HE Sequential Shifter
The
Heusinkveld Engineering sequential is a lightweight, & relatively inexpensive shifter that could fit the bill for many veteran sim racers. Many feel the HE shifter occupies the perfect price/performance ratio in our pursuit of simulated driving immersion.
Videos of the HE Sequential Shifter
Feel
The feeling is wonderful and it works like you’d expected, without failure. Its external aspect follows the usual guideline in the company being a rock solid stainless steel piece closer to the professional racing hardware rather than commercial sim racing hardware. There’s no doubt it will be a great addition to any simracer’s cockpit looking for better immersion without excluding best quality.
The HE Sequential shifter looks and feels like other products from Heusinkveld Engineering, solid and well engineered. A very small box of stainless steel CNC laser cut contains all the electronics and the ball spring resistance system. One of the sides has the PCB, well covered, with USB and molex-style connections. I enjoyed the shifter feeling in big down shiftings when the internal mechanism makes that characteristic sound and the car’s slowing down smoothly to let you hit the apex. And a last very good point I noticed doing this; blowing your engine up, is now highly unlikely.
The Heusinkveld Engineering Sim Shifter Sequential is a durable and compact sequential shifter system. Using a ball spring resistance system, shifting requires an early peak force after which resistance drops just as in real cars. The shifter comes with various lengths of shifter levers as well as shifter knobs, allowing for maximum adjustability.
Many racecars use a stick-activated sequential gearbox. Heusinkveld Engineering presents a durable and compact sequential shifter solution which emulates the feel of a real sequential shifter and can be set-up in many different configurations.
Every shifter we have ever used has had quite a lot of play in the shaft while at rest. The HE sequential shifter does exhibit a small amount of play, but it is far less that the other shifters we have tried. This movement is tiny and we are being excessively critical by even mentioning it. In other shifters we have used, like the Fanatec CSQ V1.5, the play feels very loose and as if its not meant to be there. The HE shifter’s play as well as being far less, feels more controlled and almost as if it’s there by design.
Moving the shifter forwards you feel instant resistance and as you increase pressure it will suddenly snap forwards as if finding the teeth of a mechanical gear. The feeling is quite realistic. At the end of travel you hit a fairly solid stop with a slight clunking sound. Pulling the shifter backwards has a slightly different feel than going forwards although the difference is very subtle. We found that slightly more force seemed required for a backwards shift although this may just the affect of our body weight causing momentum on the forward shift. The clunking sound as the stop is hit is a little more pronounced on the back shift. No shifter is going to be silent, indeed, you want to hear something and feel the end of travel to be sure of a precise gear change. The HE sequential shifter is not quiet. We would describe the noise as slightly louder than expected. The use of racing gloves reduces the noise level quite a lot which is something to bear in mind if noise is a concern for you.
Engineering
The Heusinkveld Engineering Sim Shifter Sequential is a durable and compact sequential shifter system, which allows it to be installed in the tightest simulator environments. It has specifically been design to mimic short throw sequential shifters which are often found in formula racing cars. Using a ball spring resistance system, shifting requires an early peak force after which resistance drops, making it feel as if it slides into gear.
Flexibility
Every shifter is supplied with three different levers: one straight 30mm lever, one straight 50mm lever and one bent 50mm lever. As the resistance in the shifter unit itself is fixed, you can vary the shifting force by attaching a longer or shorter lever.
Additionally, every shifter is supplied with 3 types of plastic shifter knobs with lengths varying from 46mm to 90mm. Combined with the different levers, this allows you to vary the combined length of the lever/knob assembly (measured from the top of the main shifter unit) from 76mm to 140mm. With three different levers and three different knobs, you will have a total of 9 possible configurations.
The lever uses M10 thread, so you’ll also be able to attach any other 3rd party knob which is compatible with this size. Changing the lever or knob can be done in under a minute.
Mounting
Every shifter is supplied with a table clamp. This allows you to connect the shifter to any table-like surface. The table clamp can be detached from the shifter if you require a different mounting solution.
An alternative mounting plate is supplied with every shifter in order to assist with mounting to a structure to the side or underneath the unit. It is possible to rotate the shifter unit relative to this mounting plate in order to optimize the position of the shifter. This plate fits directly onto aluminium profiles with a size of up to 40mm.
You can also use your own mounting solution. The bottom of the shifter unit has 2 M4 bolt holes which allows you to connect the shifter to virtually any horizontal surface.
Connectivity options
The Sim Shifter Sequential has a controller board integrated in the shifter unit which offers two connectivity options, all integrated in one unit. It is possible to use the shifter as a standalone controller, connecting it to your pc with the supplied USB-cable. This means that the shifter will show up as a seperate device in Windows.
Next to the USB-port, there is also a 4×1 2,54mm female Molex socket. This allows to you interface/integrate the shifter with an external controller, such as our own Sim Pedals USB controller (or any other third party controllers which offers an interface for switches). You will need to build your own cable if you want to use this method. The integrated controller board can be seen from the outside, but it is protected by an acrylic plate.
