Pictures and drawings
Just a brief description of the H-shifter I built. This is not meant
as a How-to article, it's just to show what I did. Drop me an
email if you'd like help with
a similar project.
The shifter is based on a 2 axis, 8 button USB Gamepad (about $18 CDN at
Radioshack). The box is made from HDF, and the top plate a piece
of scrap laminate flooring (also HDF). The shift lever is a 3/8"
bolt with the head removed, the knob an old screwdriver handle. The
lever pivots in a female tie rod end mounted in the base of the box. Magnets
are mounted on the bottom side of the coverplate to hold the shift lever
in place (similar to magnetic door catches). Two small springs are mounted
fore and aft to prevent the lever from falling into gear and to provide a
little resistance while shifting.
The buttons on the gamepad are normally activated by pressing a small
conductive disc down onto two exposed traces on the circuit board. A
remote switch can be soldered across these traces to give the same result.
Switches from and old keyboard were soldered across the exposed traces
on the gamepad board and mounted in plastic panels so the shift lever closes
a switch when in each gate and activates a button on the gamepad board. This
is similar to an Act Labs GPL USB shifter in that each of the 8 eight "gears"
is activated by a button (to put it simply; each "button" may actually be
a combination of one or more closed switches, but in the end the utilities
see it as a single button, see the links below for more information).
The buttons/switches in the shifter are arranged with the odd number buttons
forward and the even number back, as below ( This is the default layout
for the Alshift and GPLshift programs. The utilities may let you rearrange
the gear assignment to the buttons but its probably best to keep the switches
in the default positions for compatibility with other games and utilities).
Switch positions
Forward
1 3 5 7
2 4 6 8
Back
The only remaining task was to rename the controller in the registry so
that games and the shifter utilities recognize the shifter as a Act Labs GPL
USB shifter. Instructions for doing this can be found
here (click on the
link under "NEWS" about the compatibility test). Note: The gamepad
was tested to make sure it would act as a shifter as described in the above
link before ever taking it apart (if it wasn't going to work it was going
back for a refund). Once the gamepad drivers were loaded and the registry
changed, I checked to make sure the ALShift program detected the
gamepad as an "ACT LABS GPL USB Shifter". The ALshift status window would
show the buttons being pressed and the gear selected, based on the shift
pattern selected in the ALshift settings.
Still some things to do such as plates for different gear patterns to go
over the coverplate, a better knob, and a bit of sanding and painting.
For more information of building an H-shifter please visit (this is where
I started):
Homemade Racing
Controllers
How to build
an H-shifter
