Pulsefire Saga racing wheel

Project CARS

DiRT Rally

Trackmania

Turn your mouse into a racing wheel!

Don’t have a Pulsefire saga? No problem. Remix the any-mouse-adapter and slide it into the any-mouse stand.

If you decide to make this, know that you will need to adjust settings until it feels right, but the reward is a very precise racing wheel!

Printed parts

Print these parts:

• mouse_track.3mf
• steering_wheel.3mf
• bearing_retainer.3mf
• hatch.3mf

OPTION 1: If you have a Pulsefire Saga, then print:

• pulsefire_saga_stand-with-cavity.3mf

OPTION 2: If you have a Pulsefire Saga, but you want the option of using another mouse, then print:

• any-mouse_stand-with-cavity.3mf
• any-mouse-adapter_pulsefire_saga.3mf

OPTION 3: If you want to use any other mouse, then print:

• any-mouse_stand-with-cavity.3mf
• Your own custom mouse adapter

Hardware

Gather these components:

• (4) 25mm M3 screws
• (4) M3 nuts
• (1) 608 bearing (also known as a skate bearing)
• OPTIONAL paper and glue, or tape. You may need to experiment to find a material your mouse likes.

Print settings

• PLA
• 0.2 to 0.4 mm layer height
• 5% infill
• It is not required, but you may optionally paint supports on the inside of the mouse track to make it easier to insert the bearing. Paint the supports as shown in the picture below:

Assembly

Insert an M3 nut into the hole inside of the stand's cavity.

Fill the cavity with something heavy. I filled mine with coins. Rocks would work too.

Insert the hatch into the stand, and then secure it with an M3 screw.

Insert the skate bearing into the mouse track. Push the bearing towards two of the retainer clips as shown by the direction of the white arrow on the left below. It should look like the picture on the right when done correctly.

Insert one of the M3 nuts into the hole in the top of the stand. The picture below shows the any-mouse stand, but this step is the same for the Pulsefire Saga stand.

Thread one of the M3 screws all the way through the bearing retainer.

Screw the screw with the bearing retainer through the mouse track into the stand. Tighten the screw all the way until the mouse track is securely attached to the stand.

Insert an M3 nut into one of the two slots in the side of the mouse track.

Screw a screw through the wheel into the hole in the mouse track that has the nut.

Repeat the process with another screw and nut to finish attaching the steering wheel to the mouse track.

Slide your mouse, or mouse adapter, into the stand. Congratulations! You successfully assembled your racing wheel!

Optional: Consider gluing something to the mouse track. Skipping this step is fine, but doing it can positively affect two things:

1. How well the mouse “sees” the mouse track
2. How much friction you experience

One of my first experiments was this decorative craft paper. It didn't provide enough friction.

I've experimented with a few different materials. My favorite material so far is crepe paper (Wikipedia). It has just the right amount of friction, and the mouse never misses a movement. I can reliably turn the wheel so that the mouse moves back and forth 1 pixel on my screen. If you don't have crepe paper, masking tape (Wikipedia) works great too.

Software and settings

Some games have built-in mouse steering. When a game has mouse steering, use that. For all other games you must create a virtual joystick.

Create a virtual joystick on Windows 11

1. Download and install vJoy 2.1.9.1 from jshafer817/vJoy

2. Use the “Configure vJoy” executable to set up a joystick with a single axis - the x axis. This axis is your steering input.

3. Download and install FreePIE 1.11.724.0

4. Save and run this FreePIE script that turns your mouse input into joystick inputs

Sensitivity

Computer mice are very precise. You have a lot of resolution to play with, and that means you have a lot of control over how much you need to turn the wheel in real life to steer the car in game. Adjust the sensitivity with the following steps:

1. First, set your mouse DPI. A reasonable range is 400 to 800 DPI.
2. Next, adjust the sensitivity in game until either the steering feels right, or until you reach the maximum adjustment allowed by the game.
3. Finally, if there is not enough adjustment in game, then adjust the sensitivity multiplier scaleX in the provided FreePIE script.

Troubleshooting

If the car won't make slight turns:

Make sure your racing game input settings have zero deadzone. Deadzone is meant to eliminate drift from relatively imprecise thumb sticks on a controller. You don’t want any deadzone with your racing wheel.

If the steering feels “weird”:

Make sure your game has steering linearity set to perfectly linear. You may need to look for “Advanced axis settings” or similar in your game to find this.

The stand might be moving when you’re trying to steer. Try filling the stand with something heavier.

If you feel like the wheel sometimes does not respond to your input:

It might be that your mouse is having trouble seeing the mouse track. Try gluing some crepe paper or masking tape to the mouse track so that your mouse can see it better.

If that doesn’t work, it might be that your computer can’t keep up with the rate that your mouse is sending inputs to vJoy. If so, reduce the rate that your mouse sends inputs to the computer to something like 125 Hz.

I used the subtraction body from the official HyperX Pulsefire saga files to make this fit the Pulsefire Saga. Everything else is designed from scratch.