Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but does anyone know how to go about painting a TES+? I want to paint the sides and main body, but i’m not too sure of what to buy and the proper way to go about doing this.
If you never painted before, don’t make the TES+ your first project.
Do some smaller, less costly projects first. If you need to get some practice projects out of the way first.
What you will need
Primer (go with gray primer)
Sand paper (high grit sand paper, atleast 300 gritt)
painters tape (to mark off any areas that isn’t going to be painted.
paint
clear coat
Basically here is the steps to pain on plastic.
- Disassemble your TES+ or what ever you want painted.
- Lightly sand all the parts you want painted (This breaks up that surface layer and allows the paint and primer to get a proper bond). Then clean all the parts of any dust or grease.
Use some warm water and dish soap if you have too (dry completely). - apply several coats of primer, follow the directions of your primer, use long continuous strokes. You not get perfect coverage with the first coat.
- apply paint according to your paint instructions, applying several coats just like the primer
- Clear Coat
Things to avoid
-
Do not assume that paint with the primer included is going to cut it. You want a proper primer to “bite” into the material and make a proper chemical bond.
This is so that the paint do not peel or fake off later. Also Krylon for plastics suck. Use Automotive grade paints or for file details, paints for plastic models works too. -
do not go too heavy with each coat, take it slow. Each coat is supposed to go on thin. If you miss spots or the paint too think with the first coat, the additional coats will fill in what you miss.
This way you avoid drip marks.
Do not take short cuts.
Also without some experience, black plastics painted white look awful.
The primer will help with some of this
Where can I buy the ribbon cables used in the madcatz sticks? I know Focus Attack only has the 20 pin from what I have seen.
Which ones? TE, VS, TE2 ?
Your best bet is trying to find someone with a older TE/SE they are willing to salvage ribbon cables from it.
Thank you, I just do not want to cut these up and not have a back cable for the stock pcb.
Any good brands for primer and paint that you would recommend?
I can recommend to avoid, Krylon is trash.
You could look for modeling spray paints like the Tamiya brand, but they can be pricey.
Vinyl dye ain’t perfect but at least it will [theoretically] have better chip resistance than paint and primer. ABS plastic painting items that come into frequent hand contact is a giant bag of hurt. Good luck.
Hello all. Been poking around in the thread trying to decide if I want an arcade stick yet, and what options were available to me. For the greatest use and ease on my wallet, it seems like a custom stick featuring the Brooks UFB would be best, to avoid buying a $150 stick outright and then another $90 on top for the PCB, especially if I make my own wooden case.
That leads to the question of what buttons outside the main 8 and start/select are essential. Home would probably be a very good thing to have, but what about L3, R3, and TP button, how useful are they in your own experience? Also, have any of you had good reason to need a LS/RS/DP switch or is the default DP behaviour perfectly fine for your use cases?
Vinyl Dye only really works if the base color of the plastic is lighter color.
If you are working with Black plastics, it looks like anus
Customs is never cheaper, especially if you want any simulacrum of quality
I figure that if I can make use of some of my family’s tools, I could at least make a pretty decent case without being too out of pocket. Maybe end up spending around $200 instead of $250 for a true universal fight stick.
Not factoring costs such as wood, plexy, ect.
You be spending about $45 just for Arcade parts, $90 for the PCB, 5 to 10 for the USB cable
Thats 145 right there.
You got $55 for your case materials plus any misc costs such as wiring, and such
You do have a point there, but it still seems that it’d still turn out to be the less inexpensive option in the end for a universal stick that’s completely new and has the Sanwa Parts that I would want. I could watch ebay to get a stick with the parts I want and just swap out the PCB, but I also kind of want the noir or extended Vewlex layout which narrows my options a good deal. I’m still trying to figure out if it would end up being just as expensive, hence the questions. $2.50 a button might not seem a lot until you realize you’ll be needing around 14 or so. I also thought the buttons came with their wiring, but our response here now has me thinking I was wrong, driving prices higher.
I do thank you for your responses though, they’re helping me realize the minutae that I missed in my initial thoughts and could have come back to bit me later on. At that cost there, I could just get a brand new Hori stick, and wait a paycheck or two before doing the PCB swap. I really like the thought of a self made stick, but I have little experience and that might end up meaning a few stupid mistakes might put me quite a bit over budget that I was planning. If you do have any other thoughts or advice, I’d love to hear it.
If I were going to put a Seimitsu LS-40-01 into a RAP4, I’d need an SE mounting plate, right?
Seems I also forgot about the price of the connector. I was thinking of using a Neutrik passthrough so that if anything unfortunate happened, it would be what broke, instead of anything directly soldered to the PCB. I also realized that neither I nor any member of my family own a soldering iron so I would either have to just not use those buttons that would require direct soldering or end up eating that cost now for future projects. As for slagcoin, I read it over a little when first thinking about it, but it’s always good to go back over it in case I missed or forgot something. I thought a custom done right could end up costing only a little more than a mass produced stick while being made of a lot more durable material, guess I overstimated myself or underestimated what all I’d need. I think a custom will have to wait until I have more time and hobby money than I do now to be doable. I guess instead I’ll just find a stick that looks good and works on what I play most and do the swap later.