Fanatec Clubsport Wheel Base V2 Revealed for PC and next-gen consoles - Team VVV

News Fanatec Clubsport Wheel Base V2 Revealed for PC and next-gen consoles

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Martin Bigg

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Fanatec has revealed the successor to their popular ClubSport Wheel Base.

Simply named the Clubsport Wheel Base V2, it features a state of the art brushless servo motor, as widely speculated by the community, along with plenty of other improvements. Despite its familiar appearance, Fanatec boast that there is almost no part that hasn't been replaced or modified. 

"Our focus was durability, durability, durability and then performance," reads an entry on the official Fanatec blog. "And while we made a radical re-design, we decided to make an offer nobody can refuse.

The smoothness, vividness and precision of a Direct Drive wheel combined with a torque increase of about 75% and (optional) compatibility to the latest gaming consoles.  And all that with a moderate price increase."

Here's the full spec list:
 

Ultra Precise

We replaced the optical sensor with two magnetic high resolution hall sensors mounted on both the motor and the steering axis. The new sensors have double the resolution and the magnetic sensore are less vulnerable to dust or scratched code discs.

Smoothastic

The cogging of this system cannot be felt by a human anymore. It is incredible smooth and feels natural and realistic. It is on par or better with the best and most expensive wheel out there although those wheels costs a multiple of the CSW B V2.

Rock Solid

Our focus was to achieve high durability even for hardcore users.

•    A brushless motor which can be cooled much easier as it gets hot on the outside and not on the inside so heat can be transfered better

•    Integrated heat sensor inside the motor

•    Ball bearings on the motor axis and bigger ball bearings inside the pulleys so we can increase the belt tension and avoid any belt slip. At the same time we have much less drag in the system.

•    New main cable

•    And many other small improvements to the overall build quality

Power. A lot.

The new motor is custom designed and exclusive to Fanatec. Although the gear ratio has been changed to increase the rotation speed, it delivers about 75% more torque than the CSW B V1. This means over 7 NM of sheer 

Brushless Servo

A brushless servo motor is currently state-of-the-art for force feedback systems and in principle this is exactly the same motor as the most expensive direct drive base units out there. 

•    Easier to cool as the heat is on the outside of the motor and not on the motor shaft

•    Optimized for use in stall at max power

•    More efficiency -> more torque with same power

We had to develop entire new electronics for that motor as the motor 

 

Interestingly, Fanatec is adopting a new approach to compatibility. The base itself is universal, which means that compatibility is instead decided on the separate wheel rim attachments. It's also compatible with all of the recently-announced wheel rims and of course the Universal Wheel hub. 

Then there's the hurdle of next-gen console compatibility. Existing owners of Fanatec's peripheral range have been crying out for Fanatec to release some racing hardware for PS4 and Xbox One. Unfortunately, rules and regulations have made this problematic, but the Clubsport Wheel Base V2 will finally add next-gen console compatibility, with additional console-specific wheel rims to be released in the future.

However, so far Fanatec has only secured a license with one of the console manufacturers: "We want to achieve compatibility to both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and we are happy to announce that we already signed a contract with one of them. We will announce this product at the end of this year. There will be multiple steering wheels available in different price ranges and they will compatible to several Fanatec base units from mid-range to direct drive." Given their previous allegiance with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 Fanatec CSR wheels, it seems likely that it will initially be compatible for Xbox One.

The ClubSport Wheel Base V2 can be preordered for 499.95 EU and $499.95. It will then retail for 599.95 EU and $499.95. This places its price point higher than the original ClubSport Wheel Base.

There is a catch, however. Fanatec predict that demand will far outweigh supply, and have instigated an invitation-only scheme to manage pre-orders:

The great response we get from our beta testers lead us to the conclusion that the demand for this product will be much bigger than the supply. Production output will be lower as before as we spend even more time on quality control and testing.

At the same time we want to honor the loyalty of our existing customers and want to offer a special pre-order discount for the owners of the current ClubSport and CSR Elite base so that they can enjoy a little upgrade advantage.

This is how it works:

• Only after you entered the code to your profile page you will be able to purchase or pre-order this product

• We will also give away invites in giveaway events so frequent followers of the blog or Facebook will also get a chance to get an invite

This is the priority we will use for the invites to make it as fair and transparent as possible.

2. Webshop customers of other ClubSport products like CSP or CSS

Of course we will treat all territories with the same priority.

Not every customer will use his invite so go ahead and ask your friends if they use their invite of if they give it to you in case you are not on the list yet. It is possible and welcome to transfer invite codes.

Please do not ask our sales team for invites. They are not authorized to give out codes anyway. If it is your turn then you will get an e-mail. We will open a thread in our forum which explains more details and where you can also ask for invites from other members.

By the way, all lucky customers who placed a pre-order for the old V1 base just got a free upgrade to V2 and they are the first to receive the new product.

 Have you been invited to preorder the ClubSport Wheel Base V2?

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