Arcade Joysticks. Breathing life into the M.A.M.E

[Kryptonian]

I for one think it's good to keep this stuff together, I'm finding it an interesting read.

I've not done anything like since I did the control panel of my jamma cab years ago.

[Barnard]

rsbrowndog it's great to have you posting in this thread, I look forward to reading all your tales of triumph and woe.

This the frame in all its glory! Held together with glue. One nail in each corner to secure the wood as the glue dried, and the 30x20 piece of wood in position to stop it going all squiff.

(at the bottom of the picture is the practice button layout which I have found out to be the wrong scale. All of the buttons are too far apart.)

This is the button layout all marked out and ready to be cut tomorrow. The cuts on the cream panel need to be exactly 30mm as I have ordered snap-in buttons. Snap-in buttons can only be fitted on a board of 4mm, the cream board is 4mm so the thicker wood board needs to have holes bigger than 30mm.

The moment these two boards were sanded a tiny little bit and fitted perfectly into the frame was a moment of ecstasy.

The first pencil mark in from the left is the thickness of the base plate and panel combined, the second is the thickness of the bottom panel. When all the holes for the joysticks and buttons are complete a square piece of wood will be glued there for extra strength.

I've got 24 gauge wire, a stripper (oo'er,) and electrical tape to secure the wire to the PCB whilst soldering. All I need now is the buttons delivered and the soldering iron.

Oh I wish I had my Canon here for the pictures.

[sir stiff_one]

RS: I don't think you'll get much joy from those things to be fair.

I bought my Sanwa parts from erm, blimey, some bloke based in the UK, up North. He's on eBay and has a quite bad looking site but it's all good and he was helpful on the phone when I needed to change the address as Paypal reverted to my old one.

It's always worth cannibalizing some old stick you don't want or care about to experiment on, you learn a lot very quickly.

[Barnard]

The making of round holes in wood is making me want to cry.

[Rorsach]

The making of round holes in wood is making me want to cry.

What's the problem?

[Shep]

The making of round holes in wood is making me want to cry.

Most arcade buttons have a pretty sizable lip around them - sufficient to hide all kinds of hole-making disasters. Failing that, lots of wood filler and a nice vinyl overlay is your friend (there's a bloke in america who prints control panel overlays at whatever size you require on some really nice textured vinyl stuff; I've used them to add a professional finish to a couple of mame cab panels... could dig out the URL if you want it...)

[Barnard]

What's the problem?

Poor tools. More than anything I need something to secure the pieces together as I drill through them, I'm finding once the drill goes through the first layer there is an almighty clonk and the thin board I am using as the panel rips.

I would love to have access to the old CDT room at school, I'd have this done in an hour.

[Barnard]

Most arcade buttons have a pretty sizable lip around them - sufficient to hide all kinds of hole-making disasters. Failing that, lots of wood filler and a nice vinyl overlay is your friend (there's a bloke in america who prints control panel overlays at whatever size you require on some really nice textured vinyl stuff; I've used them to add a professional finish to a couple of mame cab panels... could dig out the URL if you want it...)

Thanks Shep. I've had myself a sausage sandwich and a cup of tea and now have renewed vigour. I'm going to try to keep this as DIY as possible so for the moment i don't need your link!

I'm going to mark out all the holes that need doing again, I'm going to use a 35mm bit on the big piece of wood and the 30mm on the panel. I'm going to measure and mark it all up and take my time drilling the holes.

[rsbrowndog]

I think I'm decided on gutting my existing Gamecube arcade sticks and putting in proper buttons. At the moment I am going to see if the stick part itself can be salvaged and/or if there is anything I can do to improve it as this seems to be by far the most expensive part.

It's an eight button configuration at the moment, but there are also 3 other buttons dotted around the stick that I could use for back, start and the guide button, so 2 of those buttons would be redundant. However that will leave me with 2 big round holes that would look a bit crap, although it would save a few quid on costs!

Need to rip apart the stick again and measure up the existing holes and price up the new buttons, decide on colours, etc. Anyone have any links to suppliers so I can get prices worked out?

Cheers,

Ryan

[Barnard]

Need to rip apart the stick again and measure up the existing holes and price up the new buttons, decide on colours, etc. Anyone have any links to suppliers so I can get prices worked out?

http://www.gremlinsolutions.co.uk/ for the parts.

On this page are the dimensions of the Sanwa JLF joystick to get you started. http://lizardlick.com/pages/sanwa_jlf_faq.shtml

Pine Fresh! Just need the innards put together now.

[rsbrowndog]

On this page are the dimensions of the Sanwa JLF joystick to get you started. http://lizardlick.com/pages/sanwa_jlf_faq.shtml

There are 13 seperate parts in that stick, that scares the crap out of me!! I think I will see what I can do with the existing stick first, it can always be replaced later I guess...

Cheers,

Ryan

[rsbrowndog]

Right, got the stick apart again and had a little look at the joystick itself. It doesn't look too bad and looks like it could do a job, so I think I will keep it. It's certainly going to be easier (and CHEAPER!) than trying to fit a new stick into the box, but then again I do leave myself that option in the future.

Interestingly, the stick itself seems to have a rumble motor built into it. I wonder if this is worth trying to connect up to the 360 guts? Do any 360 fighting games use rumble?

I think I will use the Sanwa OBSN-24 buttons from Gremlin Solutions. £1.20 each, which means £7.20 plus p&p, which isn't too bad. I've noticed that ArcadeShop.de do blanking plugs that I could use to fill my two empty holes, so I may have to order some of those too. I'm holding off on anything at the moment until my 2 faulty 360 pads arrive and I can work out whether they will be useable or not.

Cheers,

Ryan

[Barnard]

There are 13 seperate parts in that stick, that scares the crap out of me!! I think I will see what I can do with the existing stick first, it can always be replaced later I guess...

Cheers,

Ryan

I'm hoping thats just to show all the components of the stick, my fingers are crossed that it will come in one piece.

Don't forget to check this thread out, it has helped me get my head around the task at hand. http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=113675

[Barnard]

The buttons have arrived and it all fits.

[Barnard]

Rough and ready, it just needs cigarette burns and it's good to go. The panel finishing is a bit of a shocker but it gives it a bit of character.

The joystick did come in one piece.

(The panel is 4mm thick and screwed down so easily changeable in the future.)

[ca18s13]

I need one! That looks really good. How hard was the soldering as ive never soldered anything before? also what soldering iron is the best to use? 15w, 30w?

[Barnard]

I need one! That looks really good. How hard was the soldering as ive never soldered anything before? also what soldering iron is the best to use? 15w, 30w?

Thanks, from a distance it does look good.

I've still got the soldering to! I have all the bits except the soldering iron, I've spoken to two people at work and they will be lending me one shortly. When I do get hold of it I have a broken ipod speaker thing that I am going to practise on first. In theory it sounds really easy.

I think it's one of those things that you must not rush and use lots of tea and biscuits to keep yourself calm and collected.

[Willei]

I think I will use the Sanwa OBSN-24 buttons from Gremlin Solutions. £1.20 each, which means £7.20 plus p&p, which isn't too bad. I've noticed that ArcadeShop.de do blanking plugs that I could use to fill my two empty holes, so I may have to order some of those too. I'm holding off on anything at the moment until my 2 faulty 360 pads arrive and I can work out whether they will be useable or not.

You know the OBSN-24 buttons are smaller right? They're usually used for start buttons, I think they'd be a little too small to comfortably use. The OBSN-30 is the standard sized button, natually it's 30mm in size. I have seen a mod on a Neo Geo stick which used them though, not my cup of tea but it seemed quite cool. Take one of the buttons out of your exisiting stick and measure the hole - if at all possible you should widen the hole to fit a 30mm button.

[Willei]

I need one! That looks really good. How hard was the soldering as ive never soldered anything before? also what soldering iron is the best to use? 15w, 30w?

Soldering to the buttons and stick easy. Solding to a circuit board can be hard depending on what you're doing. I consider soldering to a PSX pad to be pretty easy, but I probably wouldn't have done starting out. 360 pads are all kinds of hard to solder to, but the kind of PCB you get with a stick is usually pretty easy to solder to if you want to reuse that.

I use an 18w iron and it's fine for this kind of light electronics work. I'd suggest using a low powered iron to begin with as you'll have less chance of screwing up by overheating the PCB. Annoyingly, it'll also be a bit harder and will require more patience as everything will take a little bit longer.

[rsbrowndog]

You know the OBSN-24 buttons are smaller right? They're usually used for start buttons, I think they'd be a little too small to comfortably use. The OBSN-30 is the standard sized button, natually it's 30mm in size. I have seen a mod on a Neo Geo stick which used them though, not my cup of tea but it seemed quite cool. Take one of the buttons out of your exisiting stick and measure the hole - if at all possible you should widen the hole to fit a 30mm button.

The existing holes/buttons are 24mm, hence why I want to use them. I don't think it will be feasible to widen the holes to be honest. If I'm going to start doing that then I might as well be building from scratch, which I don't really want to do as the end result will likely look like total crap, based on my experiences of woodwork when I was at school!!!

Cheers,

Ryan

[Altabani]

it seems PS2 pads are a pain in the rear end to solder to, they only recommend early models of the Dualshock from the PSone.

Took me ages to find the right one, as one version has a much better pcb. I may have one here as i bought a couple at the time.

[ca18s13]

Soldering to the buttons and stick easy. Solding to a circuit board can be hard depending on what you're doing. I consider soldering to a PSX pad to be pretty easy, but I probably wouldn't have done starting out. 360 pads are all kinds of hard to solder to, but the kind of PCB you get with a stick is usually pretty easy to solder to if you want to reuse that.

I use an 18w iron and it's fine for this kind of light electronics work. I'd suggest using a low powered iron to begin with as you'll have less chance of screwing up by overheating the PCB. Annoyingly, it'll also be a bit harder and will require more patience as everything will take a little bit longer.

Thanks for the info. Are OBSN-30 the best buttons becuase im sure ive heard of people using OBSF-30, whats the difference?

Original plan was to modify my dreamcast arcade with sanwa stick and buttons but the parts alone are going to cost £30 (from gremlin solutions) is it worth it? now that ive got a 360 im going to need a stick for street fighter 4 as well, and for hd remix so was also looking into making a wired 360 arcade stick. Am i better of just trying to get a 360 hori ex2 (which ive heard arent great) or wait for the madcatz street fighter 4 sticks (which look good, but no one knows how good they will be)

[Willei]

Sorry, there's no such thing as OBSN, OBSF is correct. I copied it down without thinking! The only variant that Sanwa do is the OBSF-30-RG which are supposed to be more durable and has a much bigger switch mechanism underneath. For the price difference, I personally find the standard button plenty durable enough! The extra size can cause problems in some setups as well.

It's my personal belief that the Dreamcast stick is the single best stick for modding ever made. They're cheap, they're plentiful, they've got exactly the right layout for me, they're a sensible weight, they've got lots of space to work with inside, all the modificiations require nothing more advanced than a Dremmel, almost all modifications are internal apart from widening the button holes so you don't have to worry about slipping up and having the thing look like shit. The only setback is that they don't house Seimitsu sticks very easilly due to the that stick's height, and you might need drill a couple of extra holes in the shell for buttons as it only has seven including Start.

The EX2 is a pain to mod, they aren't great out of the box, the the built quality FUCKING STINKS! Both of mine are broken to varying degrees after pretty light usage and I've heard plenty of similar tales. I ended up using the PCB of one of them in a... Sanwa modded DC stick.

The SF4 sticks are looking good, supposedly using real Sanwa parts. I would definitely wait and see though, you never know what substitutions they'll make in the run up to release.

[rsbrowndog]

Sod it!! My faulty 360 pads seem to be completely dead. I was hoping that it would turn out to be a broken/stuck thumbstick or trigger or something that I wouldn't need, but it actually seems to be totally dead. I plug it in and two of the lights around the "X ring" (there's probably a proper word for that!) flash on and then go out and that's all I get.

So to recap, I'm £11 down and going nowhere fast. It's a real shame because the pad itself was pretty easy to dismantle and the guts look really easy to solder on to.

Anybody know where I can buy 2 dirt cheap third party 360 controllers?

Cheers,

Ryan

[Barnard]

Anybody know where I can buy 2 dirt cheap third party 360 controllers?

Madkatz Arcade Stick

It's going for £10.99 and in the pad hacking threadthey say it's very easy to hack.

I've tested the joystick and it works.

I used this diagram

and thankfully the joystick PCB I'm using has the wires labeled up already.

I'm so excited about playing Streetfighter on this thing.

[Pistol]

Took me ages to find the right one, as one version has a much better pcb. I may have one here as i bought a couple at the time.

If you do Nick, I might be interested - might finally push me to mod my DC stick

[rsbrowndog]

Have just ordered one of the arcade sticks mentioned above, so will see how things go when it arrives. I am just going for one initially and may do the second stick sometime later.

Still need to order buttons and other things. I think if SF 2 HD got a release date it would really spur me on to get this done quick!

Cheers,

Ryan

[Barnard]

All soldered. It was quite easy, one just had to be patient and wait for all the bits to heat up.

I went to Maplin to buy the button quick connects and realised I had taken my old bankcard out with me, I felt a bit silly leaving the shop with out completing my £2 purchase!

[Dandy_Sephy]

I think it's more silly you were going to bill £2 to your card, nevermind not having the right one

[Barnard]

I think it's more silly you were going to bill £2 to your card, nevermind not having the right one

It is a Maestro debit card. It does not cost me anything to use, the charges are paid by the shop. When I worked in retail we were trained to try and get people to use debit cards and not Visa or Mastercards as debit cards have a fixed charge of around 4p whereas credit cards were a percentage of the total transaction paid by the shop.

It's the reason American Express isn't widely excepted in the UK as they charge something like 6% of the total transaction.

I hardly carry cash with me anywhere these days.