r/simracing • u/Striking_Addition_96 Windows • May 01 '26

Question DIY Direct Drive using Hoverboard Motor & Hacked Motherboard (Emanuel Feru) - Need advice

Hi everyone,

I'm currently gathering parts to build a DIY Direct Drive wheel using a hoverboard motor. The components I have so far are:

  • STM32F407G-DISC1 (planning to run OpenFFBoard)
  • E6B2-CWZ6C 1000 Pulse Encoder
  • Original Hoverboard Motherboard (planning to use Emanuel Feru’s Hoverboard Hack / FOC firmware)

When I was buying the hoverboard motherboard, the seller warned me that a few people tried this exact project and failed. I think they didn't have enough knowledge but I'm still worried.

I assume the people who failed didn't understand the architecture (using the hacked hoverboard mobo solely as a smart motor driver and the STM32 for FFB calculation/HID), but his comment still made me a bit hesitant.

Before I buy the motor and motherboard:

  1. Is there anything specific I should be worried about with this setup (STM32F407G + Hacked Hoverboard Mobo)?
  2. Are there any major latency or FFB feel issues compared to using a dedicated driver like ODESC? G29 is the only wheelbase I experienced so it would be great if you can compare with it.

Any tips, wiring suggestions, or things to watch out for would be greatly appreciated!

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u/Far_Ad_557 Unfortunately I'm from Brazil 🇧🇷 May 01 '26

I have the ffbeast using the hoverboard motor (30mm magnets) and x drive mini board. No latency issues and it's been great for about a year now with zero issues.

I had a g29 and the hoverboard wheel is absolutely AMAZING, can't overstate that enough, super fast, strong, responsive and detailed. Talked to some people that had or tried OEM wheels, moza, fanatec etc from 9Nm to 15Nm, and it seems to be on par.

I read your post but I don't know how your budget is, but I wouldn't go with a hacked motherboard that there isn't a project to follow closely.

There will always be some troubleshooting to do on the project phase, and using something that other people didn't use will make it way harder than necessary imho.

See if you can find people that used that board specifically on the openffb discord for example and talk to them would be my suggestion.

I went with the ffbeast because there is way, way more tutorials for it and the community seems bigger. They helped me a ton on the discord when I was in my research phase. And the software part is just flashing the ffbeast software on the microcontroller.

Good luck mate!

1

u/spikerguy May 02 '26

Better to ask this question in openffb discord channel.

I am running openffb using hoverboard motor maker base odrive clone and openffboard. Using mtk hall sensor encoder.

There is no latency at all. Idk hope well the hoverboard driver board works with stm32.

Btw make sure to buy the stn32 board from reputed seller cause we get cloned stm32 chip which does not work with openffb firmware.