Any update on the silencing foam pads? ETA? When they’re finally available will there be multiple options?
Will there be any effort to accurately benchmark them against regular+silent sanwas in a controlled setting?
I got my Sanwa LE Gold and Silver balltops today!
Impressions – overall nice, maybe worth the couple bucks extra over the meshballs.
Bad stuff – the silver balltop ISN’T anywhere near as silver as it appears in Sanwa photographs. Under low light, yes, it looks “like the photographs Sanwa released”.
The silver balltop actually appears more like a white balltop with slivers of silver banding on it. Think of it as like a variant white meshball but a white meshball that makes more sense to buy! LOL
That said, this silver balltop is STILL going on my HRAP Diamond VLX. Should look very nice on top of that LS-32 lever!
Good stuff – the silver balltop is still nice even if it’s a bit different in person… Mileage will vary; depending on lighting conditions, it can and DOES look more silvery.
By contrast, the gold balltop in real life looks like the pictures released. It’s actually not a bad-looking balltop and smarter-looking in real life than I thought. This balltop is ALSO going to a special joystick (assuming I’m able to save enough to afford it in the near future!).
I don’t know exactly WHY the gold balltop looks more impressive in person. I think the underlayer of the balltop was probably a light gold base… I don’t see anything equivalent on the silver balltop (ie, a light silver layer under the silver bands).
So, take that as you will… armi0024’s photograph of these two LE balltop handles is closer to what they look like in person than Sanwa’s photos, for sure!
Have the second round of test silencers been shipped out yet? Can’t wait to receive them.
Sorry, the packages didn’t arrive until Wed (stupid UPS) and I’ve been on call a few nights. I should be able to get them out tomorrow! We have some really nice material.
Ah, the life of a resident physician-in-training.
My dad has stories about that… and it really isn’t much like Scrubs or House, either!
Let’s just say he wouldn’t care to repeat that phase of his life…!
The medical shows are so much fiction from the insanely rude behavior of the doctors to the ridiculous diagnoses and ignorance displayed by the characters… (Okay, granted SOME doctors are asses, and there are other things they are but — enough, back to the shows!) They use terminology that’s incorrect or out-of-use. If you have any biological knowledge or common sense it’s sometimes amazes you what slips by show staff. You’d think all these shows would have medical experts – at least a well-trained nurse, recently retired doctor, or medical educator as a regular consultant and script advisor!
The behavior demonstrated by the main doctor in House could result in you losing your license or, at the very least, any clientele/patients you’ve acquired over the years if you have a private practice. I know of at least two doctors that had to leave a local area and re-establish themselves elsewhere because of bad behavior. One had his contract bought out by his group practice because nobody could stand him. The other fellow ultimately lost his private practice – which was very lucrative; he was a heart specialist or some other specialty like that. He was just too nasty to people in general and lost BOTH his office support staff AND his patients.
And I apologize for that rant, btw.
I do tend to go off-topic sometimes.
Just hate to waste all that work I did typing all that stuff by erasing it… 
It’s a different life. Susan handles anything routine, day to day, but when it comes to special items and new design that falls on me. Doing this is fun, and ironically I would say the show that is closest is Scrubs, it’s like a caraciture, but it’s not far off for the personalities, etc. Gray’s anatomy, House, etc are pretty much off base. If I could just learn telepathic communication… I’ve had to answer 20 or so pages since my last post 12 hours ago, that leads to a very interrupted night of sleep
I’ve been trying to get a Sanwa Star Balltop forever!!! Please please please!!! = D
We’ll try to pick up a few!
The new aluminum parts arrive Monday or Tuesday.
PS360+'s and Voltech wiring harnesses are in stock and ready to go!
http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/1478-large/ps360-multi-console-joystick-pcb-by-akishop.jpg
How much would a star ball top cost?
We are in the process of confirming pricing, but they will probably be around $30, if we can work our supplier down we will. We are thinking of doing some short run ball tops also and will keep people posted. Runs of 10-100 on some fun patterns and features.
Ooohhh… Actually, guys, from some of what I’ve heard $30 is good for a star ballhandle.
Personally NOT my style but I think there are a couple of people around the boards that could kick themselves for NOT getting it from akihabarashop when they carried those AOU(?) LE items a few years back.
I wouldn’t pay it myself – my normal limit is about $15 (and I really have to work hard on justifying purchases at that price point to myself{!}) and I wouldn’t pay above$17-$18 for the part unless it were made of titanium.
(I always wondered about titanium. There are legendary stories of it being extremely difficult to work with yet the Blackbird aircraft (A-12, YF-12, M-21, SR-71) were 90%+ Titanium! {I’ve read 95% titanium in a couple of places including the autobiography of the guy who designed the Blackbird’s engine inlet system.} You can’t work the metal with the average tools you buy from a hardware store. You have to use specially prepared, designed tools specifically for working with titanium OR you’ll ruin BOTH the titanium AND the tools!
Also read of another guy who made an ROTJ Luke Skywalker lightsaber replica prop {with winking power on/off button lights!} primarily out of titanium, too. He would have made Kelly Johnson proud!)
Me? I’d still like to see a reappearance of Pearl swirl balls in 3-4 colors: they look great in red, white (where the pattern is more apparent than mesh), light blue, and black. Yellow and green don’t look so bad, either. I seem to remember that the plastic used for those ball handles also lights up well with LEDs, too. NOT a fan of pink or violet myself and I didn’t care for the swirls colors that had white mixed into another color; this is a case where solid, which I normally detest on balltop handles, works better. The only twists I like are the soft-serve ice cream kind you can get at Dairy Queen!
Other than that, the idea of anodized aluminum or “naked” metal (protected against corrosion) appeals, too.
You need to move into shafts… we do have a 100% Titanium shaft for the JLF… very very light
On another note, we heard back from a supplier today and we are looking at doing a tool kit for sticks… any suggestions on what to include? We’ll proably have a basic kit, advanced kit, and a kitchen sink kit.
The JIS screwdriver for the JLF mounts.
Copped the PS360+ and a few Happ specific parts. Thanks for still stocking these!
Thanks for the order! We’ve got about 250 360’s in stock
A) I’m not a JLF fan… Seimitsu owns my soul after I bought an HRAP 3 SE and noticed a HUGE difference between the LS-32 and JLF in terms of learning curve and ability to actually use the stock gate and have a reasonable chance of executing moves correctly! SF IV became more fun to play… I noticed going back to the old CPS-2 games I have on the PS2 and Saturn that the JLF just does not seem to work well with the SF Alpha series or Darkstalkers which is a big let-down. Bigger difference between the two makes there.
Going back to the JLF is not gonna happen… The stick is too eccentric for my tastes (even though the construction is designed better than the Seimitsus which rely too much on screws to hold together). Now, if I like the Hayabusa lever Hori developed for the Fighting Edge joystick, that’s a different story!
P.S. -- I probably would buy a titanium ball handle if it's within my price range and actually looks neat! It might seal the deal if it were "Blackbird" color (which is actually a very dark blue)! Ah, the US military and its naming conventions!
P.S. P.S. -- Would any of the proposed shaft designs (metal ones or otherwise) be scaled for the LS-32? There might be a market for that... I'd say maybe up to 15-25% of us use the LS-32 on a regular or continual base. It's been a mystery to me for the past four years as to why Seimitsu doesn't have a shaft cover for its best known model of joystick lever.
Right now, I create my own shaft covers from modded JLF-CD kits; it might be nice for once NOT to have to do that! I only get a break when I get an LS-40...
B) What are you talking about including in the kit?
Different tension springs, microswitches, shaft covers, etc.? Is it like the silent mod kits, or something else? I know it’s going to probably be biased towards the Sanwa JLF so you’ll probably lose the interest of the Competition and Seimitsu players if that’s the case.
Granted, I know the reality of the parts market is something like at least 60-75% Sanwa (it seems!) unless you’re a big modder or nut like me who likes to customize their joystick to their artistic or ergonomic needs… (I do customization AND ergonomic mods.)
= 30ea (I can only get about 30 of these… maybe)
= 25ea (I can get 5 of these)
= 25ea ( may be able to get 8 of these)
ok guys, now or never, if you want these we can get them.
Sign me up for 2x cow balltops, please!
Please if you are interested let me know asap, These are in VERY limited quantites.
1 multicolor for me please.