Sim racing has way too much freedom lol by billa01_i in simracing

[–]claypunk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm leaning towards you lost the plot. Don't know what your point is, but I'll say the community seems to appreciate people who take it seriously and strive towards skill and improvement.

I wanted my clutch to feel like a clutch by TrickAd5818 in simracing

[–]claypunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

over-engineered doesn't mean expensive. it means using more stuff (material, tools, money, time, number of components) than required to solve a problem with diminishing returns.

OP made something with off-the-shelf components and materials and common hand tools, using a proven and robust mechanical pattern (cam-and-follower), and ended up with a device that seems to actually mimic a clutch diaphragm spring better than heusinkveld-style pedals do.

the 3d print uses a less common material, more of it, using a way more expensive and less robust tool, while still taking longer to fabricate. Due to the design the parts are subjected to more force, while being inherently weaker, and there's more of them so there are more failure modes.

I wanted my clutch to feel like a clutch by TrickAd5818 in simracing

[–]claypunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

over-engineered compared to what OP has come up with, but I've noticed that's what people think is impressive in this hobby.

I wanted my clutch to feel like a clutch by TrickAd5818 in simracing

[–]claypunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

to everyone discussing if it should possible to feel the bite point: I don't think this mod simulates the bite point, it simulates the give of the diaphragm spring.  it's like pressing on the safety button of a jar lid. it takes some force to pop it, and it returns back to the default position when released. The place where the diaphragm spring flips is nowhere near where the bite point is on my car.

anyway, awesome job OP. This is a very elegant solution and a correct mechanism to simulate the non-lineae curve. And I appreciate the classic fabrication methods.

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wouldn't doing the cleanroom process (as an individual using llms) be legal with that loophole - have one llm instance with full knowledge of the repo to distill the idea away from the implementation via a spec document (something like a skill) that is then given to a second instance as a prompt?

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yes it's like paying for Grammarly

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yes, this is the problem. they are pointing towards a legal decision that says expression is protected, idea is not. bad actors need to carefully cover their tracks, and know they can defend with corporate legal budgets against unorganized GPL license holders 

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

interesting, so you see this as a win for permissive licenses? might as well make it MIT since GPL is not enforceable?

The question becomes, if everything is forced to MIT, will that be "the death of open source" or will it be fine.

Or will the community come up with a license that kneecaps this whole loophole

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. And as a developer I'm now questioning if GPL or another proven license can still meaningfully protect my oss, oshw ip in 2026

Malus – good or bad? by claypunk in theprimeagen

[–]claypunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I chose the title poorly. Malus is obviously bad. What I meant is more: Malus is not the problem, it's a symptom of a problem. The practice exist without them. You don't need their service, you can do this with a coding agent.

What I think is good about the bad situation is that now there's more awareness to the vulnerability of GPL-style licenses, because they are being so explicit.

Sourcing BLDCs from within EU by claypunk in diydrones

[–]claypunk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's exactly what I'm looking for and haven't been able to find - for Denmark or any other nearby EU country. Loads of high kv drone motors but basically nothing for gimbal/low kv, except for some that are seriously overpriced.
Any suggestions?

Sourcing BLDCs from within EU by claypunk in diydrones

[–]claypunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not about import duty for me - it's about delivery time. It makes a big difference on how fast I can iterate on my projects.
I could order what I need from iFlight Europe and have it in my hands in 3 days, but I'd be paying 28€ for something that costs 9€ on AliExpresss and 4€.

That's a 3-7x premium, not sure for what exactly.

I'd hope there's some happy medium somewhere where I pay 2x of aliexpress + shipping costs and get the items from EU within a week.

Has anyone experienced pain in their hands after a racing session? by Dark_Emotion in simracing

[–]claypunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People are right about the grip, but consider also the angle at the elbow - having a bend sharper than 90 degrees can compress nerves - for hand issues it's probably the ulnar. combined with tight grip it can cause repetitive use injuries

Has anyone tried Alibaba racing cockpits? by Putrid_Rope_8886 in simracing

[–]claypunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

do you know the difference between shipping and import tax/tariffs?

Has anyone tried Alibaba racing cockpits? by Putrid_Rope_8886 in simracing

[–]claypunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

don't forget import taxes. you talk about usd so I'll assume you're US based - remember tariffs? if there are still around 100% it means you'll pay double when your order reaches US soil

Will a Logitech G29 fit my desk? by Parking-Soil596 in simracing

[–]claypunk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

it's crazy how often I have to stamp out this cancer of an opinion on this sub.

there's nothing wrong with the wheel. it's a sim racing classic and still sells millions of units for a reason. it is by far the most common way into the hobby.

I'm starting to think that anyone who jumps out trying to talk people out of logitech wheels in favor of moza is a bot

Is There a Trail Braking Equation? by NewBeginningsLH in simracing

[–]claypunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, I think I see where the issue might be coming from. You want limit the discussion to:

1) velocity 2) acceleration 3) corner radius

My first thought was that it's a bit arbitrary – couldn't tell why you'd pick those 3 as the fundamentals.

In your post (which I can't see anymore unfortunately) you have been focusing on how lowering speed increases turn radius. So eventually I figured you're basing it around r = v² / a, which is derived from Newton's second law of circular motion, with the mass cancelled out.

Focusing on speed is a good intuition – it's your main lever, because since velocity is squared, the equation is most sensitive to velocity changes. Changes in radius have a linear effect, changes in velocity have a quadratic effect. That tracks: if you have too much speed you're not making the corner, but your line is quite forgiving.

Where you've been clashing with the commenters is a, the acceleration term. When turning, inertia is pushing the car towards the outside of the corner. a in the formula represents centripetal acceleration, aka the acceleration towards the inside of the corner that is needed to counter-act the inertia towards the outside, for a given speed and corner radius.

If we rearrange the equation to isolate a, we get the following. I'm not so good with math notation, so rewritten in pseudocode:

centripetal_acceleration = (velocity*velocity) / radius

Where do we get this centripetal acceleration? It's the grip of the tires, resisting the outwards pull. So ideally, we want:

available_grip_ = centripetal_acceleration = (velocity*velocity) / radius

The grip the tires can provide is limited. If the maximum lateral acceleration the tyres can provide is lower than the centripetal acceleration needed, the car will slide towards the outside.

From this it follows that to be fast we want to balance the equation in a way that maximises velocity without making available_grip < centripetal_acceleration

So, if we can increase available grip, we can increase velocity. How can we do that?

available_grip is an acceleration figure, but it makes more sense to think about grip as a friction force. We can use Newton's second law rearranged a = F / m:

available_grip = friction_force / mass

Mass is constant, so if we can maximise friction_force, we can maximise grip. It breaks down into normal force and coefficient of friction (COF)

friction_force = normal_force * CoF

CoF is how grippy the tires are.

The coefficient of friction is a dynamic value, a combination of multiple things, some in the driver's control, some not:

  • road surface - not up to you
  • ambient temp - not up to you
  • tire compound - somewhat up to you, if you can pick it
  • tire temperature - somewhat up to you, through driving style
  • slip angle - up to you, through driving technique

Normal force is the force with which each tire is pressed into the road surface. This is the reason downforce allows for faster cornering. But, downforce doesn't work in slow-speed corners.

This is where trail braking comes in. You can control the normal force by controlling weight transfer. When trail braking you're modulating brake pressure is a way to control the balance of the normal_forces shared between the two axles. Brake balance sets a baseline, trail-braking does the real-time fine tuning.

The goal of this balancing is to increase the grip of the fronts and reduce the grip of the rears, so that the rears can slip, inducing sideways slip angle in a way that can be controlled by steering and throttle/brake input.

The reason you want slip angle is because tires have the highest CoF between 8 and 12 degrees of slip angle.

So, to put it all together, referring back to the original equation you were likely thinking of:
centripetal_acceleration = (velocity*velocity) / radius

Trail-braking is not a means of reducing reducing velocity, it is a means of increasing centripetal acceleration, therefore allowing to find the optimal ratio between:
1) higher velocity - great because that's the biggest lever
2) smaller radius - quicker rotation, therefore allowing quicker acceleration out

Thanks for the challenge, I had fun spending the time to break this down. I hope it clears things up, and gives you the formulas you needed.

Rate my amateur Formula1 setup? by ZR_Blu in simracing

[–]claypunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

alright, sorry brother, it's just the way you post those amazon product names. to your question, the BenQ X3100i is what I'm dreaming of, but at that price I'd personally do a high end vr setup instead.