Arduino Uno Steering Wheel

Hello everyone. I am a graphic designer with a restless soul (my site http://www.inoace.com ).

Edit: I have made this, its working and experience is awesome. I think I have to replay some games on wheel now :)

Steering wheel was on my wishlist for a long time, but they weren't priced reasonably. After i discovered Arduino, like Alice a whole new wonderland opened for me. I thank all the people who made tutorials on making the wheel with arduino.

Unfortunately i cant share the reference videos from original authors as per community guidelines and recreating them would be waste of time and disrespect to original authors, I will limit the tutorial to the making of wheel Hardware part. You can google them via search term "arduino Uno steering wheel".

Why Another tutorial?

Everyone's requirements and taste is different and so does working style, Here is my take on the making for steering wheel. Also its a work in progress, so any feedback would be welcomed to improve project.

I used a lid of paint bucket, cut out the desired shape with the help of old dull knife and heated it on stove to cut through the plastic lid. Than added foam on it to soften things and wrapped with with furniture cloth strip.

Than bottom part was made of two woods, one with bigger hole, this would support the pipe a bit, and other wood with small hole , where the potentiometer would fix, the whole top steering can be easily removed (i made it intentionally, as potentiometer are prone to bad tracks after lot of usage. so made it easier to replace.

I have only used part of the total potential and only making a wheel and some pedals. No buttons for now.

Step 1: Making Base of Wheel

check notes on images for detailed review. I used nuts to hold things in place on my desk. Used PVC for attaching steering wheel. So far all is working good, It was fun playing game with it.

Next steps will be giving it a finish - I planned to wrap cloth on it , lets see how things turn out.

Than ill Move on towards Making pedals.

Step 2: Finishing Touches - Steering Wheel Part

So the wheel was given finishing touches and the cloth was sewed, I choose black cloth and thanks to my wife for stitching it :P The pictures may not do justice but the cloth is looking cool , ts velvet and looks comfy.

Played a session of game in it and I am so in love with it. Next up is to make pedals

Step 3: Pedals

Pedals were rather easier than I thought, browse through the images to see steps. I have these thin strips from discarded transformer, you can use aluminum strips available at hardware stores or can also use wood strips.

As a last step you will need to calibrate your joystick to give proper movement via pedals.

Step 4: Callibration

Since the pedals wont give full movement of potentiometer, we have to calibrate it in windows to get full effect.

in xbox emulator software go to to game controllers > properties > setting > calibrate and follow the wizard

Additionally, you MAY have to tweak things as per game to you liking, for examples you want to slow down movement is center vs deadzone. you can tweak this all in emulator.

Link to software site, THANK YOU!! Developers for this wonderful software. It worked like charm and was a pretty awesome experience for only 2000 Pakistani Rupees (20 USD) instead of 300 USD commercial setup.

Emulator: http://www.x360ce.com/

Unojoy: https://github.com/AlanChatham/UnoJoy

Since I have worked on this project in steps, comment below if i missed anything or you want to ask something about process. I owe thanks to DIY community and that's how i can try to payback :)