Fanatec Club Sport Pedals - Load Cell Issue - Fix

[Carl]

I know this isn't strictly sim build related but I would have gladly paid for this information yesterday so thought it good to share.

As the proud owner of a pair of clubsport pedals I was heartbroken and dismayed to have an intermittent problem arrive with my CSP's just before a GP weekend. I did what every sim racer would do in this situation and ordered some spare parts from Fanatec before delving in and trying to find the fault. I stripped them completely and lubricated everything hoping by some magical turn of fate my brake would come back to life. No luck. The issue for me like so many others was intermittent FB from the brake load cell... sometimes the brake would go open circuit and my car would not move at all. I also got totally intermittent response from the brake approaching corners which totally killed it for me. After resigning myself to a couple of weeks without any racing whilst waiting for the new cell to be delivered I decided to go a bit deeper as I had nothing to lose. I removed the load cell from the brake base after slackening the grub screw which holds it in place and started wiggling the cable about whilst monitoring FB on the setup app. EUREKA!!! I noticed the FB going crazy when the cable was wiggled. The cable is very stiff so it takes a bit of wiggling. I decided to cut out the 3 core cable between the pcb plug and the load cell leaving just enough at either end to solder on a new jumper (about 10mm). I used a couple of singles for the new jumper and duly heatshrinked everything up after soldering. I then spliced the offending article and tested each of the 3 cables. After a bit more wiggling I traced the root cause to the black cable between the load cell and the plug breaking down. I used a 0.25mm silicone insulted single stranded cable for replacing the damaged cables so nice and flexible. Once soldered in I re-assembled the pedals and the problem has now totally disappeared and my load cell is working perfect and like new. What joy!!! As it happens my CSP's were due a service and the spare load cell which is winging its way from Germany as I speak may well come in handy one day. However, if any of you guy's suffer a similar fate you may wanna try replacing the jumper cable as I did before ordering the spares... DOH!!!

[prodigy]

Thank you for this explanation!
It is very handy to know that, would probably save people's time figuring out what could be the problem.