News and research

Progress report #14

29 June 2023  <- Previous  Next ->

Racing profile firmware beta and video

One of the upcoming features for the Alpakka is the support of racing games. The new racing profile now takes data from the accelerometer into account to determine the direction of "down", in order to simulate a steering wheel-like behavior.

Alpakka firmware 0.91.0-beta1 was released for testers to try it out, and a video was also published using the racing profile in Assetto Corsa Competizione gameplay.

PCB in distribution channel

The last component of the Alpakka that was still missing from our distribution channel was the PCB. Those who responded to our questionnaire indicated that the need to purchase the PCB separately, the minimum number of PCBs to order, as well the associated cost were some of the biggest issues so far.

Now we have remedied this situation and you can find the PCB in our distribution channel, taking another step in the direction of making as easy as possible for everyone to build their own custom Alpakka.

Restructured 3D models and printing instructions

We have received many questions regarding the 3D printing of the Alpakka, which we wanted to address. And based on the feedback from the community we have now restructured the STL files in the latest release, removed the bundles and 3MF files, and updated the manual.

We tried to find a way of providing suitable settings in the form of 3MF files, while still keeping those settings separate from the models. Unfortunately we found that certain settings are very dependant on the printer model and slicer application used.

Instead, the manual page for 3D-printing instructions has been updated, including specific notes for the most sensitive parts.

Additionally, to support the new release structure effortlessly, we also created tooling for exporting Blender models to STL automatically.

Thanks a lot for the support!
- M&M <3