FIXED: JLF-TP-8YT joystick *partially* unresponsive

Tech Talk
1

Hey guys,

So I’m building my first fight stick and I’m almost done. I’ve got all the buttons (Sanwa 30mm) and the joystick (Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT with wire harness) hooked up to a MC Cthulhu PCB. All the buttons work fine.

But, it seems the only input being detected by the joystick is a single direction depending on how I wire it. It is my assumption (the diagram looks so obvious) that I’ve appropriately plugged the correct joystick wires from the harness into the PCB. So, I would expect, even if I got the up/down or left/right backwards, each switch would still give response. But I’m only getting response from an input that Street Fighter IV AE (PC version) identifies as Button 17.

What’s also weird is that I can’t find any photos or diagrams for the joystick wiring set up that exactly matches my model. I still expect that the black wire is the common ground and the other four are the directional inputs. I’ve tried this with two different joysticks of the same model (using the same wire harness) and I encountered the same issue for both, so I’m stumped.

I can post pictures or provide more info for anyone charitable enough to help.

I greatly appreciate it.
Jake

2

Turns out this joystick model, against every diagram I’ve seen online, uses the red wire as the ground.

3

Please keep in mind, wire harness color guides are never 100% accurate because it assumes that those color wires are going to the correct pins.

Apparently there might be a odd batch of Sanwa JLF-H wire harnesses floating out there as I also had similar issues.
Instead of looking at the wire colors, pay attention to what the actual pins on the connector “SHOULD BE” and when in doubt test with a multi-meter.