VOGONS


First post, by AndyK

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Hi, I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice or help with the Thrustmaster Grand Prix 1 wheel?

I just got it yesterday, it came in it's box with the manual. The wheel and the four buttons all work, but the paddles for accelerate and brake don't work. I tested it in TMSCOPE for DOS (I'm using DOS 6.22) and the paddles don't work at all.
The wheel is plugged in to my sound card, which is a Sound Blaster AWE64.
The manual for the steering wheel says you need a 'Dual Port Game Card'. Is my sound card not compatible with this wheel?
Do I need to buy a new game port card?

If anyone could offer any help or advice, that would be great.

Thanks.

Reply 1 of 4, by sf78

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If it's anything like the Thrustmaster flight sticks then you connect (as you probably have) the keyboard to the wheel/pedals and then the pedals connector to the keyboard connector on the PC and then remap the pedals to emulate keyboard commands in the Thrustmaster utility.

Reply 2 of 4, by AndyK

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Thanks for your message, but steering wheel has a small cable that connects directly in to the wheel base (As the instructions say). There is only one standard gameport connector, which I plug in to the gameport on my sound card. The wheel steers left and right, and all four buttons work in the Thrustmaster TMSCOPE utility, it's just the analog accelerator and brake paddles that don't work.

Strangely the manual says you must have a 'Dual Port Game Card'.

From the manual:-

" Many gamers use the game ports supplied with sound cards and multi-I/O cards (Cards that have serial, parallel and game ports all on one card). Many of these cards, however, cannot provide enough power to run multiple controls properly (Such as full flight controls set consisting of joystick, throttle and rudders). Purchasing a quality, dedicated game card (A card containing only game ports) helps to eliminate power and heat drift problems. Be certain to buy a dual port card, which means that it can handle two joysticks per connector."

So the manual suggests a dual port game card, how do I know if my AWE64 isn't compatible? I'm confused!

Reply 3 of 4, by RichB93

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I think there might be something iffy with the wheel or the cable that connects to the wheel base - my brother had one of these and I vividly remember playing Network Q RAC Rally Championship with it on a machine with an AWE32; no issues with the wheel. I do also know however that he replaced the cable that connects to the wheel base and hard wired something in as the original cable was apparently crap.

Reply 4 of 4, by AndyK

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Hi there and thanks for your reply.

I'd taken the wheel off the base to test all the connections with a multimeter. The wiring seems to be faulty from the paddles behind the wheel (For accelerate and brake) and the little PS/2 connector that plugs in to the base unit. Only one of the four wires from the analogue paddles seems to be registering any kind of connection with the pins at the other end.

So I'd like to de-solder the wires from the wheel to the ps/2 connector and replace it with a more sturdy home made one. Trouble is, I can't get at the interior workings of the wheel.

You don't know how to take the wheel itself apart, do you? There doesn't seem to be any screws to get at the paddles and the electronics inside. I'd love to know how, so I can fix it. Thanks for anyone who's read this or commented.