Where can I find Crown 309 replacement shafts? I’d prefer not to go down the route of shafts with Sanwa battops, as I like the feel of Korean battops.
Bad news for you, although Makestick and ISTmall sell spare ball/battops, they do not sell 309 shafts. Supposedly there is a problem with the stock, Crown doesn’t send them spare 309 handles.
source http://istmall.co.kr/shop/goods/goods_view.php?goodsno=9992402&category=
Found these links to pics of the 309 Helpme V2 on PAS twitter:
Bottom shot confirms what Phantomnaut reported as the softer switch on the up ala Kaze. My eyes can’t spot any obvious differences from a stock collar-less 309M, but I’m just a regular know-nothing dude on the internet.
we will have them for sale later this week or early next.
@Agieze please be accurate in your statements, you have misrepresented my statements several times.
For reference, no where did I say anything about V2 being V1 bodies, maybe translation is difficult
We had several conversations with different people about this lever an others, including Saint’s own custom work. I said it was my understanding the bodies were modified slightly.
Since we sold all ten to people, who begged us to sell our last one at evo, you will have to wait for one of them to indulge you or be satisfied waiting for us to get another set of sticks.
I realize that blowing this up to be more than it is, can be a habit, but please, resist that this time, I simply said this:
We had the V2 levers
The mods to them were not fully disclosed
They were not IST versions, but rather Helpme’s actual levers we received.
Please show me where the “just buy it, it’s a rare custom unit hand tuned to special specs” was said.
Your creating issues that are not there, and beyond my statements above is simply conjecture that I ask you stop.
Awesome! What section on your website will they show up? I am gonna keep my eye on it all week 
I’m so lost on this V2 stuff.
Is it possibly just a collarless 309 with the stiffer grommet from a collared 309helpme w/gersung switch with a softer switch for up?
I’m guess the lighter switch for up has to do with allowing to side step easier when playing tekken 7? i noticed when i try to side step up if you don’t tap up quick enough the character jumps. Then again maybe they just did that because fighting games use left right down directions more than up.
According to Ruliweb, this Helpme V2 lever with the purple bat is basically a 309 based lever that HelpMe himself is modding and selling directly to people.
Besides the switch set up, there’s not a lot of info on differences between the ones he’s modding and the stock ones coming from Samducksa (Crown).
Sounds like the way most people are getting them is to get talk to him directly via KakaoTalk, and there’s a two week backlog at the moment.
Also according to Ruliweb, the purple bats are exclusive to the levers HelpMe is making. Red and white bats are still coming from Samducksa (Crown):
So I dropped by PAS at EVO, and picked up a HelpMe V2 and a set of the screw in 30mm crowns.
I’m not gonna weigh in on the differences between this and the other HelpMe levers as I’ve not used them extensively, but the V2 is a dream. I’m still travelling so I haven’t yet used it for Tekken, but I’m quite liking it for anime. None of the issues hitting diagonals I had with my 307, every movement is incredibly smooth, the stick slides back to neutral nicely, and it never feels too loose or like there’s too much tension. I was originally planning on having this in my sidestick, but I’m enjoying it enough that it’s gonna end up in my primary stick.
The buttons are rather nice too. Definitely like them more than your standard Sanwas and Seimitsus, but not sure where they stand when compared to my set of RGs. They sound incredibly satisfying though.
Oh yeah? (I’ll pass on the condescending comment about the translation…) I cited you already in another post, here’s what you said earlier, in post [n 11368862](This is difficult to find because these are literally hand tuned levers. The bodies etc are stock but each stick is then tuned to precise specifications.)
You suddenly changed a few posts later stating in post n 11371345
Who the heck ever talked about the V2 being an IST version ? I sure never did!
here it is in post n 11368862:
You literally claimed each stick was finetuned individually.
I am so sorry to have written “rare” instead of “hard to find”.
Truth is Helpme has probably an agreement with Crown to sell himself some new variants. After all they’re using his name handle for commercial means.
**the problem is, Helpme handed out a few months ago some V2 levers to some buddies of his and one of them in particular stated the only difference (from a regular Helpme model) was the bat color and the switches . **
Please read the following info you probably missed 2 months ago.
“Hmongbettaman” posted 2 months ago about the Helpme V2.
It was then used in Korean arcade parlors.
HELPME offered a V2 in person to Hmongbettaman , and I quote him directly,
Notice it is not a 309M body ( = “Sanwa” Helpme309) , but a regular looking K-collar Helpme body with a purple top.
Is it really regular? read on:
Helpme’s personal friend said about the V2:
So according to him the 309Helpme"V1" had Gersung switches (not true, JMS option existed and was purchased bygamers from this forum)
He claimed V2 had instead PANASONIC switches which are considered superior (It’s true the Panasonic are superior, but the V2 you sold at EVO has GERSUNG switches).
He also said that Helpme told him the V2 had the SAME grommet as in “V1” (it means 35A silicone grommet).
Please look at the second citation in this post, it shows a sentence where you claimed the GROMMET is different.
Another bit of info that shows what is going on.
**No mention about the Kaze style mod with one different OF switch , it could be that either it wasn’t the case at the time or that Helpme asked him to not disclose the “trick”. **
I confronted Hmongbettaman with the proven fact that Crown sold 309Helpme “V1” with switches other than what he claimed there was in stock version. Pics all over the web showed regular 309Helpme with various OF Gersung models as well as Panasonic switches.
At the time I did “conjecture” that all this 1st gen, 2nd gen etc story was all bullshit. I was right about the bullshit, but wrong about the fact that it wasn’t official. Different gens are official, BUT…
…Speaking of bullshit, get a good look at the KMS version of 309Helpme (understand the HelpmeV1) on Samducksa’s official site:
We see on the catalog that V1 Helpme has 4x Gersung GSM-V***A4
Hmongbettaman’s V2 had FIRMER switches than the “V1” according to Helpme’s sales pitch. He said:
But on the pics of the V2 sold at EVO right here on this thread, we see 3x GSM-VA3 + 1x GSM-V*A2.
They’re all SOFTER!!
Helpme, in his defense, is probably unaware that Crown puts whatever switch they feel like in terms of operating forces when it comes to KMS -korean switch version- anything from A2 to A4 Gersung, not conforming to the specs in their catalog.
(Catalog shows A4, but rarely seen if ever by clients, speaks volumes)
V1 has been sold with sets of A2 and other V1s have been seen with A3. It means to have the present V2 feel all you need to do is get your hands on a Helpme V1 that happens to have A3 switches, then replace one by a A2. Of course you won’t have the gorgeaous purple exclusive color.
SirGoggles recently posted an article from Ruliweb (official news from Crown employees and designers) that states that the purple battops are exclusive to Helpme’s modded sticks he’s selling these days (V2) .
Bryan you’re saying you’ll sell purple battops very soon. Great news indeed! It also proves that Crown is bullshitting everyone again by claiming purple is an exclusiive color reserved for Helpme’s special modded variants, since anyone will be able to buy the said purple tops .
IT is completely counterproductive for Samducksa/Crown then to offer “modded” versions sold as rarities that have just a switch mod and a battop that is soon available as a spare, making a big fuss about it, speaking of “special specs” and “hand tuning” .
I order a Crown 309MJ and holy shit are the diagonal zones tiny. Unless I ride the gate really hard, I will miss the diagonal input every single time. Is this just how the stick is or is there a fault in these? From what it sounds like, SirGoggles and POIGNAX mentioned the same issue.
If you want to fix this, grab a set of four Gersung A3 switches (FA sells them) and install them onto the 309MJ. I did this on the 309MJ that was mistakenly sent to me to try and determine what the problem really was (switches vs. angles vs. collar/gate). The diagonal zone instantly went from like 1% to about 11%, which I think is the normal expected behavior.
All the chatter about a bad batch of A2 switches on recently sold Crown levers seems to have some truth to it. The reports in this thread (and on Korean boards) of an easy fix via A3 microswitch looks like the way to go.
For what it is worth, I made a short video showing a 309MJ with both Gersung A2 and A3 switches installed. It’s clear that the A2 diagonal zone is TINY when compared to the A3.
I suppose the ultimate test would be to hook this up to Tekken and fire up practice mode with the input overlay turned on. Then start doing 360°s on the lever and see if diagonal inputs are missed.
@Agieze, please stick to the facts, which you have many of on the sticks and stop obsessing about every little point you want to make to prove everyone else wrong. You do this every time your ocd kicks in about a subject. I’ve been quiet for a while on SRK but man this is the same crap you pull every time. You do have a great amount of insight on things, but then you completely exxagerate or change what other people say just so you can make your counter points so here, since your links don’t work, I just copied the text.
To your first point below the statement was
"We got a special run of the Version 2 Helpme directly from the creator for Evo. Amazing help from our Korean friends who carried these 10 levers over.
We will be working on getting more shipped asap. This is difficult to find because these are literally hand tuned levers. The bodies etc are stock but each stick is then tuned to precise specifications. We will keep everyone informed as we have a better delivery time frame"
IN NOT ONE PART OF THAT POST DID I SAY THAT THE V2 HAD THE V1 BODIES, NO WHERE, NOT SAID
I stated the bodies of the V2 were stock and didn’t say they were the same stock as V1. Sorry but I didn’t accidentally say this, I just stated the V2 were stock bodies.
I then went on to say that the stock bodies were modified, which is what we were told. So I’m still not sure what the problem is. We know that there are modifications, this is based on a stock stick with modifications. No change…
I will skip the IST statement, as I was not referring to you, I don’t remember saying “agieze said this”, sorry you took that personally.
Finally, I still did not say just buy it, you seem to miss many of the fine points, insert your own assumptions and then make statements and argue with them like I made these assertions that exist only in your head.
Each one is built and individually tuned, we received this information directly from Helpme
and as far as hard to find, there are roughly 10 of these in the us right now so that is pretty hard to find
Now the rest of your post, is actually useful information, so thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the demo, looks like the best option is to order some replacement switches then.
Funny thing is when I digged up the start of the thread a few comment through google there were so many mixed reviews with the panasonics to gersung
Does anybody know where I can get my hands on a Kaze stick lever and a Fanta airbag?
Start going back and reading the past pages of the thread. I forgot where but this has been discussed on the thread.
And yes I am to lazy to link it for you.
@Darksakul Thanks I got the site, @platynumx I’ve been on that website for awhile looking for the kaze lever and the fanta airbag but it’s out of stock, I tried contacting them and I got no response :-(, I’ve also tried IST and it’s also out of stock lol