Rllmuk Arcade Stick Thread

[Pochacco]

For anyone looking for a relatively cheap project...

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=255006&view=findpost&p=8281151

[88h88]

For anyone looking for a relatively cheap project...

http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=255006&view=findpost&p=8281151

Cheerrrrrrrrrrrs

[Dandy_Sephy]

Currently I have four arcade sticks: Mad Catz S.E (360), the Wii equivalent (T vs C), a Dc stick that is modded for Neo geo pinout as well (so DC+ Supergun) and finally a Saturn Virtua Stick (Astro City one, not the horrid one).

Some problems occur, I have no PS3 stick, and no room to put all of these. Being a project type I'm sure I could build or heavily mod something to serve more than one machine. The question is, whats the best way to go about it? I'm more concerned with 360+ PS3 at the moment, but the more the merrier.

[88h88]

Right so that Madcatz brawlstick arrived and the artwork is terrible but first things first, what's the opinion on Sanwa vs Seimitsu sticks and buttons? I'm not a massive fan of raised buttons so if there's some slick low profile ones I'm all about that. Stick wise I dunno, I've not properly used one in forever so I'm open to suggestions.

Soldering and general electronics is not a problem.

[Dandy_Sephy]

Of course not all sticks by either company is the same as another model but in general Seimitsu sticks have a shorter 'throw' and are more suited to shmups, and Sanwa sticks have a 'longer' throw and are more suited to fighters. However personal taste means some people prefer one to the other for their chosen genre. IMO Sanwa's are better for fighters because you can get away with lots of abuse, and Seimitsu are better for shmups because you can make more sensitive movement. Then there is a question of square or octagonal gate, octagonal is more suited for fighters, but some prefer square. Personally I have a square gated Seimitsu stick in my 360 stick, but I'm almost certainly going to change it back to a octagonal gated Sanwa. Or have two 360 sticks, one for fighters (8-way Sanwa), one for shmups (4 way seimitsu)

For buttons there seems to be less of an agreement. Sanwa buttons tend to be more sensitive which in theory can help react quicker in fighters, but it's easy to trigger them accidentally. Seimitsu do offer more of a range of colours, and if you want to do heavy artwork customisation some of their buttons are suitable for placing artwork inside them.

[88h88]

I had an original DC stick back in the day, what sort of gate did that have in it because I didn't really like it all that much. I assume a square gate means it's slightly less fluid in feel?

[Dandy_Sephy]

It's a square

[88h88]

That explains a lot, octagonal Sanwa it is then. Just gotta do some reading on buttons. Is Gremlin solutions still the go-to place for these?

Cheeeeeeeers.

[Dandy_Sephy]

Pretty much.

Looks like I'll be ordering a Multi Console Cthulhu then. Being able to run pretty much any console from one stick has a lot of appeal Just need to decide if I should make a case or mod my SE.

[88h88]

Awesome knowledge.

Looking through that slagcoin site on building a stick from scratch I may make a complete wooden case in the future. Transferring the innards of the stick I've got now is easy enough but depending on how distracted I get by speaker building I may look into the whole PCB butchering shit and make a few customs.

[Dandy_Sephy]

Initial costing for building my own stick using a multi console cthulhu is currently £80 for the pcb, stick and buttons. Thats without wood, a RJ-45 socket, or any of the gear for making my own cables. So the budget is probably going to hit £140 when all is said and done. Still, no rush. I think I'll turn my current Mad Catz SE into a dedicated 360 shmup stick.

edit:now that I think about it, I could use my Wii stick as a base, at least to start with.

editedit: MC Cthulhu ordered. I'll worry about 360 support after.

[Lyrical Donut]

http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/26/sanwa-developing-quiet-stick-and-buttons/

If there’s anything that some folks find off putting with modern arcade stick parts, it’s the loud racket they can make when under heavy use; playing on them late at night in a small house or apartment complex while other people are sleeping is pretty much a no go. Never fear however as Sanwa has apparently heard about the issue and are supposedly developing a set of quiet sticks and buttons.

A sample bundle of the parts is now availailable at the Sanwa Denshi Rakuten Shop. The bundle includes one prototype quiet stick and 8 prototype quiet buttons. List price for the samples is ¥4,830 (~$62 USD), which is about the usual price for these sample bundles. We assume that the parts will retail for less once they go into full production.

[Cthulhu Steev]

http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/26/sanwa-developing-quiet-stick-and-buttons/

Oh boy, I don't think I could enjoy stealth buttons, it would seem wrong without the clickclackclick. Imagine doing the 'running fingers' for Track and Field with no audio response

[acidbearboy]

Just picked up a nice Hori Real Arcade Pro stick for PS2. Are there any decent multi-adaptors so that I can use it on Xbox, Dreamcast & Saturn too?

[Altabani]

A Magic Box to use it on Xbox, expensive though ( sold mine for £35 ).

For the others not too sure, might have to be a homemade affair.

[lenticular]

sup guys,

I have a Brawlstick on the way and:

6x Seimitsu PS-14-G, black

1x LS-5x Restrictor, round

1x LS-56-01 (Seimitsu)

1x Mounting Plate MS, Seimitsu

Did I miss anything? also how do I go about replacing that awful art, can I just rip off the sticker and spray paint the metal plate? cheers

[88h88]

Nah sound like you got all the important stuff on the way.

The art can be peeled off the top with some care, you just need to open up the bottom and take out the buttons and whip off the stick top to make things easier.

Once the buttons and stick top are off you can peel the sticker mostly off, it'll fall to bits in places, guaranteed.

Once it's mostly off, unscrew the top and get some acetone (basically hardcore nail polish remover) in a bowl or anything big enough to contain the top plate.

Soak it for 10 minutes and the sticky bits should come off real easy. Acetone isn't nice stuff to get all over your hands so latex gloves are a very good idea.

Once the sticky is mostly off you can just scrub the rest with a scourer and some washing up liquid. Scour loads if you want shiny. If you want shinierrrrr get some wet and dry paper and go from medium to fine grades.

Warning

Acetone is a complete cunt of a chemical and pretty fucking dangerous, it likes to set itself on fire at fairly low temperatures (27 degrees C) when it manages to concentrate in the air and it will also knock you the fuck out should you be stupid to breathe enough of it. It evaporates when exposed to air pretty quickly so it'll probably be gone by the time you return to the bowl. Basically use it outside with some gloves on and you're good to go. Despite it being a fairly horrible chemical to use it's the easiest way to get the sticky shite off the plate.

[Barny]

So one of those cheap brawl sticks is a fairly easy/non-expensive way to arcade stick heaven?

[88h88]

So one of those cheap brawl sticks is a fairly easy/non-expensive way to arcade stick heaven?

Yup. £25 for the stick and I spent just shy of £50 kitting it out with all Sanwa parts. 1 stick, 1 gate, 8 of the more expensive buttons.

Just checked Gremlin and the stick and 6 buttons (bare minimum for Fighters) is a total of just under £33. 'New' stick for a total of £58. 8)

[lenticular]

Excellent, thanks all.

Expect a post from me soon moaning about my Acetone explosion burns.

[Barny]

Yup. £25 for the stick and I spent just shy of £50 kitting it out with all Sanwa parts. 1 stick, 1 gate, 8 of the more expensive buttons.

Just checked Gremlin and the stick and 6 buttons (bare minimum for Fighters) is a total of just under £33. 'New' stick for a total of £58. 8)

That's pretty awesome.

[Down by Law]

Where do you get the glitter ball tops from? I can't seem to find any UK based suppliers. My ball has a crack in it (LOL) and was looking to replace it with something more funky.

[Down by Law]

Found them on ebay, seller the arcade shop has them. Which is actually Gremlin in disguise!

[Down by Law]

If like me you wanted a cheap entry level stick but can't stand the brawlstick art, it is really easy to change, did it this weekend. All you need is paper, a laminator, the fightstick template, a stanley knife, phillips head screwdriver, scourer and a bit of patience.

Fucking horrid that stock artwork

This is the bitch of the bunch. Taking off the stock artwork is easy enough but it leaves loads of residue behind. You are going to have to scour like crazy to get it all off, my right thumb is still a bit sore today. I soaked the excess in furniture polish for 10 minutes which burned a lot of it off, but it was still very stubborn.

Finished! Very pleased with the final result for a first effort. I didn't bother changing the buttons as I didn't see the point in spending a lot of money if i couldn't get on with using a stick. It's the first stick i've bought since the Dreamcast one. The change was extremely difficult but I have gotten used to it now and managed to pull off some more trials on KOF i couldn't dream off doing with the controller.

[Treble]

Is there any way to convert a Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Wii Hori stick to work on the DC easily enough? Oh, and also improve all the components whilst I'm at it

EDIT: to clear this up, I'd like the stick modded with arcade-quality parts and to be compatible with the Dreamcast. It doesn't matter whether that's by modding it to something easy like a PS1 PCB then using a converter (in fact, I'm sure I still have a PS1 -> DC converter knocking about...)

Also, are there people you can pay to do the work for you?

[Siri]

Are you able to clarify what stick you own, Treble? Only Mad Catz and Exar brought out arcade sticks with dedicated Tatsunoko vs Capcom designs, although Hori did release an unbranded Wii arcade stick to coincide with TvC. If it's definitely the Hori stick, then there's at least one guide available:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjme2VLpIpw

As for dreamcast support, you're probably better off gutting the PCB altogether and chucking in an MC Cthulu board, as it now supports Dreamcast (alongside Gamecube support, which various Wii fighting games handle anyway). There's probably a couple of folks over at NeoEmpire that will mod it for the money.

[Treble]

I'm being daft: it's the Madkatz one. Thanks, will check it out and post eventual results, if it all doesn't go horribly wrong

[Siri]

Ah! If you've got a Madcatz, it's a billion times easier to fit in your own parts - Just follow any good modding guide for SE Models of Fightstick, they're all built the same. you'll be able to do it on your own no problem, took about half an hour to mod my 360 brawlstick with tools that just about rival a neanderthal.

Word of advice though - if you're going to install Seimitsu parts, grab an LS-32-01 or any flavours of stick that comes with the SS plate. Seimitsus are designed to be mounted flat to sheet metal control panels, so bolting it to the brackets like a sanwa is going to lose a few good millimeters on the mounting height making handling the stick during play rather uncomfortable. Oh, and buy snap-in buttons regardless of make, as screw-ins are a hassle to install on the leftmost side due to the bracket.

[Jbone]

Poongko and many Koreans are used to Fantas. They have a rubber pad instead of a spring, which is good for dampening the impacts of aggressive play (5:20 in vid). Available from eTokki.

If you fancy a Fanta (with Crown buttons) and you've money...

Has anyone here used a Fanta? How are they?

[Jbone]

Excellent information, thanks

I'm starting to get back into fighting games after a long break. The only stick I have now is the one I built for myself in 2007 (5 years ago! Blimey). I realised that part of the reason I stopped playing these games was that I don't actually like using this stick. Not because it's shit or anything, but because it's my own work I'm always looking for imperfections and working out what I need to do to improve it. And possibly I try to be too gentle with it too.

*sigh*

Anyway, new start, new stick I think. I've only ever used JLFs in my sticks so I wanted to see what else was out there really. These Fantas seem to have caused a minor stir on SRK and I like the idea of a stick that goes back to neutral really fast. I am a bit concerned that the throw might be too long (I know JLFs are quite long, but I was looking for something a bit more responsive).

Jim: Fantas are rubbery goodness! But I don't know if the Korean preference for them is any more than a 'John Choi effect'. John grew up with HAPP and can't play as well with a Sanwa, despite widespread opinion that Sanwa parts are objectively better. Poongko spent about a year with Sanwa before returning to Fanta/Crown, though, so I'd take that as a good indication that there's more to the Korean/Japanese controller divide than familiarity.

Yeah, that is definitely something that I'm bearing in mind!

Thanks for the offer too: I will let you know.