If you have the T3PA pedals from Thrustmaster, you will probably have used the included brake mod for added resistance. However, if you are new to these pedals, and are using them for the first time, you might find that the brake mod for the T3PA doesn’t seem to be working.
Your T3PA brake mod might not be working if you add or remove it from your brake pedal and then try to use it without recalibrating your pedals. You should recalibrate your pedals before trying to use the pedals again, and the way to do this will depend on the game you are playing.
While it can seem like a simple fix, it was a confusing issue for me when I first came across it. Below, I will go into more detail about why this happens, and how to ensure you are getting the most out of your T3PA pedals.
How To Use The Brake Mod For The T3PA Pedals
Varying Resistance
The T3PA pedals from Thrustmaster can be used in two configurations. When you first open up the box, the pedals will all have equal resistance. This means you will be able to push your brake pedal to the floor with almost zero resistance, with nothing but the same springs used on the accelerator and clutch pedals to push the pedal back against you.
This is fine for beginners, and some that don’t want to have any resistance on their brake pedal. However, if you want to have anything close to a realistic feel with these pedals, you will need to use the included brake mod. This is the small metal piece with a rubber cone on the end of it, as you can see in the pictures.
A Bit Of Realism
This is made to slot in behind your brake pedal and provide artificial resistance to make your brake pedal feel more realistic. It is then screwed in from below using the supplied Allen key, and that’s all you need to do. By default, it is on the lowest resistance setting. This means the rubber cone sits at its furthest possible point from the back of your brake pedal.
If you want to add more resistance, then you just unscrew the bolt at the back of the brake mod and then screw the conical rubber component further towards the brake pedal. This allows you to make your brake pedal stiffer, but if you do this in the middle of a game you might run into problems.
Why Is The T3PA Brake Mod Not Working?
Calibration Is Key
If you set your pedals up for the first time without the brake mod installed and then race with them, you will probably be asked by the game to calibrate your pedals. However, some other games, like GT Sport for example, will carry out automatic calibration as you play. The importance of this will be discussed in the next section.
After you calibrate them, you will then get used to the lack of resistance, and you will probably be pushing your foot all the way to the floor to get the car to stop. This is all fine, but then you might decide to add in the brake mod to see how it feels. If you do this without recalibrating your pedals, you will probably run into the same problem I did.
I was playing GT Sport the first time I decided to add in the brake mod. When I did this, I could not stop the car. The brake pedal just was not going down far enough! This is because the rubber brake mod adds resistance and also limits the travel of the brake pedal. If you have not recalibrated your pedals, your game will just think you aren’t braking very hard.
Potentiometer Pedals
Potentiometer pedals work using the distance the pedal travels to determine the braking force to apply in game. The T3PA pedals use a potentiometer mechanism, and you calibrate your pedals by pushing them down as far as they will go. This is what the game takes as your maximum braking force, so anything less than this will yield a scaled down proportion of braking power.
No matter how hard you press on the pedal with the brake mod, it won’t travel any further than its limit. This means the game won’t register you trying to brake as hard as you can, and instead will just think you are lightly tapping the brake pedal.
It Works Both Ways
The same will happen in the other direction. If you use the brake mod, and then take it out without recalibrating your pedals, you will barely need to push the pedal down to stop the car. This will require a lot of precision without the brake mod, as you will have no resistance to guide you. Thus, it is a problem for both ways if you don’t recalibrate your pedals in between.
It should be noted however that in the case of GT Sport, if you go from using the brake mod to not using the brake mod, the game will probably calibrate it for you when you first press the pedal all the way to the floor. This means you might not have a problem going from using it to not using it. The way it does this is described below.
How To Calibrate Your T3PA Pedals
GT Sport Calibration
As I said above, I was playing GT Sport when I first ran into this issue. GT Sport doesn’t explicitly ask you to calibrate your pedals, but instead does it for you as you play. It does this by registering your hardest press on the pedal, or how far the pedal goes down in the case of the T3PA pedals, as your maximum braking force.
So, when you don’t use the brake mod, and push your brake pedal to the floor, GT Sport recognizes this as maximum braking force. Then when you put in the brake mod, you can’t reach maximum braking force, but the game won’t pick up on this and will just think you aren’t braking very hard. In this case, you need to restart the game in order to recalibrate your brake pedal.
Other Games
Other games, such as Project Cars 2, will ask you to manually calibrate your pedals. It does this in the same way GT Sport does it in the sense that it takes your hardest press as the maximum braking force. Thus, if you change out the brake mod, you just need to go into the game settings and calibrate your pedals again, to accommodate the change in travel distance when removing or adding the mod.
Calibrating your pedals in other games will take place in a similar way, and as long as you remember to do this when you add or remove the brake mod, you won’t run into any problems.
Final Thoughts
The brake mod for the T3PA pedals is an essential component, but if you don’t properly calibrate your pedals when you swap it in and out, you might run into problems with your braking. Calibrating your pedals in between is all you need to do if you are experiencing problems, and there are different ways to do this depending on the game.
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