FANATEC CSL DD REVIEW - Part 1 - Hardware & Internals

all right guys so this is a video that i'm very excited to do for you guys because we finally have the csl dd retail version this time here along with the boost kit 180 the standard 90 watt power supply and of course the table clamp to check out for you guys so you'll remember a couple of months ago now and it doesn't seem like a couple of months ago but it was we did our first look at the csl dd which was at that time a pre-production sample we felt like we were able to give a pretty good idea of what the experience is going to be like owning a csld we went through the hardware in a little bit of detail but we primarily focused on the driving experience and guess what we kind of expected in terms of motor characteristics and all the little details that we thought were important for you guys to make a decision on whether you were going to pre-purchase or pre-order one of these guys and today we have the final production units here these are the things that you'll be getting your hands on once the pre-orders ship out so what we're going to do today in this video is focus primarily on the hardware side of things so we're going to cover all those little details that we couldn't talk about before we're going to have a look at the quick release mechanism in detail in particular today and yeah we'll also take a look at the boost kit the power supply the table clamp see if they're the same as the pre-production ones that we looked at and then in a future video we'll take a deeper dive into the driving experience have a look at any little nuances and things that have changed since our original testing as well as talk about settings and how you can optimize your experience with the csl dd let's get started all right so let's get into this guy we'll start off with the quote on the front which i think we can probably already quote without even reading the rest of it every driver has their limit and center let's open this up my limit is and underneath the handle there a little bit further than others so i think most of us will be familiar with that i have been called out by fanatex quotes in the past and you guys have very quickly corrected me in the comments but not this time knew that one so we've got our quick start guide here can't call it an instruction manual has to be called a quick start guide because people don't have the attention span for a instruction manual these days so we've got a quick little diagram there with all the bits and pieces what you can see included in the box talking about the t-slot channels all the important details there as you would expect and we'll go through that in detail a little bit later on should we need to look at our standard fanatec or fanatic whichever way you want to say it sticker sheet as well we've got our insert lift it up this will be our usb cable i would imagine and any other little ancillary components let's try to open it up without breaking it here i'm really not a graceful unboxer yep so that is our usbc cable and it is the same style usbc cable exactly as we saw in the pre-production model you'll remember i was a little bit concerned about the um the plug not exactly fitting the cutout on the base so we'll see whether that's changed on the base i guess but we'll we'll reflect on that a little bit later on we've got our four little t-nuts which will go into our channels on the base itself and then we have the main event so let's lift it out very carefully put it on the table okay i'm actually really curious because i don't know they did tell us originally with the pre-production models that they were very close to final so let's see how different this is okay well i mean honestly it looks exactly the same i don't see any difference here at least at a glance at all from what we looked at before which is a good thing it means that you know at least at face value everything that we talked about in the in the first look video appears to carry through to the final production model so obviously we'll see what the driving experience is like we've got a little sticker on the front here with a message that says as a part of our standard quality control process the wheelbase has passed a durability test which causes slight marks on the quick release surface this product wears the marks with pride there you go before connecting the wheelbase to your pc please install the latest fanatic driver version 404 or newer i don't think that's out just yet but um that will be out by the time you guys get your hands on this and that will obviously be what we'll be using to test in the future video when we look at the driving side of things as well please update the latest version of the firmware then update the wheelbase firmware so pretty standard stuff there so we'll yeah we'll definitely have a look at that as well but yeah looking at the rest of it in terms of dimensions and everything it actually looks exactly the same as what we had before and i can see there on the back as well yeah everything looks exactly the same so i'm not seeing any port for a dongle which i thought might end up coming with the retail version of the boost kit 180. so it does look like our comments regarding the boost kit 180 just being that additional power rail and not having any sort of smarts or handshake is accurate i mean there could always be some sort of a resistance detection or something like that internally so obviously i can't guarantee that we might do some testing out with that later on but that's a subject for another video but yeah look in terms of the form factor and everything exactly the same as what we saw with the pre-production model even down to the t-slot channels and everything so let's dig into this a little bit further we might actually just quickly unbox the other accessories too get them out on the table for you and then we can look at this in some more detail okay so let's start off by talking about some of the stuff that we couldn't talk about before starting with dimensions and just the general form factor so 145 millimeters long and 95 millimeters long for the quick release stem so if you measure the actual length of the unit here 145 millimeters not including that little tiny recessed or poking out part that you can see there extruded part i should say it's probably the correct word and then from the face of the unit here to the end of the quick release is 95 millimeters for those who are wanting to come up with some sort of fancy solution for mounting then we have a width of 160 millimeters so it is a little bit wider than it is long and it is the same height as it is wide as well so 160 millimeters tall 160 millimeters wide i think that's correct anyway let me just double check that yep so 160 wide and 160 tall we do have the same plastic and metal construction as we saw on the pre-release versions as well so the front face and the rear panel here are both plastic and then the middle part here is metal and you can see we do have this heatsink design which is essentially just increasing the surface area to increase the cooling capacity or the ability to dissipate heat away from the electric motor so this is completely passively cooled there's no cooling fan or anything like that inside and passive cooling of course has two advantages it's quiet doesn't make any sound compared with a cooling fan and of course doesn't have any moving parts so there's nothing to wear out over time and when we did test the pre-production version of this we noticed that it just got slightly warm even when running at maximum force feedback strength so cooling is not going to be an issue with these guys even if you're running in a relatively warm environment i don't think you're going to have any problems with overheating cutting out or reducing torque anything like that not going to be a problem so we do also have some m6 holes in the front here two at the top and two at the bottom now my understanding is and it doesn't actually say in the quick start guide but my understanding is that these are for mounting accessories like this little smartphone adapter here exact same spacing as we had with the clubsport wheelbase 2.5 and the the csl elite wheelbases as well so if you've got an accessory like this that fits those then it will also fit this you can see there sits on the front there but it is important to note that these are not as far as i understand at least for mounting the actual wheelbase itself to a rig so to do that what we have as we saw before is these little t-nuts so what they do is they slide in from the side like so one two and then we have a mounting depth of ten millimeters and that is in the quick start guide so the bolts that you put through need to be at least 10 millimeters long plus obviously whatever length you need to get through whatever you're screwing through to get on there as well and just to give you the spacing between those channels as well i measure that to be 70 millimeters from center to center so there you go for you guys who are looking at creating your own mounts for these 70 millimeter spacing between the top and the bottom so flipping it up to its bottom as well and we can see here we have three channels so we can again slide our t-nuts through one two three and that allows us to replicate the exact same mounting pattern as we have on the base of again the clubspot wheelbases as well as the csl elite bases so any rig which you're able to or any wheel plate which you're able to mount those wheelbases to you won't have any problems mounting this one either which is really handy so we'll pop those out again now is a little bit fidgety sometimes to get those into the right position when you are mounting one of these on a rig but once it's down once it's bolted down it's not a problem at all they don't slide around and we had absolutely no issues with flex or anything moving any problems like that and obviously having those t-slots does make it a little bit more versatile in being able to move things around into a position that's going to suit you so clever design there let's have a look at this quick release now this is one of the things that we weren't able to talk about on the original because we were told it was pre-production now i will tell you that this does look pretty much exactly the same as what was on that pre-production model so that's good because it means we don't have to retract any of the statements that we made originally so if we have a look inside here we can see the exact same pin assembly as we have on the shaft or the stem of our dd1 or dd2 so exactly the same the other thing that we didn't look at before which we can now as well of course is how this is actually interchangeable in preparation for the qr2 so i'm going to grab my allen keys out now and let's just quickly talk about that a little bit so as of right now at the time of making the video when you order a dd1 or a dd2 or hcs ldd you're automatically given the qr1 system that's just what comes with the unit by default in the future once the qr2 releases you're going to be given the option of choosing whether you want a qr1 or a qr2 when you place your order so i'm assuming what that means is that the csldd and all the other wheelbases will ship kind of like what we saw with the with the power supply in this instance or what we're seeing with wheels if you buy one of those at the moment as well the quick release is actually shipped separately from the wheel and then you install it later on so the way we'll do that i'll spin it around so you guys get a better look we take a five millimeter allen key which isn't included in the kit so you will need one of those and we simply loosen off the collar here now it is going to be vitally important that if you do end up changing this you tighten this down to the same amount of torque as it was out of the box now it doesn't have a torque spec in the quick start guide so just kind of take note of how tight this feels it is a metal collar so it is safe to do it up pretty tightly but we are going into a carbon composite plastic kind of insert here which we'll see in just a moment so i'm going to loosen this off okay so that collar is now pretty loose it can move around pretty freely there there we go and now if we pull on the quick release there we go it just pops straight out like so and that leaves us with our carbon composite motor shaft and you'll remember from the video that we did on the pre-release model that is a lightweight carbon composite which reduces the rotating mass obviously the less rotating mass the more responsive the motor is able to be at the same given newton meters of torque so that is obviously very important but what we can see here on the quick release what we can show you now we couldn't show you before is a little usb-c connection now this is using a proprietary protocol so it's not like you can just plug in any usb-c device and have it work but it's quite clever how they've used the usbc adapter to plug that in so what that'll mean is that you're able to interchange this with the qr2 when it releases that will just plug straight back in exactly the same way this one goes in now so we'll plug that back in now it is keyed you can see it does have a little keyway there so it can only go in actually it can go in either way upside down or that way and i'm assuming that's the reason why they use a usb-c connection because it is reversible unlike usb a where you have to rotate it six times to get it to go in the right way so that's going to slot straight back in like so plug back in and then we can just tighten up our collar again exactly the same way as it was before so we'll tighten that up and there we go that is tightened down again so a little bit surprised they haven't revised the design of that collar i thought it might end up looking a little bit more refined than it does in the final production model you can see on the side there where the cnc machining ends and the anodizing i think it's i think it's anodized and i think it's powder coated i'm not sure but anyway that's what it looks like so you guys can see for yourselves yeah that's how the qr1 system works obviously once we get our hands on the qr2 we'll give you a look at that as well so let's spin around to the back now have a look at the ins and outs and then we can move on to having a look at the power supplies and the table clamp so flipping around to the back now we have our usb c connection we've got our power connection we've got our data connection which we don't have a whole lot of information on just yet not covered in the quick start guide either but i'm assuming that's for some sort of a external device which we'll be able to connect at some point in the future or maybe just for reading raw telemetry data or something like that but again we'll cover that once we see some accessories that make use of that later on pretty common to have that port on a lot of wheel bases and we've never really seen it utilized on any of them so not sure what the go is there but anyway we'll move on shifter one which is for h pattern and sequential shifter two which is for sequential only and then we have our pedal connection self-explanatory and of course our handbrake connection which is self-explanatory as well all four of those are using the standard rj12 connection so those are directly compatible with the accessories that you may already own from fnatic now with regards to the usb connection one of the things we mentioned earlier in the video as well as in our pre-production first look was that the little plug that you get on the usb-c connection isn't a direct fit in the machined cutaway here so what that means is when you plug it in there is a little bit of wiggle there and i'm pretty confident that we are going to see some people snapping the connections off their pcb as a result of that so i'm a little bit disappointed i would have liked to have seen a slightly different shaped plug there just to completely fill that hole and just make it so it's impossible basically to to break that connection without damaging the plug first just not the best fit there i mean it is good that they're using usb-c now of course that makes things a little bit easier faster data rates and all those good things but it is a usb-a connection on the other side so you know it is still utilizing usb 2 i believe don't think it needs the data rates offered by usb 3 but don't quote me on that but that is one element that i was hoping would be improved on the final production models which unfortunately isn't now if we move across to power supplies again it's a four pin molex connection let's just flip that around to this side again so we can bring across our two power supplies so we've got our standard 90 watt power supply and if we have a look at the power connections here or the pin out i should say we can see pin one two and three are all v negative pin four is v positive we've got an output of 24 volts or 3.75 amps which is 90 watts of course so pin 1 2 and 3 all negative pin 4 positive meaning that we're only using a single 24 volt power rail in this case if we have a look at the boost kit 180 by comparison exactly the same as what we had with the pre-production models so you can see in this case pin 2 and 3 are v negative pin one and four of v positive again 24 volts 7.5 amps or 180 watts so what that leads me to believe is that we're looking at a twin rail power supply here with pin 1 and 4 both being v positive 90 watts per rail so you could use at least in theory some sort of other 180 watt power supply split out the output so you've got 90 watts per rail and copy this pin out and that should work just fine again there could be some sort of internal smarts here could be measuring resistance but i don't see any sort of digital handshake or anything like that that's going on there's no dongle included which i thought may be the case with the final production units and it is just a standard 4-pin molex connection which plugs straight into the back here and clicks in like so nice sturdy connection there it does wiggle around a little bit but you know standard molex connection pretty much exactly the same as what you get in a pc so unplug that again and yeah i think that's pretty much everything to cover in terms of power supplies so let's go around the front again quickly and just talk about the power button too so you've got a little led inside as well and that lights up red for pc mode green for xbox mode of course if you have an xbox wheel connected and yellow for csw 2.5 or clubsport wheelbase 2.5 compatibility mode so before we move on just quickly look at the table clamp as well this does look to be exactly the same as the pre-production ones which were sent before so we don't need to go into a massive detail about it again but what we have here is a little clamp or a big clamp i should say it's actually quite large which is going to drop in like so so our dd is going to slide on like so a little bit awkward to get on there but there we go that's on our clamp mechanism is going to sit like this this part's going to go in through here and screw in like so and then if we come up to the front of the table quickly we simply slide it onto the table tighten that down and we do also have a secondary little tool here as well which we can use to tighten it down with a little bit more leverage and that gives us a nice 15 degree tilt which is nice and comfortable ergonomically for driving as well as a nice sturdy mount a little bit of flex there but again it's going to depend on the type of surface you're mounting it to and we did test this out extensively in our previous review of the pre-production and we're very satisfied with it we'll of course test it out again later on for you guys once we go for a drive with our production model 2 just to be absolutely thorough but no reason at all to be concerned about the table mount i think it's a very clever design and yeah works well does what it's meant to do okay so last thing we of course have to do before we close off the video is take the covers off and have a look at what's inside so let's pull the quick release off again of course i have already pre-released that little quick release collar so we're going to pop that out very carefully like so take off the collar and let's i've already undone the bolts obviously too so there's eight little m6 bolts that are securing four in the front four in the rear so we're gonna take this off little power switch connection in there and it's as simple as that so you can see the motor itself is actually quite small so carbon composite shaft as we mentioned before motor housing you can see a nice ball bearing system in there as well where the shaft goes through into the motor housing you can't really see a whole lot of the motor i don't really want to pull this completely apart until we at least have used it quite a bit because you know i want to get used i don't want to cause any damage or do anything that might alter the way it performs when we do our driving test later on but stay tuned of course because undoubtedly at some point we will disassemble this further but let's pop that front cover on again that little cable there is simply just connecting through to the power switch on the front so not a whole lot to see in the front there not that we really expect it to and we'll flip around to the back now and let's pop this cover off too so this should be pretty straightforward yep there we go so again just four bolts securing this in place slide it off no connections no nothing so this is actually quite a lot easier to disassemble than a dd1 or dd2 and you can see that's just a plastic shell nothing fancy to it at all and then this is the brains of the operations so a couple of things that i notice here there's a little fuse there so if you do end up with a non-functioning wheelbase for some reason that would be the first thing that i'd be checking we can see our two little usbc connections our one for the main connection as well as a data port now one thing i will mention on this housing which i did notice is it does actually come in a little bit further than i thought so if you look at it from there there is actually a little bit of a plastic recess that sits around it so that does actually provide a little bit of additional support to that connection so it's a little bit better than i thought it was i don't think it's going to stop the them from breaking off if somebody steps on the cable of course but you know it is what it is just wanted to point that out but otherwise we've got our connection which goes through to the power button at the front that's all that connector is there and the cable that passes through you can see the power and data connection here which is going to pass through the center of the motor and into our inductive coupling for the pat for the powering of the wheel as well as our little optical transducer for getting data across to the wheel as well remembering of course that the shaft does need to be out of spin infinitely and if you want to understand more detail on exactly how that works check out our dd2 complete teardown video where we literally pulled the thing entirely apart and showed how those assemblies work unfortunately if you look inside this you can't really see all that stuff it's all kind of up inside the motor housing and again i don't want to pull it apart any further than we have to for this video but other than that pretty simple really you can see this little guy here which is our hall effect sensor for our positional data so as we spin the motor there's a little magnetic ring which sits on the outside of the motor shaft there you can probably see that spinning away and what that does is that tells the little hall effect sensor here what the motor's position is just like what we saw with the dd1 and the dd2 and that teardown video as well and that's how it gets its positional data through then aside from that we've got our microprocessors of course we've got our sort of digital processing section of the board which kind of looks like it's sitting down in this section we've got our power delivery section through here we've got a breaking resistor which we can see around on this side as well and then we've got our three little connections here which you can see i just kind of push on connectors almost like spade connectors that go on to the prongs for the main motor and that is what powers the motor so simple as that guys and you can see if we look square on there a better look at the heat seek assembly so all this surface area is purely responsible for dissipating heat away from the motor assembly itself and out to the fins obviously increasing the surface area allows more air to pass over allows better cooling efficiency as simple as that so there you have it guys that is a more detailed look at the production hardware for the csldd and the qr1 quick release we'll of course have a look at the qr2 once we can get our hands on that too and we will of course in a future video be having a look at the driving experience with the more updated drivers of course and seeing whether it's the same experience as what we had with the pre-release i'm expecting it most likely will be given that what we've got here in front of us is pretty much identical to what we had in pre-release which is kind of what they said to us anyway but yeah we'll test it all out again for you guys just to make absolutely sure and of course see what the experience is like with those updated drivers too but that is it for today's video let us know down in the comments below if there's anything else you'd like to know and uh yeah leave a thumbs up if you've enjoyed the video thank you very much for watching as always and if you do want to pick one of these up we do have some links down in the description below which go a long way to helping out the channel so thank you very much for your support there but as always guys thanks a lot for watching and we'll see you again soon [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Boosted Media

Views: 57,371

Keywords: Fanatec CSL DD, CSL DD, CSL DD Review, Fanatec DD, Best value sim racing wheel, best sim racing wheel, CSL DD vs DD1, CSL DD vs DD2, CSL DD vs ClubSport Wheelbase 2.5, CSL DD vs CSL Elite, CSL DD vs Thrustmaster, Fanatec vs Logitech, Fanatec vs Thrustmaster, Fanatec vs simucube, Fanatec vs Simagic, Fanatec vs VRS, CSL DD teardown, CSL DD tests, Sim Racing Garage, Sim Racing Garage CSL DD, best value DD, Direct Drive, Fanatec Direct Drive, Thrustmaster Direct Drive

Id: QNd99exRwec

Length: 24min 18sec (1458 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021