I’m making myself an arcade stick and I’m stumped as to how many buttons I should be using. I play Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, and Street Fighter. All of these games need 6 buttons, so what games would you need 8 buttons for? SNK fighters? I just dont want to get screwed over if a new release needs 8 buttons that’s all.
Also, for start and select buttons, are the sanwa 24" a good bet? And do you have a a ps/360 button? Im building this with PS3 in mind.
sanwa is a great bet its expensive considering they are buttons but its a great bet.
Not too many fighting games use 8 buttons while playing BUT the extra buttons may be necessary on one or more of the config screens to see more options, etc…
For example, I have a 6 button stick (and luckily an 8 button one too but I love my sixer more) and on HD Remix I can’t access certain areas of the standings board because I don’t have certain buttons mapped. A minor inconvenience at best but still an inconvenience.
What you could do is put the extra buttons along with select, start and home/blade screen on the side of the stick somewhere so you still have the functionality.
Alright cool, thanks guys but one more question. Is there a cheaper alternative to lizard lick that also uses paypal? What about your man yokihara (I butchered that I know), I’m clueless at converting yen into $$ so I cant tell. Obviously I need to buy the board from Lizard lick but it’s all adding up pretty quick.
EDIT: Haha, ok it’s actually Akihabara, and ill use a converter. Thanks guys
You need 8 buttons for fighting games with more advanced training modes like guilty gear and melty blood, but if you don’t care about that, save some space =)
Cool, yeah im going to go that way. Training, who needs training really 
I also have small hands so im wondering if I can get away with using Sanwa OBSF-24 as all my face buttons. Is there a difference in quality? I guess I should dig up that sanwa/seimitsu(sp) thread in the mean time.
If you can play with OBSF-24, then more power to you. I have small hands and I can’t imagine using the 24’s as face buttons. If you put them close together, your hands will be cramped up. If you put them farther apart, I’m not sure how you would be able to roll your finger to quick double button moves.
Go all out and have like 12 buttons, just start putting crazy looking ones (like the pyramid Sanwa’s) all over the place to freak out people when you play them.
fixed
Hmm now im confused about the screw ins and snap ins. You don’t need to somehow make a threaded hole to mount the screw ins, you just need to tighten them into the material with the nut right? If I drill 24’ holes, the screw ins should fit in nicely into say, plexi glass and then be secured by tightening the nut correct?
Correct, however I would advise against using 24mm for the face buttons because you will probably miss inputs when you’re in the middle of a match. 30mm will be way better, unless you have really, really small hands!
6 buttons! When you’re playing on an 8-button layout it gets confusing as all hell, and it sucks to have to actually LOOK at your stick to be sure your hand placement is correct. Besides very few if any fighters use more than 6 buttons.
Those few I’ve encountered that did, were just crappy games that weren’t worth taking seriously enough to play on a stick anyway(3D MK titles, DBZ games, etc).
As for start/select, i’d just stick regular size P1 logo buttons on for that purpose, but Sanwa 24mms are also nice. Whatever your preference is.
Agreed. As long as those two extra buttons are NOT on the face next to the other six, then it couldn’t hurt.
24mm sanwas are so TINY, who the hell would use them for normal gameplay buttons?!
They’re great for start/select momentary contact purposes though(the Street fighter anniversary stick used sanwa 24mm KOs for start/select).
Haha, The more the better. :wgrin:
I would make a 6 if the artwork for the box is a masterpiece.
But if it’s plain, Just go all out with 8.
But yeah, 8 button kinda gets confusing sometimes. (Sometimes)
Whatever floats your boat.
Thanks for your input, friends. I decided on using six Japanese 30mm screw-in buttons, and two of whatever is cheap and small for start and select.
Good luck with it. :wgrin: