SimHub. Trust me, and we'll get into that Promise. I keep saying that, but we need to get all this stuff out.

Jeff:

The way so that we can open the gates, laying the foundation.

Jason:

Yeah, we can open the gates to SimHub, so that covers the lights. The next thing is these are quick. So types of shifters can you tell me about those, Jeff?

Jeff:

Yeah, so in the sim racing world I mean basically in the real racing world you've got kind of two types of shifters that aren't the paddle shifters, the traditional, clicking on your steering wheel you have your sequential. So just straightforward, straight back and your HPAD and your traditional and your mom and dad's car. I don't even know Do they make standards anymore or manuals anymore. I mean, it's like the lost art. I heard somebody was like like it's, the best anti-theft device is a real stick. Anyways, back to back to the topic at hand. Uh, so you dare, most some companies makes a, uh, a shifter that with a, a switch that goes from an h pattern, uh, you flip the switch and it goes straight into a sequential. So you can buy one and it does both, average maybe. Um, it doesn't do, it doesn't do either of them. Great, but it does both of them. Okay, it'll pass for, but you know it probably is your entry level. Uh, uh shifter that does both and it'll be okay. Um, if you want to step up into your kind of your next tier and really there there's not a whole lot of companies that are making the H pattern in the, in the, the sequentials SIM excuse me, sim magic makes a two different sequentials. One is, I forget, the, the, the, the make but. And then the next one up is like a $400 shifter. It's got an LED, programmable, but programmable buttons, um, and things like that.

Jeff:

So, uh, you're really kind of looking at two different types of shifters. Um, if your rig is kind of tight, you might want to look at a, one of those combination ones. Um, I had the fan attack one, um, and it did great. You know it was it was. It was, uh, you drive nascar one day or one time and you got your h pattern and then you jump into something that has the sequential and just a quick switch, a click in the fanatec software and you're off with a sequential. But, um, those are the two big kind of shifters. Uh, not too much to add here. Most of the sequentials have a lever or dial that can adjust the uh, the sensitivity or the force you need to slam the, the gear, forward and backwards. Um, that can probably provide a little bit more of the uh, the, the realism and the immersion you make you feel you're actually in a car, like a actual car that's hydraulically driven, etc.

Jeff:

Um, but anything else you want to add about the uh, the shifters there, jason, Actually I do so.

Jason:

You saw, you spoke about paddle shifters. Um, I think I can't remember right now who makes them, but there's paddle shifters that connect to your motor so that way, when you're driving, rally and the wheel spinning, the paddles actually stay in place. Those are one type, and then there's a thing called the BHD shifter, which costs $1,200. Jeez, yeah, better make it faster for that much.

Jason:

Dude, it is a real life engineered piece of equipment that's supposed to simulate what an H pattern is really like. You know what I mean? The whole big chunk of metal thing. Okay, yeah, it's not for me.

Jason:

Maybe we have some listeners that can afford a $1,200 shifterifter I highly recommend the uh go ahead the, the, what you call, um, the combination shifters that you were talking about, the ones that have, like, uh, that switch between sequential and h pattern, because, to be honest with you, those shifters are good h patterns, they're always great h patterns, but if you are a rally racer then I would recommend a regular, just a regular, uh, sequential, and houston belt makes one.

Jeff:

Yeah, go ahead, jeff, yeah here's just some uh quick prices for everybody and this is a uh sim magic. So their entry level, um sequential, is the DS8X and that runs you 390, 389 out-the-door, plus taxes, vat, et cetera, shipping. And then you have this magic Q1S sequential shifter, that's saying it's 260. And then they have their top-of-the-line, the Q1 long-handle sequential shifter, that's 380 um. So there's kind of your. The first one I talked about, the ds uh 8x shifter, is your one that can go h um and sequential um combo yeah, the combo.

Jeff:

So, uh, sim magic does have two. And then their top of the line, um sequential, is 380, and it's got all the bells and whistles you could ever want.

Jason:

Right, so just do your research. I have a Simagic Q1S, I have a TH8 Thrustmaster 6-speed and then I also have a Moza 7-gate shifter, and the reason why so many shifters is because that's my truck shifter. My six gate is on the left. That's my drift shifter, and then I have the sequential for rally.

Jeff:

Yeah, let that sink in everybody. Okay, the dude can drive sequential. Sequential with his right hand and then gets in the drifting car and uses an h pattern with his left hand. I mean, dude, it's, I'm not. I'll tip my hat to where people, where it's due, and I'll tip my hat to when it comes to that. With drifting, you can shift with your left hand. That's pretty rad yeah, it's not.

Jason:

It wasn't so bad. It was just because, you know me, I love japanese jdm cars. So, yeah, I wanted it had to be on the left, and same thing with the e-brake, e-brakes on the left, but talking about e-brakes right, uh, pretty much. I think we pretty much nailed the shifters down pretty good. So thank you for that, jeff. So e-brakes, very simple, you have two, three types. So you have your regular analog, which is going to be just a regular spring pull action. Then you have your Sim Lab makes them. It has an actual rubber gasket that, there's a name for it. It has a rubber gasket that creates force when you get to the end. It's almost similar to a load cell. It is a load cell, that's the word. Thank you, jeff for it. It has a rubber gasket that that creates force when you get to the end. It's like a almost similar to a load cell it is a load cell, that's the word.

Jason:

Thank, you jeff, you saved me. Oh, my god, how do I forget that load cell? And then you have one different e-brake that sim magic makes that's now a hydraulic. You know? E-brake, they all do the same thing. Okay, you pull the e-brake. The e-brake, they all do the same thing. Okay, you pull the e-brake, the e-brake goes there. There's no really too much finesse with it. The only finesse is probably in a rally game where you're just on and off the the, the pressure.

Jason:

So those are your types of e-brakes. They range from a hundred to $200. You can get them on Amazon, you can get them on amazon, you can get them on etsy. You can get them from branded um branded ones if you want. I highly recommend the sim lab one. It's kind of the all-arounder, it's full aluminum, it's load celled, but then you can adjust it to make it loose. If you want a loose e-brake, however you want so. And then we have something new that just came out recently, and SimHub is actually the one that's controlling this peripheral, the belt tensioner. And Jeff reached out to me last week. He's like dude, what do you think about this? So let's hear it from Jeff. What do you think about these new belt tensioners? Yeah, yeah.

Jeff:

So let me just cover kind of what they are, because I didn't really. I've been thinking about them but I don't really know what they were called for the longest while is. So a lot of people think it's funny that you know, some people have the four point, five point harness in their sim racing seat. Um, and yeah, it provides a little bit more of the immersion that you're strapped in the seat and a little bit of tightness. But what these seat belt tensioners do is their little motors that are attached to the rig at the back of your, the bottom of the back of your seat, and their your, your harness, your racing harness, is attached to the, I guess, the shaft of those motors and it's tied into surprise, surprise everybody Simhub and the telemetry of the game that you're playing. So what, what it really does is, as you're going down straight away in the car and you come into a corner and you hit the brakes, what the belt tensioner does is it will spin the shaft and tighten it and in turn tighten the seat around your shoulders and what that's kind of insinuating is that you're being pushed forward and now your shoulders feel more stress from the harness and then, as you let go of the brake, the motor relaxes, gives you some slack in the seat as you accelerate again and you get pushed back in your seat and it kind of gives you a little bit more added of the immersion.

Jeff:

So, um, I had been looking for something like this maybe, you know, as a little hobby to put together. Um, there are a lot. I want to say a lot, but there are a number of plans to do your own, um, you know project when it comes to buying a motor, um, some type of circuit board that interacts with the computer and in turn, simagic, and you're gonna need some software on there and a harness that's integrated into the shaft of those motors. Then they make also a handful of these products from the industry and let me tell you they are not cheap. I was shocked at the price of these things.

Jeff:

Some of these things are $1,000. So hey, hopefully some of our listeners got that cheddar to spend on seatbelt tensioners.

Jason:

That's a hell of a dice roll.

Jeff:

Right. I was like I'll build this thing. I can't possibly spend a thousand dollars to build. It's got to be way cheaper than that. And then, jason, thank you, you brought up a great idea that you're going to be soldering, doing all this stuff to put this together and then you're going to put it into your. You know your super high-end pc and you know one bad solder, and now you shorted out your pc you shorted your motherboard and everything that's connected to it.

Jeff:

So you know, if there's anybody out there that has one of these that's listening, shoot us a note um the chicane podcast gmail. Let us know what you think, whether you built it, what brand you got. Um, I'm super interested in it. Um, just to see firsthand. You know there's really not much out there on ebay or not, excuse me, youtube on reviews and people putting them together. Um, I think it's probably maybe like the up and coming product for sim racing, maybe, um, they some been around for a while. Um, just not a lot of project uh products out there for it. But, uh, like I said, reach out if you, if you've got one, uh, but they're not cheap.

Jason:

You know they run from 400 to 1000 bucks um at that price range.

Jeff:

I don't see myself jumping into one of these things.

Jason:

It'd be cool to try. I'd love to try one.

Jason:

It is cool, yeah can't, can't, can't spend the cheddar to try it you know, I just feel like the chair's not moving, but the belts are tightening my arms. I'm just thinking, going to feel I mean, none of us are going to know, right, unless we just straight up and try it, just like Jeff said. Here's my two cents and we'll move on. If I'm going to spend a thousand dollars, I might as well spend another thousand and just get a seat mover and then just have a real harness, strap it up and and I'll move left, right, up and down all the way. You're looking at one single action and that is the titan and the loosen for a thousand bucks.

Jeff:

I don't think it's worth it you bring up a good point, man you're. You're kind of approaching a decent chunk of that motion uh where you like. You said you could get a couple axes of movement it's just one axis bro. Yeah, it's not even a for a thousand bucks. You're really not gonna get an axis, if you will right you're.

Jason:

You're simulating an axis honestly acceleration and deceleration it might annoy the shit out of me, it might be right, yeah I, and that's that sucks for a thousand bucks, right, you know who? Knows. And then you're stuck right because anything you custom build, there's no return anything, bro. So I mean I can buy this motor and, yeah, I probably pay a hefty amount to ship it back, but at least I'll get 80 of my money back or 90 of my money back then.

Jeff:

Then no money back it, it's kind of?

Jason:

yeah, and unfortunately there's no sim racing expos around us that carry this type of equipment that we can go and try it. So if anyone has, like Jeff just mentioned, please send us a note on the email. It's in the description of all our episodes. Now I updated all of them, so those should hit your. It should automatically be there now the the email to the show. All right, so the next one and possibly the final one uh, etsy. Etsy is not really a hardware tool, it's. It falls in the middle right because you get hardware from it.

Jeff:

It's a store you get cool stuff from them.

Jason:

That's really what it comes down to. So if you ever sit in your rig and you need something to hold your beer or hold your phone, then etsy has pretty much you name it.

Jeff:

They got like 4 328 cup holders that can be mounted to your rig.

Jason:

Yeah, at different angles, different colors, you know, you name it. Yeah, if you have an 80-20 rig, oh my God, that opens up a whole different can of possibilities, right? Because 80-20 is a standard. It doesn't matter if you have a track racer or Sim Lab, 80-20 is 80-20. So it'll fit, you know, and that applies to any parts or upgrades that you want to add on to the rig. So that's just a quick thing, etsycom, please, etsy, if you are listening to the podcast, you need a credit card and a rewards program, because I have spent thousands of dollars on I don't know how many just to wrap.

Jeff:

You know they have, you know, iphone charging mounts to attach the rig. They have, I mean really the big. You know I've bought hundreds of cable management little clips that you can mount to the, the rigs and make your you know the wires nice and neat. I mean they have headphone mounts, steering wheel mounts for your wall. I mean it is endless. Just go on to etsy and do a search for sim racing and you'll go down a rabbit hole like none other yeah, it's a you.

Jason:

You'll want to scroll through the hundreds of pages. Trust me, because I've done it before laying in bed.

Jeff:

They got, they. They got ddus, they got. I mean they got everything win sims yeah, they got win sims they got. I mean anything and everything you could possibly want. I mean a lot of it and honestly, is 3d printed stuff um?

Jason:

but most of it, yeah yeah so that covers etsy and that wraps up our segment for hardware tools. Uh, I'm pretty sure we'll have more later down the road. I just want to update everyone with some news, and this is going to be a quick segment. But lfm just announced there's rumors and announcement that they are going to support ams2. So that's news number one. News number two is that ace evo pictures are flooded on the internet and on top of that they also created the steam page for ac evo, meaning the game is going to release this year. They're serious about it I at least in early access. They're gonna release about, they're gonna, they're planning on releasing it so those screenshots were dope.

Jeff:

I mean, they were nice. Now I don't get everybody gets excited because it looks so nice, it's a rendering, got it.

Jason:

But if it's good if it's half as good come on yeah, I hope, I hope, man, they can deliver on that. I mean, you just never know. I mean, look at f124, how nice beautiful.

Jeff:

It looked in videos and, yeah, way to take everybody down a peg there, jason. So yeah, I'm hopeful I got a couple things that I hope they have in it. I'm sure everybody's got a. You know some things that they're looking for it.

Jason:

It probably won't release you know a hundred percent good. It might take some time to cook up, but we have so many other sims to keep you busy, you know. Just keep that in mind. Don't don't knock on it too hard. You know they're, they're trying, so we'll see what AC Evo and we'll continue to update you. We do have a little bonus today, jeff, if you can. Just I'm going to give you three minutes to put this out and I'm going to give everyone a fair siren warning. If you're an F1 enthusiastast and you have not seen the show, the race, excuse me, the race this week and when I mean yes, austria 2024.

Jason:

You need to turn the podcast off, right?

Jeff:

now and we'll hit you up next week. Tune in next week, we'll give you a couple seconds to stop it, stop your.

Jason:

Next week we're going to go ham on this topic, so we're going to give you that leeway. So, Jeff, the floor is yours. Our F1 expert.

Jeff:

Yeah, jason dude. And what a race. This is what everybody has been asking for since the Max Verstappen show has arrived, when he has been toasting the field by you know 30 seconds, we finally yesterday got a battle of epic proportions from him and lando went battle to battle from like lap 67 or 65 to 68 out of 71. Uh, lando tried the pass basically in the same corner like three or four times and Max shut the door Full send Full send.

Jeff:

Like all the way across the track, across Max's nose, and then off track track limits and back on. I mean Lando was coming home with a win or he was coming home DNF and ultimately, here's your spoiler. Uh, and in lando's defense, I think it was a purely clean pass. He actually had him clean on lap like 68 and max was not having any of it. And I'm gonna call it how I saw it. If you're, if you're a red bull fan, you probably saw it a little differently. But max wouldn't happen to anything and there was contact and long story really short. They both got punctures, they both had rear tires that came off the wheel, off the, off the rim and they both limped at home. And I am so proud to announce that george russell in the mercedes took the w baby and we got to say here yes, what did we get to baby?

Jason:

And we got to hear yes, what did we get to hear, jeff?

Jeff:

We got to hear God, save the king, bro there you go, it's been a long time, it just wasn't Max, was it the Dutch National Anthem? Everybody was tired of Dutch National Anthem on a Sunday. It was awesome.

Jason:

Honestly, that makes a lot of sense. He would do something like that at the damn dutch at the restaurant right in his hometown.

Jeff:

Yeah, in all, in all honesty, like it was a great race. It was what we were all asking. Looking for um, you know, I think george, you know I'm a mass mercedes fan, so I, I like it. But uh, he said, you know it's a, you got to finish the race to win the race. And but to those two guys, lando and max, they did a hell of a race, hell of a show.

Jeff:

It was super entertaining I can't wait for Silverstone next week to see those guys on the track and they're friends right. This week is probably a little awkward in the group text.

Jason:

Maybe a little silence here and there.

Jeff:

Yeah, a little bit A little quiet. I mean, if you're new to the f1 world, like now is a fantastic time. It's been hard to be a mercedes fan the past year and a half, but like it's, they're getting faster, lando's getting faster um they're catching up, they're catching up, they're catching up and it's it's, it's awesome, it's a great time to get into f1.

Jason:

Nobody wants to see this dude lap other people.

Jeff:

I hate watching races like that dude he lapped into like 15th or like 12th.

Jason:

That's crazy and it's a short track right, but nonetheless it's crazy but it's his track, you know. I mean technically, you know he read red bull sure. Red Bull Ring.

Jeff:

It better be fast. Shout out to Leclerc, who pitted three times and still came in like 12th. Hey Ferrari, get a strategy together, Come on.

Jason:

Yeah, man. I mean Russell definitely deserved that. He held his place throughout the whole race and saw the opportunity. And if they're going to act the fool on the track, then I mean it's on his lap, he's not on his lap he earned it.

Jason:

He earned it because he told me. I mean, he didn't tell me, but he was on the radio and he even made it public. He's not hiding it. He's like, well, I was there to pick up the pieces. That's what he said on the on on the, you know, when they were interviewing him. So you know it doesn't matter we interviewing him. So you know it doesn't matter. We've had this conversation, jeff and I. It doesn't matter how you start, man, it's how you finish.

Jeff:

Remember, it doesn't matter how you start, yeah, it's great for F1 because it tightens up the constructors points, because Red Bull got next and I don't think they got anything, so it's it's really tightening up setting it up.

Jason:

If you're getting into F1, now's the best time. Okay, and with that, we are going to wrap up today's episode with that massive spoiler and in the next one we're going to go over this a little more. Okay, because there's some things that we want to talk about, but we're kind of running short on the time, so there's really not much of a round table today. We're short of man, so, jeff, I'll let you uh, add anything if you have anything just the standard drop fast, break, late team, awesome next week thank you so much, jeff, and to all you listeners, thank you so much.

Jason:

I hope you have a great start of your week and don't forget to email us at the chicane podcast at gmailcom for any stories, suggestions, comments, anything, okay, and with that, take care guys.

People on this episode

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Jason Rivera

Host
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Erick Kelly

Co-host
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Jeff Smart

Co-host