Looking to put some new buttons in my dreamcast arcade stick, i was going to take some out of my TE and put them in it but it has a different connector, what type of buttons does it use?
this stick:
http://www.segagagadomain.com/hardware/dc-arcadestick-f.jpg
looks like you’re going to have to cut the signal wire (colored wire) and put a quick disconnect on it and the cut the black wire which is common ground since it’s daisy chained. Connect the two wires up with another quick disconnect and then your done 
You can reuse ALL the old Dreamcast wiring BUT you will be doing a lot of plastic cutting to fit 30mm Sanwa (that’s what the Mad Catz TE uses) or Seimitsu buttons into an Agetec case… Ask yourself whether it’s worth it. It is a LOT of work just to cut that plastic even with a Dremel. 30 mm buttons will NOT fit into the Agetec without cutting the existing “button tunnels” in that case.
Korean crown buttons (28mm) WILL fit into the existing Dreamcast button slots without modding the button holes themselves.
Whether you use 30mm or 28mm buttons, you will have to put 0.110 female quick disconnects onto the existing Dreamcast button wiring. If you cut carefully – preserving as much wiring as possible --, there should be more than enough existing wiring to hook up to whatever replacement buttons you choose to use. Cutting and stripping the wiring for QD placement and crimping isn’t the problem, here.
Again, I cannot stress enough the amount of work that goes into modding an Agetec case just to bring it up to the point where you can use most Seimitsu or Sanwa parts. It’s a lot of work and will take at least 3-5 days for a patient person to do this. It’s not something you should try to tackle in one day!
It’s not the button tunnels that are the problem, it’s the holes in the metal top plate that you need to widen by about 2mm. The button tunnels can accomodate 30mm buttons as is. You can leave them in if you’re using snap-in buttons, but you can’t use screw-ins without cutting them off / dremeling them down.
Dremeling away the plastic to mod an Agetec shouldn’t take more than an hour, and that’s generous. It’s the filing of the metal plate that really requires patience.
Thanks for the help everyone, looks like im going to go with Crown buttons, because cutting the case seems like a lot of work, not sure how the wiring stuff works but im sure i can find some info on google about how to do it.
I don’t see why people are making a dogs meal out of this. It’s not hard to file away 2mm worth of metal, shouldn’t take more than 30 mins with a bit of effort.
Another option is you can get a plexy top to replace the mental panel of the Agetec. I think Tek Cases offer plexy Agetec top panels.
Filing away 2 mm of metal isn’t bad especially if you have a dremle with a grinding bit, get the bulk done with a dremile and you can finish up the edges with a round or rat tail file. If you go with Crown buttons you will have to solder each wire into place instead of using disconnects.
You obviously haven’t tried to fit 30mm buttons into that case…
The tunnels are long enough that you can’t screw OBSN or PS-14-KN buttons onto that case. The other 30mm plug-in’s may or may NOT fit but the tunnels are a pain-and-a-half to keep so most people who mod the Agetec case case Dremel them off the button tunnels with a cutting blade.
I’ve widened the holes on the metal faceplate but it would take a great deal longer than 30min if you did it with anything but the coarsest files on hand. It went smoother and easier with a sanding barrel on a Dremel not to mention it polishes the faceplate metal – that goes a way to keeping the metal from corroding. Even with the Dremel, I stopped occasionally and did test fits with spare 30mm Sanwa’s. It’s easy to screw up the widening of those holes and grind off too much metal or get them horribly lopsided. There’s no readily available tool that will magically chop off 2mm (1mm each side) off!
If you want to do a quickie Agetec mod, your choice… I’m saying that if you want to be careful AND use the quality replacement parts you want to, you have to approach this mod a lot more cautiously and with more careful planning. It’s way harder to mod an Agetec case than a Tekken 5 or other Hori HRAP-variant.
PCB-button desoldering issues aside, you DON’T have to cut an T5/AH2/other licensed HRAP-case to fit in new joysticks and buttons. All the work is done for that on the faceplate. Excepting the T5 faceplate – which you have to drill if you want to fit in something other than a JLF --, the most you have to do really is grind down the 30mm button tabs and that’s it.
The only thing that comes close in my experience to mod difficulty was the Hori Fight Stick and that was STILL easier than the Agetec was to mod… That HFS is not as ideal for a replacement PCB or multi-PCB setups but at least you don’t have to recut the case on the spot to fit in new-style buttons AND a joystick. Again, the problem with most non-HRAP SA/SE Hori cases is NOT the joystick mount but the 30mm button tabs Hori insists on putting on faceplates for their cruddy OEM buttons…
You don’t need a dremel to shave off 2mm of metal, what is wrong with a normal metal file? I could mod that stick with a leatherman if I wanted, it’s not hard to sand down plastic and a bit of metal. And I don’t see how this is the most difficult stick to mod. The namco stick requires a jigsaw to cut a scquare out of the plastic shell, a saw of some kind to shave off the plastic edges of a JLF. And a drill to mount the jlf to the metal face plate (unless you use the shorter namco shaft on the jlf, which is not supposed to be a good idea). I think the namco mod is more difficult than this, and even the namco is not hard work if you have the tools.
Alternative to cutting the original metal panel.
just buy a step bit you will take the extra 2mm in a second it not hard to mod a agetec I have done it a few times the bits are very handy for any ones tool set