Custom joystick and button installation

Tech Talk
1

Sorry if this question has been answered previously but I’ve searched the stickies and forum for the answer but I’m still unsure.

I recently started my first attempt at building a custom joystick and so far I have the box done but not pieced together. I am getting ready to drill the holes for the joystick and buttons but I’ve noticed that some boxes on the forum and joystickvault.com have metal plates for the buttons and a recessed area for the joystick. My problem is that I don’t have a router and I am not sure how i should proceed with the drilling. Also, is the metal plate necessary for the buttons? I noticed that the boxes at http://nuclearplayground.com/joysticks/ just have holes but their walk-through is unclear. If anyone give me some options I’d greatly appreciate it. thank you.

2

depends on what type of buttons you are using if they are happ you can use a thick piece of wood or plastic and they will also fit on metal but some of the sanwa buttons only work with thin sheet metal.

i just built a stick and i pulled a template http://www.joystickvault.com/showphoto.php/photo/27/cat/506 and made it to scale then drilled into where the holes were marked.

if you have a thick material and sanwa buttons it wont work but happ with work with like 1" thick material. you can get sanwa buttons to work with a thick material by making their holes recessed but that is the only way

3

What I ending up doing, is using Lexan as the top piece, and drilling the wood slightly larger than the lexan, So the wood supports the holes, but doesn’t interfere with the buttons snapping in.

Properly doing a joystick without a router is a little more difficult than the buttons however

4

Thanks for the help. I was actually hoping to use Sanwa buttons. My top panel is 3/4" thick. Should I get the buttons that include a mounting nut or the low profile ones?

5

A few options for you to choose from…

  1. get snap-in’s, drill the hole in the clear top and the wood, file grooves in the wood to make room for the button tabs, the button tabs will grip onto the clear top but not the wood, even though the wood still supports it
    (see here)

  2. get screw-in’s, use a router to reduce your panel’s total thickness (clear top and wood) to less than 9mm in an area that will provide enough room for the mounting nut to sit inside the recessed area

  3. change to a thinner panel