My suggestion for the vibration rattling issue would be to wrap a single layer of felt tape or even electrical tape around the shaft where it's contacting the gates. That should eliminate the metal contact and reduce the noise substantially if not eliminate it completely.
I have the vnm shifter and absolutely love it. Highly recommend if someones willing to drop that kind of money into a shifter. You can also adjust the stiffness of the shifts so tight you have to really force it into gear, way tighter then anyone will ever realistically run. As far as the vibrations while using a buttkicker, i will say im still using my fairly basic, but trusty gtomega art cockpit, with 4 dayton audio transducers, and i have never had that issue with the shifter personally. So, with that said i do think that issue will only come up in a very specific circumstance. There are so many variables there, from the location and strength of your shakers, to the tightness of the shifter. And that of course is if your running shakers at all. As far as swapping the sequential plate, its really not that bad. You can realistically do it in like a minute. How annoying it would be to you would depend on your patience, and how often you actually switch between sequential and H pattern. A plus on the plate is you can seperately adjust the shifting strength like you can with the H pattern. The vnm also has a usb passthrough for truck sim shift knobs, if your into ats/ets.
Glad I watched your review. I'm considering upgrading my Fanatec shifter, which is probably one of the best all rounders. The haptic interaction rattle would really annoy me, because I run my haptic set up very high so it would rattle on my rig. I may have to consider the sim magic maybe? 🤔🤔
You can cut the gate swapping time down to around 90 seconds if you use a "T" bar type Allen key. Once lose you simply spin the screw out of it's hole in a few seconds and the same to refit. - far less fiddly too.
Some additional thoughts. You mentioned misshifting with the vnm. This is because the spring for side to side motion is too weak. There are some videos about replacing it. Makes the shifter much better - you dont even have to take it apart. Also, there is no lockout for reverse and when you are shifting to 5th you get caught up in the gate for reverse :(. THe modified spring and muscle memory also help with this or just get the 6 gate plate and forgo reverse. I personally found the fanatec to feel better but was tired of having to open it every week to clear up the misshifting :( I ended up going with the ds-8x which is close to perfect in feel (the length of the shifter could be an inch shorter). Btw, you can use other shift knobs for the vnm, you just need one of those grub screw based adaptors used for stalks without threading.
The vibrating noise from the shafte sounds like an easy fix. Put a little peice of electrical tape around the shaft in level with the shifter plate it'll cut down that noise
While more expensive I believe you would of been happier with the Simagic DS-8X shifter. It has the closed top like you like and it goes from H-pattern to sequential with just a flick of a switch. Simagic is a $100 US more then the VNM so maybe not worth it if you don't use it that much. Glad to see more Canadian Sim channels out there!
Wow, thank you for the great video. Sorry. I did not know it made that much noise with haptics. I thought of the horrible idea of dipping it in Maker's Mark wax😂😂😂( And if you weren't born into a family of alcoholics. Congratulations. Maker's mark is a bourbon, and they sealed the top with a red rubberized wax)
Thanks! I am wondering if the noise is an issue with my particular unit. I checked inside to make sure nothing was loose. Everything looked ok. I'll probably contact VNM to see what they say, but it could be how it is. LOL on the wax 🥃 cheers!, but I shouldn't have to modify a $300 shifter IMO
@The SimRacing Den I think that's how it is. I have their handbrake, and It has a rubber stopper. I can let go of it and not hear it. Why they didn't do the same with this shifter is kind of crazy.
Interesting, I thought at first that I was missing something like a rubber stopper or it fell off, but when I looked back at other reviews and looked closely at photos, I didn't see one. It seems like that might be an easy fix to the issue, but I wonder if it hinders shifting. I may try If I have a small one lying around somewhere.
@The SimRacing Den We'll personally I like hearing the clink when I shift,but it seems i'm in the rare sim racing position that I don't have to worry about noise. Even so, if I had haptics that rattling would be a deal breaker
Can you tell me how you connected your ButtKicker Gamer Pro directly to your rig? I just got one and connected it to my ASR6 with an ASR crossmember designed for the ButtKicker that I put under my seat. But the effects feel very dampened. So if there is a way of direct mounting that creates a more direct effect, I’d love to know about it. Thanks. Jon
Check out the Trak racer buttkicker mount that’s what I use I attach directly to one of the profiles my seat sliders are mounted too underneath. Here’s the link trakracer.com/?ref=Yhvdp_5RM04bsP it’s an affiliate link.
