True. My other option was widening the holes on the Semitsu LS so they fit over the pegs the original stick was mounted to. I spent some time widening one before I said “fuck that” and came back to check the thread again.
Pretty sure I ruined the PCB that came with the Hori V3. Uhm. Not sure what to do now.
lets have a look-see
its still probably usable
what happens with it now?
Well my problem was that my square, cross, and triangle buttons were touching when they were soldered to the PCB, so they were all activating at the same time. Same situation with two of the directions on the stick. I desoldered them and I’ll admit that the original job was a little sloppy. My soldering iron was not melting new solder at this point for some reason, and I was unable to reattach the wires to the PCB. Also my solder sucker decided to break halfway through this process and I don’t have a backup, or a wick.
Some of my wires are secured with glue, but I should be able to just peel that off right? Now that I think about it… “ruined” may be the wrong word for my PCB. I think “covered in horrible solder with no way to remove it” is much more accurate. I’m thinking about dropping a Cthulhu in it and not dealing with the PCB anymore. I’m not too concerned with losing turbo functionality as long as the start, select, and home work.
I would also like to add that the Seimitsu LS works well with this case, but requires a bit of modification. I removed the mounting plate from the Seimitsu, and I cut off the mounting pegs inside the V3. The Seimitsu fits right in the square, and I just hot glued it in. Rock solid.
sounds like someone needs to clean the tip of their iron…
I agree. Funny thing, this is the first time I ever used this particular iron. 
can’t you just plug the specific ribbon cable strand from the top board where the start+guide buttons are directly into the terminals on a ps360 or chimpSMD? so you can keep the functionality of that board top panel? Or is soldering required?
Yes you can. There’s no problems with doing that.
Hey guys, I modded my VX with sanwa stick and buttons, and I’m about to start on my 2nd one… I love the wee little stick! So tiny and light!
One thing though… I notice the paint on the face of the stick is coming off… and not by a little bit either, there are big sections where it’s wearing away… I can actually scrape it off with my fingernails, it seems incredibly flimsy. Is this happening to anyone else?
So, I was thinking… I’ll just paint it or put my own art on there? Since a lot of you guys really seem to know what you’re doing in this dept, how would you recommend I go about it? I’ve modded sticks before, but I’ve never had to put art or paint on a surface like this one. Not really sure where to start. 
Its my first time modding my VX and im pretty much clueless when it comes to wiring the buttons. Can anyone help me with this?
There’s a picture with the pcb in this thread, please find it inside the thread.
been searching everywhere with no joy…
can someone post a pic of these sticks with a madcatz tournament edition above or below for a size comparison??
That’s odd. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing that’s painted on the Fighting Stick VX/V3 casing. It’s all molded in the color plastic that you see. There is the main plate that’s covered in a thick foam-like sticker, though. Is that what you’re referring to?
Mind taking a picture of this?
Sure!
You can’t see it too well in the pic I guess, but if you look close, it’s there… the off-white is the normal face colour, and then there are patches of pure white where it’s been scraped off. Just now I even scraped in the letters “SRK” with my fingernail on the bottom right before I took the pic.
oh god, i have had that damn stick for 3 months, and then the punch buttons just randomly decided to do what they want, they alternate between not working at all, and working in short bursts of turbo, and i have to wrap the cord around my neck other wise it d/cs, so i just ordered a madcatz stick in the hopes of it lasting longer than 3 months >.>
It seems to me like you’re not properly handling the USB cable rather than it being a fault of the stick. If this is the case, a MadCatz stick will not last much longer.
You do not wrap your cable around the stick do you?
Ah yes, that’d be the top of the foam-like-sticker they use to cover the metal top panel.
Your best bet is to peel it off, and put in your own artwork then. You wouldn’t want to paint over it; I don’t think the new paintjob would last too long considering the material you’d be painting on.
Well… I can’t really “peel” it? It just sorta chips off… but I don’t mind chipping it all off! 
How would you recommend I go about applying artwork to it though? Since there’s no plexi or anything, I’m afraid that whatever I put on there won’t be durable enough and will just get messed up or wear away over time… Not really sure how to do this…
Has anyone else put artwork on the faceplate of their VX?
If worse comes to worst, I guess I could just chip off all the sticker and leave the pure white underneath…
the thing you chip off is just the top layer of the sticker he recommend you to peel off. this is normal for all v3 and vx, even v3 sa and vx sa. as long as you play on it frequently it will appear. he recommended you to peel off the whole paper thing till you see the metal plate underneath. then put your own art work on.
Ahhh… ok, so yeah, I guess it is just the top layer I’m chipping off here… if I wanted to put artwork on, I would peel off everything and get to the metal? Ok.
Sorry if I seem noobish about this guys, I haven’t done this before. I appreciate all your help though! 