Joystick not working after reinstallation [Crown 303-FK/Snawa JLS]

I’ve swapped out buttons/artwork and tightened the spring on my twoTEs a few times in the past, so when the Crown 303-FK was available I thought I’d try swapping out Joysticks for the first time.

Installing the Crown 303-FK seemed to go well enough. I only had two issues: One of the washers was broken when I unscrewed my JLS from the plate, and I had trouble actually fitting the crown back into the stick case (which seems to be the case when swapping a Crown into a TE)

But once I actually started playing on it I was having issues with right direction inputs. I had a hard time getting the stick to input down-right (I couldn’t do hadokens when facing right unless I went very slowly). I investigated a bit and realized that the stick just wasn’t returning to neutral from right the way it should.

I messed around a bit and couldn’t figure out a way to fix the issue, and since EVO is coming up (why did I think to swap joysticks a week before EVO, anyway?) I figured I’d just go back to my JLS and mess with it later.

So I reinstalled my JLS, but the action on my spring is now totally out of whack; there’s a “neutral” position, but the stick doesn’t really want to return to it. Moving the stick around feels jagged. I tried a couple of different springs and checked against my other JLS to make sure that I have all of the pieces back in the right order, everything seems to be in the right place but I’m still having trouble. I can’t figure out what I’m missing here.

The only thing I can think of, maybe the missing washer is throwing things off? That seems like a stretch, but I have no idea what I’m doing wrong here. Really hoping I can fix this before I fly out, any help or advice is very much appreciated.

Korean sticks are going to be more difficult to hit diagonals with. They’re built for cardinal directions, and doing those as fast as possible. They can hit diagonals but require maximum travel distance, which happens to be where the tension gets really tough making it harder to hit them.

The missing washer is going to throw things off for sure. You’ll need a replacement ASAP.

Thanks, this helps. I’ll try to get a washer first thing tomorrow, definitely.

When I had the crown installed I considered wrapping a couple layers of electrical tape around the actuator to help hit the switches more quickly, do you think that’d help or would that just make it harder to return to neutral?

You can’t really do that. It’s just the way K sticks are. The only thing I could recommend is getting a softer grommet, from eTokki, and that may help with diagonals. Right now if I was you I’d be more concerned about getting the washer so you have a stick to play on at EVO.

Oh yeah, I’m just thinking out loud. Fixing this stick is obviously top priority, I’m hitting a hardware store first thing tomorrow and I’ll report my progress. Thanks again.

Realized that I stupidly didn’t replace the pivot joint. Bought a new one and put it in.

New problem: though the stick works fine at first, it quickly “loses” its full range of motion and stops hitting the edge of the gate (I use an octo).

Feeling dumb that I just keep finding a new problem every time I think I’ve fixed my stick. My only idea is maybe I should replace my spring?