I have this abomination of an arcade stick (Pelican Real Arcade Stick) and I was wondering if anyone has used it for modding purposes? The base itself is fairly sturdy, and the button layout is nice, but I’m not terribly experienced, and I was hoping to hear some advice before I tried to do anything with it.
This is the monstrosity in question. I was wondering:
Happ or Sanyo parts?
A lot of Soldering or Dremel-work involved?
Can you keep the PCB?
Will a normal stick work in the machine?
This is the monstrosity in question. I was wondering:
Happ or Sanyo parts? do happ parts fit? yes very easily
A lot of Soldering or Dremel-work involved? nope not at all as long as you buy some quick disconnects
Can you keep the PCB? yes but its crap and will eventually crap out,
Will a normal stick work in the machine? normal? machine?
Fantastic gentlemen! Thanks for the info! I have three SFACs I wanted to mod (two for myself, one for a friend) and I figured I could buy in bulk and mod this one as well!
I’m going home to order my parts and cannibalize a PSX controller!
i’ve got a modded one, with sanwa stick and happ buttons. Get the j-stick from www.ultimarc.com. It has extra shaft clearance, which is needed for this “thicker” control panel. Sanwa buttons do not fit natively in mine, so if you want sanwa’s, you may need to drill slightly larger holes for the buttons. I use hole plugs for the left-most kick and punch buttons…that’s just my preference. I used the stock PCB, with the universal connector, and have never had a problem with it.
If you want anything from Happ head over to the BYOAC Buy/Sale/Trade forum and give divemaster127 a PM or an email. He carries about 99% of the Happ line and can get you almost anything you need much cheaper than direct from Happ. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=47066.0
You would definitely want Competition stick and buttons. I personally buy from TornadoTerry’s but as you can see there are a lot of options other than Happ direct, where shipping will cost you almost as much as the parts you want.
One thing I noticed though, is that all Comp sticks I’ve bought straight from Happ move in a perfect circle, while Comps I get from anywhere else never do. All it requires is some sanding of the microswitches to fix, but it always made me wonder if Happ knowingly sells misshaped Comp sticks to resellers. Ooo the conspiracy :looney:
I’ve modded 2 of these with happ sticks and psx board and am supposed to mod another one of these. I would recommend if you are going through all the trouble of modding them, might as well put the happ parts in there. Go with competition stick and competition buttons. When I first started out, I used Ultimate stick and Ultimate buttons and then I regretted it and I had to remod them with Comp parts. Also, of course the hardest part is putting a new psx board in there, even I’m lazy in starting that third stick because I don’t want to bother with the soldering. I would recommend soldering the boards instead of the A-series non-solder hack since it will be more reliable. A trick to get the pelican open, the plastic box where the cord goes, unscrew that, pull that entire black box out carefully, unscrew the bottom screws out, watch out for the screws under the rubber feet, now once all screws are out, push your fingers down through the rectangle opening and push the bottom board out. Be careful though, its a very thin piece of mdf. Uh, I’ll take a few pics of my finished mod and the insides to give you some guidance. PM me your email. Also, I did the SFAC stick mod with comp parts too but no new board. Well let me tell you the buttons are easy, but I had the hardest part putting the stick in because of those screws. I opted to not take the art or front off, so it was difficult getting the bolts not to spin. Lets just say, I had to drill into the bolts so I could insert a screwdriver so the bolt wouldn’t turn, then I could get the nuts off.
Also, I got my happ parts from Pony boy on BYOAC boards, he might be a member here too.
Did anyone ever figure out a way to connect the Universal stick to a Dreamcast or PC? I picked one of these up on clearance for like $30 a few years ago and was pretty crushed when I couldn’t use it to play MvC2 :sad:
Ok, now i’ve got an old PSOne controller, my Pelican Real Arcade Universal, and soldering tools, someone help me before I hurt myself or others.
So do I just yank out the PCB in there, snip and strip where the wires connect to the pcb, the button and ground wires at proper places, shove everything inside, and start playing?
Take apart your PsOne controller cut the rumble motors off, you won’t need them unless you want stuff spinning inside your box for some reason. I also make my controllers without using the d-pad, I just solder straight onto the smaller board with the analog sticks but that might be too much over your head. So study the d-pad and their respective button functions, scrape the button grey junk off with a razor blade so you expose copper for a good solder connection. You can gut the pelican pcb, I’d reuse the wires though, daisy chain the grounds to a common ground and you should be good to go.
