Shaft covers for the LS-32 now?
I gotta laugh!
Why didn’t they do this YEARS ago when people like me starting out new were wondering loudly WHY they didn’t match the JLF line with a shaft cover for their most popular joystick?
IF I know Seimitsu, they’ll bundle the LS-32 with a generic black shaft cover. There’ll be no other color options, of course! IF you want more colors, you’ll still have to buy JLF-shaft kits and mod those like I have been for over 4 years now!
Spoiler
[Yes, any JLF-shaft cover can be modded to fit the LS-32. That includes the shaft kits by Mad Catz, Qanba, and the Hayabusa shaft cover which is patterned after the JLF shaft cover. The shaft covers all have to be thinned from the inside by 50% to fit the LS-32. And no, it does NOT compromise the strength of the shaft cover plastic. None of the modded shafts have cracked on me. It’s an involved mod but can done in less than an hour by anyone with small metal files and a cutting head-equipped Dremel…]
@Moonchilde – I agree. The situation with the LS-56/LS-58 is ridiculous! Why compound the problems and confusion with the LS-58 by introducing a “softer” model? I was one of the people who bought a replacement LS-56 spring because the stock LS-58 spring was way too soft! LOL
Softness is the problem I’m encountering with all my LS-joysticks right now.
Sometimes, I can’t get Dragon Punches to come off smoothly when I try to use the “softer” punch buttons. It seems to be a timing issue for me on the LS-32 (less of a problem on the Hayabusa). The fierce/hardest punches almost always seem to trigger on the LS-32 but as anybody playing SF can tell you, you DON’T always throw or use your hardest intensity moves all the time. [details=Spoiler](It’s more of a Ryu issue. I don’t seem to have this problem with Ken. SSF2T is among the weirdest SF2 games with the built-in control law differences for the characters. Very frustrating! Capcom played with the control laws throughout the SF Alpha series, too. Each CPS-2 SF2/Alpha title is its own experience as far as certain character controls are concerned!)[/details] You have to mix it up…! BUT, if for some reasons the lower-force moves aren’t registering, you’re SOL!
The microswitches on the LS-40 just seem to be softer, period, and sometimes harder to hit/time specific moves well at all. I’m beginning to ponder easy mods to fix the issue and I’d appreciate if somebody could point me to some easy microswitch mods that DON’T require complete swap-outs or replacement part buys I’m not prepared to deal with now…
Much as I hate to bring JLF-like solutions up, I’m beginning to wonder if an actuator mod might do the trick or not…
Most frustrating of all, the OEM non-Omron, non-Panasonic/Matsushita microswitches on the Zippyy/LS-32 clone are very inconsistent. One of the Zippyy’s I bought is perfectly fine for the SF games but the other’s microswitches are so mushy in general that I won’t use it for fighting games. I’m seriously debating selling one or both Zippy’s as “general-use” joysticks or upgrading with Seimitsu parts. My advice is that unless you want to do upgrades, you’re better off buying the LS-32-01 or the 0.187/fastener-tab version of the LS-32. You’d barely save any cash buying the Zippyy as it is… (You’re saving roughly $7-$8 on the Zippyy even after you buy the harness converter cable and the SS Mounting Plate. That savings gets wiped away with microswitch and spring part replacements… You still end up a bit ahead of mods with the LS-32 itself BUT a stock -32 generally doesn’t have the quirks the Zippyy does…) The Zippyy has turned into a bit of a disappointment. Good for MAME (think Pac-Man, Donkey Kong) and general gaming (retro-consoles, emulators), not so much for fighters IMHO… The one saving feature of the Zippyy is that it’s an LS-32 clone in every measurement. Any upgrading you can do with the LS-32 can be done on the Zippyy is well. Identical part fits, identical mods!
(The only thing is that the stock Zippyy spring is softer than the LS-32 spring and the microswitches as I mentioned seem to be of very inconsistent manufacture… Springs are an easy cheap fix, microswitch swaps and replacements are more expensive and involved pains!)
What Seimitsu needed to do was redesign the LS-32 to make it more modern, more consistent, and better performing. Keep the good handling qualities of the joystick and tackle the more serious QA issues that hinder its handling on-and-off (the popping, lack of full microswitch registration on moves at times). A do-over more like the Hayabusa with better-quality parts would have been great. Here, they’re more or less just putting on a new layer of paint and not addressing the more serious technical and quality issues with the joystick.
I genuinely like the LS-40 and feel that stick is a better starting point for a new Seimitsu design if they ever figure out where they want to go next… (The one argument I’d make for the LS-56 as a starting point is the longer shaft… I seriously hated having to buy the SS Mounting Plate for every LS-40 purchase I ever made. Every LS-56 and LS-58 that ships from continental US parts vendors gets shipped with the MS Mounting Plate, the MP you need for every in-production joystick case on market! Why hasn’t Seimitsu shipped at least every LS-40-01 with the SS Mounting Plate thus far?) Seriously, as much as I like the LS-32, I think its day is done and that the design should probably be retired soon along with the Sanwa JLW and other designs that have arguably reached their limits… The LS-60 isn’t a good next step!
Hori got it right with the Hayabusa. None of the B.S. with non-standard shaft parts. They copied the basic JLF shaft to take care of the re-equipment needs of that (ball top handles, shaft covers, etc.) and concentrated on making a better base.
I can’t help but think part of Seimitsu’s problem is having all those non-standard parts… the evolution from the LS-32 to the LS-56, at least three different types of shafts, pivots, all the different restrictor gates, etc. The company probably feels hemmed in I’d imagine because the arcades probably want the joysticks to stay the same and not see radical changes that make existing joystick assemblies obsolete or unuseable. It can cost money to keep all those different parts with different specs in production. Again, I think it was smart thinking by Hori to NOT reinvent joystick parts that weren’t worth tinkering with.
It’s never been shaft issues, folks. It’s always been base assembly, basic design and construction and use of quality materials, and microswitches. The H-stick was a real eye-opener for me this past weekend. My notions about several aspects of control levers were basically shattered and redefined by Hori believe it or not – and I was definitely in the corner of hostile Hori part critics BEFORE I got my Hayabusa…
IF Seimitsu were smart, they’d standardize, too, around common parts (LS-56 shaft or the LS-40 shaft) and tackle the base. It’ll mean a new base design with a revised microswitch set-up in all likelihood. (What Hori did with the base and microswitches in the H-stick was very clever… There’s something there worth emulating!) I don’t know that continuing with the same parts they’ve used for over 20 years is the way to go… As economical (CHEAP!) as that sounds, the problems seem to be in the base assembly and cheap plastics they’re using whether it’s the pivot (LS-32 issue) or the microswitches (all the LS-joysticks to some degree).
At least half the LS-joysticks are still generally better than the JLF but my feeling is that the Hayabusa is a more common sense, evolved solution to the control lever problem than the LS-58. LS-32 problems are certainly not solved by a shaft cover, either! That’s a cosmetic, non-performance impacting issue Seimitsu could have tackled 2 decades ago if it’d made any real difference!
