Logitech MOMO Racing - wheel and pedals set

II recently purchased the Logitech Momo Force Feedback racing wheel from www.scan.co.uk (previously reviewed by me on Ciao) for £65 (excluding p&p). The price has gone up slightly now though.

I have found this wheel to be, in general, much better than my old wheel - the Guillemot Race Leader Force Feedback - which stopped working after I got Windows XP, and the Thrustmaster Modena wheel which I have reviewed previously on Ciao.
...the following features:

Designed by MOMO - MOMO is one of the world's leading designers of steering wheels and automotive accessories, for the track and the street - look out for their name in Michael Schumacher's Ferrari Formula One car.

Full rubber wheel - the wheel is fully rubberised to increase grip. It has a 3-spoke design, and a red aluminium centering strip at the top. It is very well built.

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II recently purchased the Logitech Momo Force Feedback racing wheel from www.scan.co.uk (previously reviewed by me on Ciao) for £65 (excluding p&p). The price has gone up slightly now though.

I have found this wheel to be, in general, much better than my old wheel - the Guillemot Race Leader Force Feedback - which stopped working after I got Windows XP, and the Thrustmaster Modena wheel which I have reviewed previously on Ciao.

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The wheel has the following features:

Designed by MOMO - MOMO is one of the world's leading designers of steering wheels and automotive accessories, for the track and the street - look out for their name in Michael Schumacher's Ferrari Formula One car.

Full rubber wheel - the wheel is fully rubberised to increase grip. It has a 3-spoke design, and a red aluminium centering strip at the top. It is very well built.

6 programmable buttons - the wheel features 6 red buttons which are easily accessible, on the front of the wheel. These are fully programmable.

Paddle shifters - located behind the wheel, these are sturdy and well built, and also programmable.

Gear shifter - in addition to the paddle shifters there is a gear stick located on the base of the wheel. This is also rubberised and can be easily located on either the right or left hand side of the wheel depending on preference. It operates independently of the paddle shifters.

Pedals - The wheel features an accelerator and brake pedal on a large base. The brake pedal is stiffer than the accelerator to enhance realism. The base also features an anti-slip mechanism (a pop-down set of spikes) to prevent slippage on carpet, which is very effective. There are also rubber pads to stop slipping on hard surfaces. However, there is a problem with the pedals in my wheel, and other, which is addressed below.

Force feedback - This has been very good on all my racing games - especially Toca Race Driver 2. The force feedback effects and centering spring are fully adjustable in the Control Panel.

3-way clamping system - There are three screwlock mechanisms which enable the wheel to be securely fastened to the desk.

Software included - this includes the steering wheel drivers, and an editing package which allows you to customise the wheel for all your games.

USB connectivity - fully compatible with Windows 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP

Two Year Guarantee

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Overall, this wheel has been good value for money, as you will not get a better looking, more sturdy feeling wheel for the money. The wheel is responsive and well built. The force feedback is excellent, much better than the Guillemot Race Leader Force Feedback wheel I previously owned. The gear stick is also a very nice feature.

However, I have found a problem with the pedals included with this wheel, and I have found that this problem has also been noticed with other wheels. I noticed that after periods of sustained use (1 hour or so, but then increasing in frequency) the accelerator level dipped to 80-90% of its proper value – i.e. even with the accelerator pedal fully depressed the car wouldn’t accelerate fully. I have discovered that this is a problem caused by the potentiometers (POTS) in the pedal base (which measure how much the pedals are depressed). The POTS were being over-rotated due to sideways movement in the accelerator pedal. Because the pedals are auto-calibrating (record the max and min values achieved when the pedals are being used, rather than you having to set this up in the control panel) this made the wheel read acceleration values which were abnormally high, and couldn’t be reconstructed in normal use, therefore there was a dip in acceleration. There is no problem with the brake pedal as this is supported by two springs (which makes it stiffer, but also reduces sideways movement) whereas the accelerator is only supported by one spring.

A temporary fix to this problem was to unplug the pedals from the wheel base, and replug them – thus clearing the calibration data and enabling normal acceleration values once more. However, this only worked for a short period of time before the problem re-occurred. Therefore, I dismantled the pedal base, and wound selotape around the pedal spindle to reduce sideways movement of the accelerator. This fix can be found here:

http://web.axelero.hu/mozso/momo_e5.html

This seems to have done the trick, and I now have no problem with the pedals.

However, obviously not everybody will want to fix this problem like this – and so if you are not confident that you would be able to fix the problem if it arose DO NOT BUY THIS WHEEL. I am not saying that all the wheels will have this problem, but its not worth taking the risk if you aren’t willing to fix it yourself. If you think that you would be able to fix this problem if it arose (the fix procedure is actually very simple as long as you carry it out carefully) the DO BUY THIS WHEEL – it is excellent apart from this problem.

Overall, because of this pedal problem I felt I had to give the wheel a rating of ‘average’ which is disappointing considering that otherwise I have found the wheel excellent.
 

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