Paddle shift - Your opinions please.

[Mark 4]

Assuming that all technical problems were overcome and reliability is assured then which would you opt for ?

A: Paddles on steering wheel, left paddle changes down, right paddle changes up, both are operated by pulling towards the steering wheel.

B: Buttons on steering wheel, 2 on the back operated by fingers, both change up, 2 on front operated by thumbs, both change down.

C: Paddles fitted to steering column, Left for up, right for down.

D: A.N. Other

All opinions gratefully received.

[Nutter_John]

why not have it user definable , the electronics are not that hard so you could fit 4 buttons and set em as you like em

[Mark 4]

Yea, I know John, what I want to know is what you would set yours up like.

[Mark 4]

OR - what do you think is best setup.

[pitslayer]

already in the design stage of making these for my car. and so far the best option is colum mounted. steering wheel mounted seems far to dangerous, i would want to know where they are when going around a corner.
and threading the wires through up into the steering wheel could mean the wires getting trapped. or getting pulled out. it just doesnt seem really fesable to fit them on the wheel

[Beastlee]

I can see the point about knowing where they are through a bend, and I would pefer on a column, but surely you miss the point that you shouldn't be changing gear on a bend anyway? Those bends that may be 'shiftable' won't be requiring the wheel to be rotated that fast that you wouldn't knoww where they were.

[Mark 4]

Assuming that all technical problems were overcome and reliability is assured then which would you opt for ?

[miller]

True about column mounted, they are never gonna change position and if the 'arms' were long enough then even in mid corner your 'racing' hand position on wheel will still reach them.

Left for gear up

Right for gear down.

I would invest in this if there was a proven 'universal' system out there. I personally think they would suit our cars ver well.

Sounds like you may have some ideas or contacts in the pipeline? Would love to see results/options available.

Mike

[pitslayer]

im just getting my mate to make mine got to design the paddles, then its just a few microswitches.
although it would be right for up a gear, left for down a gear.
as for changing through a corner, its more for when your start to turn in, and your exit. i want to know where they are.

however the other problem with wheel mounting, i can see, is that. you need a good length of wire in there to stop it pulling off the connections when on full lock, but the downside is that wire might then get tangled up and trapped somewhere, causing unforseen consequences. i just dont like the idea of them on the wheel, sounds to dangerous.

[Beastlee]

Using buttons/paddles on the wheel itself will mean you need either a hollow steering column or the use of a commutator and brushes to be substantial and safe.

[Eurospec]

Having driven fto's with:-

Normal tip shift
'Reverse tip' shift
2 button wheel mounted tip shift
and
Wheel mounted paddle shift

I would honestly go for the wheel mounted buttons.

You can buy it off the shelf, it has no wires (Infra red i assume) and it works good. One touch of left thum and you flick up or down.

My own fto has a f1 flappy paddle doofer, and its just nothing like a nice as the button shift. It was a 1 off custom build and took forever. Very nice action and all, but nowhere near a marketable product from the shear time to make the damn thing!

Cheers,

Ben.

[Mark 4]

Assuming that all technical problems were overcome and reliability is assured then which would you opt for ?

Pits, this the third iteration of this concept. There is not a problem with wires. Now what is the problem.

BenH, thank you for some clear concise and informed input. This is actually what I am planning.

[pitslayer]

i just dont like the idea of it being mounted on the wheel, i want to know where mine are at all times, fixed in one place. and mounted on the wheel will be complicated and could sometimes leave room for error. will have to swap ideas and see what each other are doing, and get some ideas of each other

as for making them, should really be to hard to mass produce, all you would need is the first template made, then use the plasma cutter to make a few more, knock them up. shouldnt be to hard

[Nick Mann]

A or B. I don't want to take my hands off the wheel when changing direction and gear at the same time! I will try and notice if I change gear whilst steering substantially over the next few days, but I don't think so.... If the steering wheel is more than 90 degrees from centre, then I guess you can't be going too fast anyway?

So wheel mounted for me - with no experience of using buttons or flappy paddles, I would probably go for buttons, simply because Ben thinks they work better!

[Turbo_Steve]

A hefty padle that turns with the wheel, but covers at least 90degrees on each side, left for down, right for up OR away from you for down, towards you for up.

I generally believe formula one teams know what they're doing

Having the padles on the column actually makes them harder to find, as you mentally have to orient the wheel against the stalks against the direction of the car.

Look at it this way, find a fast right hand motorway-type corner, go round it fast, enough to require you to concentrate then reach for the stereo without looking. Your hand will naturally gravitate higher than the control you're after. Going round a left hander, your left hand will natually drop.

Why? Shoulders. Apparently. Something to do with muscle balance accross your shoulders: when one hand is 'up' it's extremely natural when steering for the other hand to go "down".

[I-S]

C.

If you use proper steering technique then you will always be able to reach column mounted paddles, no matter where you are steering.

If you had wheel mounted paddles then regardless of your steering method you would not know where the paddles are - and you can end up with the paddles reversed which is not good.

Edit - forgot which option was which, corrected.

[Mark 4]

Ok, some good points. Keep it coming chaps.

[shaun1978]

personally if they were on the wheel there would be no problem as your unlikely to be turning the wheel far when on the move and your usually spacially aware enough to know where they are . plus a coiled wire would sort out the problem of wires catching.

[Ryan]

Whilst I agree with Turbo Steve;s point about F1 teams knowing what they doing, their steering wheels don't turn as much as normal cars do. That is, if i turned the F1 wheel from normal to hard lock either left or right, I think it only makes three quarters of a turn - this makes the wheel mounted shifters ideal.

One of our company cars is a Honda Jazz "Sport" and it has a 7 speed paddle shift semi-auto (wheel mounted) but I feel the paddles are a bit too small.

I like the concept of paddle shifters be they either column or wheel mounted as having both hands on the wheel at the same time is obviously safer from a car control perspective.

Not having driven a car with column mounted paddles - nor know of any to try out, I can't comment on that setup.

[miller]

The Merc i recently drove had the paddles wheel mounted, the paddles were just over the lenght of all your fingers on one hand put together.

When changing it soon becomes habit to flick the gear with your indicating finger or even your small finger.

Normal driving when you feed the wheel through your hands i found myself constantly looking for the paddles.
If these were column mounted, ie going no where i would imagine they would become second nature like your signal actions.

On the race track your hand positions on the steering wheel will do less 'wheel feeding' but more shoulder action. Like mentioned above if your wheel is at more than say 90deg of normal vertical plane then somethin is wrong if your looking to change gear.

Mike