It’s been a long time since driving a car has become more than just knowing how to move a steering wheel and press a few pedals. Getting the right moment to change trajectory, distribute the weight from one side to the other and accelerate without losing grip may take you further and faster than the rest of the grid, but failing to activate the DRS, put it in the wrong gear, not engage the pit limiter or give it the wrong gear, not engaging the limiter in the pits or flashlight to the driver in front to ask him -if it’s okay- to move aside in an endurance, will make all your expertise go down the same toilet where those who don’t know how to drive go.
Because nothing is easy in our hobby, depending on the model of car you get to drive, you will have at your disposal dozens of options that you would like to keep at hand without the need to stop the vehicle on the side of the road to put the keyboard on your knees and hit the right key. Thus were born external keypads, boxes with the most motley colors and shapes and with more assignable rotary dials, displays, levers and switches than when Gagarin first jumped into space. “They will never be enough,” reads a sign above the cockpit of any current simRacer.
However, no matter how many panels, keyboards and boxes we install in the vicinity of our hands, nothing like having all the indispensable functions at the touch of a finger. And unless you’re the incredible elastic man, that forces you to incorporate all those buttons around the rim and just a few centimeters from your phalanges.
Ascher Racing is a German company well known in the simRacing world. Martin Ascher, its founder, named it during the first more personal stage of the brand. In 2014 it starts distributing hand-made paddles and peripherals aimed at the simulation world until 2019 when it was acquired by KW automotive GmbH. During these long years, it was adding to the catalog brackets and shafts for OSW and soon after -until our days- they would end up designing their own complete steering wheels themselves. In this review, we will focus on one of their best-known models, the B16L-USB button pad.
PACKAGING
Having all the industrial gearing of KW automotive should give Ascher Racing the enough tools to create true engineering masterpieces. That’s the first impression anyone can have when they receive at home material signed by this team. There is no room either for DIY or for the kind of customizations that are typical of a handcrafted assembly line. As we will discover later, everything in B16L-USB is pure millimetric design, solid and efficient.
The packaging already lets you guess the work, the experience and above all, makes good that Jurassic Park meme “spared no expense“. The button panel arrives in a bed of black, hard foam with the exact shape so that the interior stays in place from the factory until the customer removes it. No white polystyrene balls or bubble wrap. If the package were to fall out of an airplane, the B16L-USB would land pristine in your hoop after going through your roof by sticking in the backet.
The B16L-USB is factory assembled. The screws and other hardware it incorporates are supplied in little bags with their own screen-printed logo (we’re still sparing no expense). They are screws of different lengths but of the same metric for the installation of the ring to the shaft that the user chooses. They also add a tool to disassemble the connection port and some spacers to relieve the force of the magnets.
A handful of colorful stickers to customize the design of each button are attached to the curly USB cable that will connect it to the PC. Embedded in the same foam, there also arrive 4 different magnets that will allow to distribute the force of the paddles (keep reading below).
CONSTRUCTION
For those of us who have dabbled in designing and printing our own gadgets, taking the Ascher B16L-USB out of the box produces a twinge of unhealthy envy that starts with an indeterminate tingling in your hands and ends, seconds later, in a nervous twitch that runs down your cheek. This is a piece of equipment of exceptional quality and a finish that is as sparing as it is elegant.
A piece of metal, drilled for hours using a brushing technique -only reserved for those who have invested an obscene amount of money in machines typical of heavy industry-, gives shelter to a minimalist circuitry, efficient and accurate in all its measurements. Ascher Racing does not mince its words when it comes to design and it seems that all its experience of previous years has been condensed into how to make the B16L-USB an invention that, by all accounts, will last more generations than the hobby itself.
The box, of a single piece, reveals inside the circular traces that the machine was leaving in its path during the emptying of the glass to remove everything unnecessary. Perfectly polished, we have not been able to find an edge with burr or signs of having been corrected after the mechanical process.
Flanking both sides, the paddles, that seed that long ago spawned Martin’s first Ascher Racing and later became one of his totem products, are integrated into the body of the control unit with the precise hardware. Two single wires, embedded in a discreet sheath of the same color as the body, transfer the pulse of the two magnets to a micro Leo Bodnar board, the brain to which the 8 buttons and 2 encoders of this version are also directed.
The circuitry is subtle, clean and designed expressly for this model. The buttons, embedded on the board itself, are shaken off the typical wires that populate all the more homemade projects and this time the hardware falls into the right coordinates. Again, if you’re the type to make your own devil’s wits, you’ll be raised a fawning smile at the pristine result in Ascher‘s design.
Although the smallest board in the Bodnar catalog allows a total of 20 buttons without the need for matrices on its pins plus an analog input, the B16L-USB module only incorporates 8 buttons or pushbuttons plus 2 encoders. Leo Bodnar, manufacturer of world-renowned interfaces and a seal of quality in any device, is responsible for transforming the electrical responses by converting pulses into messages by creating a HID (Human Interface Device) compatible with Windows.
In the case of the B16L-USB button panel, the Leo Bodnar application itself tells us the exact model used and the configuration possibilities offered by the interface. Notice how the encoders have been installed on inputs 7-8 and 15-16 with a ratio of 1:2 in each rotation step.
BUTTONS and ENCONDERS
The buttons, with a really good feel, flee the intermediate and cheap travel of much less demanding manufacturers where at the lowest weight they seem to dance in their slack. Actuating the B16L-USB button generates a smooth mechanical feedback at the start with a natural bounce that leaves no room for doubt in its activation or deactivation.
Each of the buttons consists of three parts: the circuit soldered directly to the board without intermediate wires, the plastic sleeve and finally, the outer bark that will touch our fingers. These caps, somewhat small in size if you are used to other models, will not, however, make us miss more diameter.
Choosing a good encoder has its philosophy and many times it is the key between one project and another. The normal and cheaper ones that we can find in any electronics store (and present in other segments of mass-consumption button panels), have an uneven feel. Ascher, in its B16L-USB, has chosen a very tactile component. As with the buttons, it is clear that where the budget of the whole is hidden, is in the feedback and its electrical response. Precise in character, each turn step is noted with ease but at the same time firm and unmistakable. The external trim, rough and narrow, also helps to build confidence in the inertia of the movement.
PADDLES
With a length more than enough for any individual of the human race, the crescent-shaped metal feels heavy and sturdy. Of all the gears that make up the B16L-USB – and any paddles system in general – these metal parts are bound to endure thousands of weekly interactions over their entire lifespan.
Because of their efficiency and the little need for extra components (thanks to the often vilified K.I.S.S. technique: “keep it simple, stupid” or “don’t mess with it more than you should, you little rascal“), for some time now magnetic contact paddles have become a standard from a certain budget range and this B16L-USB could not be less.
Combining the extra magnets it supplies, Ascher Racing proposes us six different hardness options in its paddles. Of course, depending on the choice, the feedback both in its action and in its recoil will generate a metallic thumping sound directly proportional to the attraction force of the magnets themselves. In the table below – taken directly from the manual – Ascher refers to all possible modes of resultant forces.
Thus, with the default setting (the maximum of 800g), continuous clicking during racing is very evident and can even be heard without problems with headphones at high volume. The spacers included can dampen some of the sound while decreasing the overall loudness.
Since not everyone’s hands are the same size, the B16L-USB paddles can be moved 9.5mm each and on each side. To do this you must perform a somewhat more complex operation that will force us to remove most of the screws of the button panel before adjusting them to the optimal position. A white painted logo on each rear paddle maintains the sober style so characteristic of this brand.
CONNECTION
The B16L-USB model, as its name suggests, requires USB 2.0 connection to the PC port. As we have already mentioned, Leo Bodnar is the brand selected for the interface and its output pinout terminates in a 4-pin DIN connector machined both inside and outside the socket. Here again, Ascher Racing has done away with any wires and let the DIN connector connect directly to board. A small flat tool included in one of the pouches will allow removal of the outer ring and thus access to the guts of the B16L-USB.
The cable, crimped, measures 80cm long in normal state, reached a couple of meters in case the turning pressure increases. Both the female DIN connector of the machining and the male connector itself located at one end of the cable offer the same quality of finish and in the case of the DIN connector it is reinforced with a security threaded connection.
SENSATIONS
Weighing 700gr, you have to add the rim and the shaft. For the analysis we have chosen one of the many compatible models advised by Ascher Racing: a OMP Kubic 310mm rim.
Coupled to our OSW, the final quality of both components is undeniable. The touch is as expected: solid, with an exact geometry for the size of my small hands and for those of us who run in virtual reality, you can immediately guess a completely intuitive button placement. As with many of us, using VR completely disables the need for screens, LEDs or any other added visual details. We appreciate the brand logo in the center of the button panel, but would have liked a small panel with a rotary or similar button.
The button spacing is sufficient (20mm) and allows our fingers to breathe without causing unwanted glitches. Overall, the design pattern sticks to the situational standards of other manufacturers and we can’t imagine a more efficient layout.
It is true that in VR we could miss a larger number of buttons and above all – and this is the most important criticism of the whole analysis – the addition of a Funky Switch, a sort of joystick with several axes of movement that would allow us to walk through the virtual menus without using a keyboard or external button pad. Perhaps Ascher Racing or any other manufacturer of button panels / steering wheels could include in its catalog VR certified equipment, a sort of products with the virtual gamer in mind and without too many aesthetic fuss that only make sense when you contemplate the product from real life.
During a race, the paddle generate confidence at every upshift or downshift and operating their buttons or changing a black box with the rotary mean smooth, error-free actions.
CONCLUSION
The Ascher Racing B16L-USB model is a paradigm in terms of interior design and selection of materials and components. Personally I am glad that the trend in textures has finally changed from a somewhat recurrent carbon to a smooth, satin and elegant material, despite the possible fingerprints that our fingers could leave.
Ascher Racing B16L-USB is a equipment that will continue to function through all the generations of your lineage until it becomes a family treasure that in the future will be revered just as your great-grandchildren will revere the photo of their great-great-grandfather above their cockpit of extruded aluminum. As in all outstanding equipment, the design, the famous know-how and the selected components, will raise the budget to a high-end amount only accessible when your hobby coincides with your passion.
However, despite the cost, the investment in the B16L-USB will be rewarded not with faster times (that’s always on your side), but with the peace of mind of having found an essential component in modern driving. In the fateful event of a mishap, Ascher Racing has the personal guarantee that only a company dedicated to the design and manufacture of real racing hardware could offer.
To conclude, we would like to thank Ascher Racing for providing us the opportunity to try and test their hardware and from BoxThisLap.org we encourage them to continue designing products of such quality.
The button box is on sale at the Ascher Racing website at a price of 499 euros.
See you in the corners, racers.
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