Direct drive steering wheel prices just keep coming down as new competitors enter the market. Cammus is one of the latest entrants to the direct drive market with their C5 wheel. At just $249 for the wheel, it’s now the cheapest direct drive wheel you can get on the market. Keep in mind that you’ll also need to buy a desk clamp for the wheel separately if you aren’t mounting it into a cockpit. The desk mount will run you about $29. The desk mount does offer adjusting the angle and includes an area to mount the cooling fan that comes with the Cammus C5. If you don’t already have a set of pedals, you’ll have to buy those as well for $50. Overall, the full kit will run you $328, which is an extremely competitive price in comparison to Logitech, Fanatec and Moza’s offerings.
Cammus’ C5 wheel provides 5nm of torque, which is awesome for a first time direct drive steering wheel. What’s odd about the direct drive design is that the direct drive motor is built into the steering wheel. This design is ingenius. Traditional direct drive wheels use a motor wheel base and the steering wheel attaches to it. This isn’t the case with the Cammus C5. Keep this in mind, because where you might upgrade your wheel or wheelbase later on with a traditional direct drive, you won’t be able to swap out other wheelbases or wheels at the moment. Reviewers speculate that Cammus may later release upgrades to the motor or wheel since they appear to be separate components.
The Cammus C5 features a leather-like wheel cover and a beautiful stitching. The front of the wheel has a sleek carbon-fiber design, which probably isn’t real but still looks high-quality. The buttons are snappy, with little squish and play in them. The wheel is D-Shaped rather than completely round, which could be a downside if you’re primarily into sim drifting. The Cammus C5 wheel measures 280mm in diameter. There are 20 push buttons on the wheel that you can map in-game to whatever you need. The Cammus C5 also has 3 rotary encoders on the wheel which feel high-quality and firm. The wheel face also has a 3-digit crisp numeric display and a 10-LED RPM indicator.
The paddle shifters on the Cammus C5 are a bit tiny and awkward to reach, but they are solid and manageable.
The core assembly of the motor is built in to the wheel with a bracket mounted to it and the wheel houses it. This is a really unique design which makes for a small form factor. The motor on the back of the wheel has connectors for the included power supply, a USB-A connector, two USB-C ports and a power connector for the included cooling fan. The power supply puts out 19V at 7.36 amps. Reviewers report the Cammus C5 wheel as being very quiet, especially in comparison to belt-driven or gear-driven wheels.
Reviewers praise the Cammus C5 for it’s sharp and precise force feedback. The wheel whips back into place quickly after turns, which makes drifting feel intuitive and realistic. The force feedback stands up well against Moza’s R5 and the CSL DD 5nm wheel.
Cammus C5 Pedals
The Cammus C5 pedals run about $50 and they’re really basic. They should be the first thing you upgrade in this kit. They include a throttle and brake with no clutch pedal and no option to upgrade. The pedals have a hall effect sensor to relay the position of the pedal. These pedals have no pressure to push back, so keep that in mind. The pedals include a USB-A connector to hook up to your PC. Reviewers compare the feel of the Cammus pedals to the SRP-lite pedalset from Moza. The pedal set is really nothing to write home about, but that’s to be expected for the $50 pricepoint.
Cammus C5 Software
Cammus offers mobile software for your phone to adjust the wheel settings without using the PC software. The PC software shows the wheel and base as separate components, which reviewers speculate could be a clue that Cammus may offer upgrades for the base or wheel later on.
Overall, the Cammus C5 firmware is robust and offers plenty of settings for tweaking force feedback settings and steering range. The steering range
Conclusion
For the price point, the Cammus C5 is leagues ahead of belt and gear-driven wheels like the G920 or G923. However, it does only support PC, so console racers are out of luck with the C5. The pedals are not great, but workable. With wheel bases like Moza offers, there’s an upgrade path for a different wheelbase if you decide you’d like more nm of torque. You won’t be able to do so with the Cammus C5. If that’s not a problem for you, the Cammus C5 punches above it’s weight in price performance. Overall, we recommend the Cammus C5 wheel as a buy.
If you’re interested in a Cammus C5, you can buy one directly from Cammus here.