First Stick Worklog [+PCB SOLDERING ADVICE NEEDED!] See last post

Tech Talk
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First (and probably last) stick i’m making. I based it off a design I saw haha im a panda do in his worklog, but much less well done… I was gonna use this as a guide of how to make something not that well built look like it was, but i gave up cause i ineptly lost some of the photos. You can all just look at my half-ass finishing process…

First I wood fillered all the bad joining in my work, and sanded it down (150 grit and then 280 grit). I dont have any fotos of before but it looked pretty fine here compared to before…

trying to make it all look like one piece here before priming

now to first coat of primer - pretty pissed that it still soaked in here - i pva glued the whole thing and sanded down to 280 grit but i guess i just got a bit lazy…

after the third coat tho it’s lookin pretty fresh, i think. not sanded yet at all:

theres still a couple of soaked up bits in the corners but overall im happy right now.

I’m planning to use water-slide decals for the top artwork and then clear coat over that… laser waterslide paper at www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk. An my design^^ morrigan by artgerm on deviantart, i know loads of people use it but hey, and i modified the astro city template of the first link on google…

now the not so fresh, + advice needed: bad planning has given me a fuckin tiny area to put my insides: i’ve kinda measured it out and I know that the joystick fits in fine, but i kinda forgot about the pcb. anyone know of one that’ll fit these measurements for xb360 comfortably? (or will most be fine?)

(i know it looks pretty dirt inside but im not lookin at it, i dont care)

and also, i know the mounting level (9mm) is too deep for the buttons, would it be fine to forget about snapping in/ nuts and hot glue them secure? (being careful with all moving parts)

cheers (more progress will come when i’ve gone and got pcb + parts arrivin from arcadeshop.de, see how that goes) ^^ hope i done 09 proud :angel:

EDIT: RAH i didnt realise this post would be so long…

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Wow, that is tight. What’s the height of the stick? Using Japanese parts you should be able to do something but it’ll be a tricky mount as it will need to be on the bottom panel or up the side next to the stick.

Good first effort :tup:

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the height inside is 50mm, so thats enough to fit the joystick in with about 4 mill space underneath it hopefully. im hoping to bottom mount the stick with some sort of makeshift mdf mount on both sides (top and bottom) and then have that whole area under the buttons for the pcb. using all sanwa parts, yeah, so i’ll have the most space i can… which aint that much really ^^

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what’s the total inside measurements? i think one of my sticks is smaller than this inside and i had no problems (tight fit though) fitting stuff

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Hmm, the Sanwa JLF is ~35mm high from tip of shaft to top of mounting plate IIRC so you’ve got 15mm - the thickness of your bottom panel to play with. What PCB are you using? I think I’d be looking at a PSX PCB mounted along the side edge, that should fit.

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I’m making this for xb360 :confused: so i dont really have that much choice on the matter… all the PS pcbs seem like they’d be the perfect size for this which sucks. i’m thinking one of the madcatz gamepads (really hoping it’s common ground) or the madcatz retro arcade stick (which is pretty rare here i think) but i dont want to go out and buy something which i dont know will fit. I cant take back a controller i’ve taken apart ^^. has anyone ever done dimensions of pcbs?

What do you mean by mounting the pcb along the side edge?

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you could def stuff a 360 pcb in there

it would be tight… but it can be done

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is the front part solid mdf? can you route some more of the block out to make some room?

looks awesome for a first stick tho

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If your panel is 9mm deep you wont be able to fit sanwa buttons but you can always go for the seimitsu screw-in buttons.

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sanwa screwins would work fine

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Noob question, but is that all MDF? and did you wood glue mdf together to get that thick base you have?

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poeticflow: its all MDF apart from the control panel (with the holes for buttons/stick) which is 9mm plywood. it feels sturdy enough, i think. and the front was 3 pieces glued, yeah.

TheLastWolves/raeli: ty for the advice, but for some reason, even tho i knew this myself, i got the sanwa snap ins :S the new white buttons with the black rims were too tempting! im gonna try and just work with them when they come, glue them in… hopefully this’ll work?

Domz: hope you’re right :slight_smile:

reckon: i don’t have access to a router. it was made out of 3 pieces of MDF glued together so really i should have cut out part of the bottom layer when i had the chance.

I’m just gonna go with jamming in the cheapest gamepad i can find in the shops for 360. i’ll put an update when i have more to show, thanks for the advice :slight_smile:

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I like it man. That space is a bit tight, but I’m sure it’s doable. I guess that’s what you sacrifice for the sleek contour on the front. Looking forward to more pics.

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btw I totally dig the artwork

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Looking good so far. Wish mine hadn’t gotten destroyed. I just chuck a coat of bondo on my painted sticks to help deal with the crappy MDF end grain.

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Nice looking case. As for the PCB, it looks doable if you get small buttons, but you would likely need to disable the analog sticks and the triggers to get it thin enough.

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Aaaaalright, started soldering a MS common ground wired pad (apparently) but I need a bit of help… this seems more like a help thread now than a worklog but hey…

this is what my pcb looks like at the moment

I started of working from the back but this things so delicate, i managed to pull of a few of the copper pads working from there. hopefully its no problem just doing the front instead… so i did that. worked out fine, except for the RIGHT D-PAD which fucked up on BOTH sides… i dunno what to do now, i know i should follow the trace and scratch off a bit more but i dunno where the trace leads on this one… any help would be nice. cheers

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there are alternates for everything, but slagcoin doesn’t show ut those are pretty tiny as well… I’ll put the pic up if I find it somewhere

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That looks like it’ll be one heavy and solid block of a joystick!

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Eggroll: thanks, that’d be great
PHYSH: uh yeah its pretty hefty. just hope i can fit all the shit inside the stupidly small hole i made