Problem With Quick Connect, Any Suggestions?

[CorbinJ PBR]

Hi Everyone,

So My team uses a quick connect with internal electrical connectors. The problem we are having is that the cables for the electronics run the the upper steering column and come out the side. It seems like no matter how much plastic sheathing, grommets or E tape we add to shield the wire the edges of the hole drilled into the shaft eventually cut into it and we lose shifting and other functions controlled by the steering wheel.

I was just wondering what other teams do to avoid this problem, we have been discussing using a clock spring but are unable to find one small enough to suit our needs. Anybody have any suggestions?

[MegaDeath]

What we have done is weld over the edge of the hole at very low amps not adding filler just to melt the edges of the hole. It's worked well for us, never had any issues with cutting through the shrink-wrap let alone the wires themselves.

[Cardriverx]

I would make some sort of small bracket on the steering shaft to hold the wire that comes out of the hole so it does not chafe the hole edge.

[Teranfirbt]

We use an end mill to make an angle so the harness come out at about a 30 degree angle to the steering shaft, then we rig everything up so the steering harness is never bent, only "turned" with the steering shaft. The key is to make to steering wheel harness exit the shaft as parallel as possible, then route it up and back to the wiring harness so it doesn't see much stress. Another thing we have found to be critical is for the harness to exit the top when the wheel is centered so that the minimum movement is experienced by the harness to both sides.

[TMichaels]

We used Kevlar-reinforced tape to protect the wiring and then also glued it right into position to make sure that it does not move relative to the sharp edge. We filled the hole with epoxy to achieve this. We also made sure that the wires did not exit perpendicular to the coloumn, but in an angle that was as low as possible. These measures solved this issue for us.

[CorbinJ PBR]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, i look forward to trying some of these out.

[Kevin Hayward]

Not wanting to stir the pot, but is a quick connect electrical connector in the steering wheel the best solution? Does it make your car better in a way that it is worth the time and cost involved? They are certainly cooler than external cables ...

Kev

[Cardriverx]

There is almost no added time and very little cost, there are a few quick releases that are pre wired.

It is VERY worth it. A coiled cable is simply a total pain in the ass, we ran one the past year. Just don't do it, trust me you will hate it.


Originally posted by Kevin Hayward:
Not wanting to stir the pot, but is a quick connect electrical connector in the steering wheel the best solution? Does it make your car better in a way that it is worth the time and cost involved? They are certainly cooler than external cables ...

Kev

[Kevin Hayward]

There have been external cables in 7 cars I have been involved with. 3 as a student, which I was both endurance and autocross driver with top 3 finishes in 4 comps. We seemed to manage okay with no reliability problems as a result of the external wires for a total of 12 endurance runs (every run the 7 cars completed), so I'm sorry if I disagree.

I have also had some experience with wired quick releases, both custom made and off the shelf.

For a car with less than 270deg lock to lock on the steering wheel I think they are overkill, and either too expensive in the case of off the shelf, and too difficult in the case of custom made.

I am still curious as to how they benefit the car in a way that brings you competition points. At the same time trying to avoid the all too easy comparison of well implemented wired quick connects to poorly implemented external wires and vice versa.

The only notable advantage of quick release with electrical connector is that it is easier to move the steering wheel from the car to a large distance away from the car given that there is only one connection. The external wire will also generally need to be looped around something each time you put the steering wheel on. While these advantages make the quick connect electrical connection nicer to use, I don't see that transferring into a points advantage.

I don't like the idea of spending either time or money on something that doesn't help you improve your result.

Kev

[Cardriverx]

Lets see...

It costs maybe %50-75 more than the standard version (from a ~$250 part)

No needing to worry about the harness getting in the way of your legs while driving

No need to worry about catching on the harness during egress

Can take the steering wheel out of the car without having to worry about stressing the harness

Take take the steering wheel away from the car easily

Don't need to worry about zip-tying/looping/attaching the harness to the column or whatever every time someone gets in

Much easier to make a clean wiring harness around the wheel which the judges do take into account.

Yeah, its so worth it in my book. Maybe you guys just found some badass way to do a coil cable.




Originally posted by Kevin Hayward:
There have been external cables in 7 cars I have been involved with. 3 as a student, which I was both endurance and autocross driver with top 3 finishes in 4 comps. We seemed to manage okay with no reliability problems as a result of the external wires for a total of 12 endurance runs (every run the 7 cars completed), so I'm sorry if I disagree.

I have also had some experience with wired quick releases, both custom made and off the shelf.

For a car with less than 270deg lock to lock on the steering wheel I think they are overkill, and either too expensive in the case of off the shelf, and too difficult in the case of custom made.

I am still curious as to how they benefit the car in a way that brings you competition points. At the same time trying to avoid the all too easy comparison of well implemented wired quick connects to poorly implemented external wires and vice versa.

The only notable advantage of quick release with electrical connector is that it is easier to move the steering wheel from the car to a large distance away from the car given that there is only one connection. The external wire will also generally need to be looped around something each time you put the steering wheel on. While these advantages make the quick connect electrical connection nicer to use, I don't see that transferring into a points advantage.

I don't like the idea of spending either time or money on something that doesn't help you improve your result.

Kev

[NickFavazzo]

It sounds like you have already made up your mind...

[Rex Chan]

Why are there wires going to your steering wheel, at all? WHat is your driver looking at?

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by Rex Chan:
Why are there wires going to your steering wheel, at all? WHat is your driver looking at?

RPM/Shift lights, warning lights, changing car parameters such as fuel map, traction control, shift maps, buttons for pneumatic/electric shifting, etc.

Is it necessary to build/drive a car? No. Does it increase the team's performance with respect to points? Depends on the actual implementation. In our case it did.

[NickFavazzo]

Why not just put them on the dash in a place still readily visible and reachable to the driver...?

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by NickFavazzo:
Why not just put them on the dash in a place still readily visible and reachable to the driver...?

In our case you would have ended up with two ECUs as we needed the buttons for shifting anyway on the steering wheel. Thus we decided to only design one ECU and put it all in the steering wheel.
Additionally our steering wheel has been a hollow carbon structure before, so we just needed to fit in the electronics. For the dashboard we would have needed an extra housing, so we also saved a marginally amount of weight by not needing an extra housing and extra connectors..

[JWard]

T,

I think Rex is being a little facetious with that comment, as I know MUR run dashboard mounted driver feedback (atleast shiftlights?). I think he's implying that in most FS cars the steering wheel is less well positioned than the dash for mounting such indicators. I notice the driver position in the MUR car is slightly more upright than some of the other FS cars, which is possibly a contributing factor to this opinion?

My opinion is that the steering wheel is great for mounting shift lights if possible (for most FS cars as driver sinks further down in the vehicle), but dash display with shift lights seated behind the wheel is probably the most suitable engineering solution for most teams. (considering returns:budget, packaging, ED&T, manufacturing, resource). I'm also an advocate of the spiralled wire solution to attach any electronics to a steering wheel - anything more is adding a non trivial price hike to a vehicle that is already moderately expensive to produce in the small scale manufacturing run the vehicle is supposedly being built in.

[Cardriverx]

Paddle shift buttons, automatic upshift button, shift into neutral/clutch button.

Those all need to be in the wheel because they must be pressed without taking his/her hand off.

T/C modifier and Launch control modifier can be put on the dash, ill agree with that.



Originally posted by Rex Chan:
Why are there wires going to your steering wheel, at all? WHat is your driver looking at?

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by JWard:
T,

I think Rex is being a little facetious with that comment, as I know MUR run dashboard mounted driver feedback (atleast shiftlights?). I think he's implying that in most FS cars the steering wheel is less well positioned than the dash for mounting such indicators. I notice the driver position in the MUR car is slightly more upright than some of the other FS cars, which is possibly a contributing factor to this opinion?

My opinion is that the steering wheel is great for mounting shift lights if possible (for most FS cars as driver sinks further down in the vehicle), but dash display with shift lights seated behind the wheel is probably the most suitable engineering solution for most teams. (considering returns:budget, packaging, ED&T, manufacturing, resource). I'm also an advocate of the spiralled wire solution to attach any electronics to a steering wheel - anything more is adding a non trivial price hike to a vehicle that is already moderately expensive to produce in the small scale manufacturing run the vehicle is supposedly being built in.

J,
I got that Rex was provoking.
It of course depends on the overall ergonomics concept and chassis package. We would not have been able to put the dash board in a position where it was easy to look at / push switches / turn knobs.

I have done both, using an external wire for two years and using a connector in the quick connect. With both we did not have any reliability issues and the quick connect connector was self-built and thus consumed quite some resources.
Was it worth it? I don't know, but I remember being really annoyed by the wiring connecting the steering wheel to the car when doing driver egress for example. The good thing was: We could have a close look at engine parameters while warming up and sitting next to the car, by just holding the steeering wheel like a display.

[JWard]

T,

Sorry, I thought you missed the humor. I am a little confused now... I thought it was a quick connect with some sort of clock spring you were discussing? Your steering wheel sounds wireless http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

[TMichaels]

Originally posted by JWard:
T,

Sorry, I thought you missed the humor. I am a little confused now... I thought it was a quick connect with some sort of clock spring you were discussing? Your steering wheel sounds wireless http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

The first two years we just had a wire with a connector plugged sideways into the steering wheel. The wire was just long enough to allow holding the steering wheel in your hand while sitting next to car.

In the third year we fitted a 4-pin connector inside the centre of the quick connect and the steering column and just removed the "push-pull" function of the connector so that it didn't snap. Therefore the contacting force was created entirely by the quick connect.

Doing this on the steering wheel side was easy, the hard part was positioning it on the steering coloumn.

[CorbinJ PBR]

My team runs a carbon fiber shell steering wheel with internally housed electronics, a full driver display including gear position, tachometer, warning lights, etc. as well as all major function buttons such as start, traction control, launch control, neutral find and electro-pneumatic shifting paddles on the rear.


Originally posted by Rex Chan:
Why are there wires going to your steering wheel, at all? WHat is your driver looking at?

[JWard]

Originally posted by TMichaels:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JWard:
T,

Sorry, I thought you missed the humor. I am a little confused now... I thought it was a quick connect with some sort of clock spring you were discussing? Your steering wheel sounds wireless http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

The first two years we just had a wire with a connector plugged sideways into the steering wheel. The wire was just long enough to allow holding the steering wheel in your hand while sitting next to car.

In the third year we fitted a 4-pin connector inside the centre of the quick connect and the steering column and just removed the "push-pull" function of the connector so that it didn't snap. Therefore the contacting force was created entirely by the quick connect.

Doing this on the steering wheel side was easy, the hard part was positioning it on the steering coloumn. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tobias,

I'm totally with you now. Fair enough, if it worked 100% I'm impressed. No spring or material acting like a spring to keep the mating force consistent? What held the connector in the correct orientation? Keyed connector and internal feature on the steering column? Or just epoxied?

Corbin: Rex's comment was a little tongue in cheek.

[Rex Chan]

Originally posted by CorbinJ PBR:
My team runs a carbon fiber shell steering wheel with internally housed electronics, a full driver display including gear position, tachometer, warning lights, etc. as well as all major function buttons such as start, traction control, launch control, neutral find and electro-pneumatic shifting paddles on the rear.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Rex Chan:
Why are there wires going to your steering wheel, at all? WHat is your driver looking at? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a lot of stuff. How good are your drivers? How many testing days/hours did you do before comp? Did they look at the dash much?

Also, how for how much testing time did the paddle shifters actually work? Did they work at comp?

[TMichaels]

Tobias,

I'm totally with you now. Fair enough, if it worked 100% I'm impressed. No spring or material acting like a spring to keep the mating force consistent? What held the connector in the correct orientation? Keyed connector and internal feature on the steering column? Or just epoxied?

J, it did indeed work 100% during testing and at comp, which was in 2008. We still drive with the car without having ever had to touch the connection again, so it still works.
The mating force is only provided by the spring inside the quick connector.
The connector was fitted inside the steering coloumn and fixed with two headless screws.