I think the major issue is that for Toodles to even break even on clear plungers, he’d need to move 10k to 20k of them.
Theres a really good chance that fewer than 10k or 20k would be sold. Think about it, that would mean about 2500 people would each need to buy 8, which just isn’t feasible.
I am comfortable with my square gate, Toodles, but I do think this is a great idea! You sir, are amazing!
Since I’m now finding myself in need of a second round JLF gate and eczangief doesn’t seem to be making his custom ones anymore, this would be awesome. I’d pay $15 shipped no problem, if they become a reality of course.
Uh, they are a reality. They exist, they work, and there’s pictures of them in the first post. Head back to post #15. I’ll send out three, keep the one you like best and I’ll pay to have the other two sent back to me. They could be in your hand in about 3 business days.
could i order one as well…
So let’s do this. If you’re interested in picking one up immediately or just trying them out, and live the US, send me a PM. First three people to do so, I’ll ask for a $35 paypal from you, and send them out priority mail along with a postage paid envelope to send them back to me. When you decide which one of the three sizes you want to keep, throw the other two in the envelope and mail it back to me, and I’ll refund $20 back to you when they arrive. If you’re just testing them out and return all three, I’ll refund the full $35. I’ll know pretty quickly the prefered size since I’ll run out of them quickest, and I’ll talk to the rapid prototyping people to see how much I can squish down the cost by getting a batch of 100 made once I know the best size to make. Sound fair?
Er, I meant when you finalize a design for regular sale. I can see the pics in the first post, they look nice. 
Sending a PM now, I’ll give testing all three sizes a shot.
Great project name; Great project outcome. I may give it a shot in the future, but I don’t like round gates enough to justify much more spending before the next semester starts, haha.
Perhaps it might be more feasible and cheaper to do a square hole adaptor for putting a sanwa microswitch inside a PS-14-KN/GNC. The Seimitsu have a bigger square hole for he microswitch.
Square hole adapter is interesting. Though getting adapters and switches on top of a set of Seimitsus would start to get expensive. But, with Sanwa no longer making clear buttons, I can see people going down that route. But the clear plungers (the white part) would definitely be the move. I’s take the first batch off your hands
One GT-O pack left, claim yours now.
Toodles, if you’re looking to mass-produce these things, you know LL is going to want to get involved… You might want to reconsider the name though, since Sanwa already has a part # GT-O…
Do they? Damnit. I was trying to play off the GT-Y name for the octagonal…Wait, the one you show for the JLW is the GT-zero…
When I get the size finalized, I’ll get some numbers and we’ll talk about.
PM’ed
And the last one is claimed. All will go out in the mail on Monday, hopefully to arrive Thursday or so. They’re inner pieces, so you will still need the big piece of the restrictor gate (the clear part in the pictures of the first post). If anyone needs help getting the square gate out and putting the new one in, lemme know, but it should be easy to figure out.
The three are each marked with Sharpie to indicate their size; Small, Medium and Large. Feel free to take about how they feel here. I’m mostly looking for feedback about which is closest to a pizza cut, where when the stick is all the way to the edge, there’s exactly as much travel in each cardinal direction as there is each diagonal. (math terms: each cardinal and diagonal direction should each have as close to 45 degrees of play as possible) And of course the obvious yet subjective opinion of how it feels to play on. Try all three, pick the one you want to keep, and toss the other two in the anti static bag, toss the bag in the padded envelope, seal it, and drop it in a mailbox.
Received the set of Circle Inserts today.
Will test them out.
Just to try and prevent confusion with the JLW’s part GT-O, I’m going to rename this to GT-C.
JDM, I look forward to hearing your opinions.
After talking with Chad from LizardLick, I am left with the impression that the demand for this sort of part may actually be worth the investment in getting a proper mold made and a true production run. There are two things I really want to stress:
Those of you who have betas, please try it out and send the ones you don’t want back, and feel free to post up your experiences.
So Chad thinks there’s that much demand for a mass-produced pop-in circular gate replacement for the JLF?
Huh…
A lot of us (probably around 50 or so people that either ordered from the Trading Outlet OR are not afraid to Dremel like me) already modded standard Octos or Squares (squares in my case; I’m not sacrificing a perfectly good-working $5 part to do this mod!) for JLFs. If these circular parts are that much more precise and take into account some of the JLF screwiness I might be down for a mass-produced one or two just to compare with the homebrew mods I already have…
I know in my case that I DON’T have problems finding diagonals and doing 360’s or basic Hadoken rolls on circulars with either the LS-32 main circular gates or the JLF square/circular mods I’ve got in two joysticks.
(I swap back and forth between Seimitsu and JLF joysticks to keep my hand muscles used to both joysticks and their pecularities… They are in separate housings, of course. I’m NOT that crazy about swapping parts back and forth and using screwdrivers and Allen keys that much!)
You know I’m still probably going to commit to two of those Flash replacement PCBs when they do pass your final tests in the next year or so…
They will be precise, I don’t have any doubt of that. I do believe you’ll like mine better though because of the size. Using an octagonal gate, and ESPECIALLY when using a square gate, there’s a minimum diameter you have to be at to make it circular, the maximum width from center of the original cut. According to my math, the best size will be less than that. I’m shooting for the ‘pizza ideal’, where the there’s just as much room to hit cardinal directions as there is to hit diagonals. With a circular gate larger than perfect, the diagonals will have a greater slice of the pie than the cardinals.
So here is just my initial testing of the GT-C Inserts.
Well first, the quality of these prototypes are super.
The circles are actually circles.
Better than homemade.
Laugh.
The tabs which are used to insert or remove the Insert is shorter than Sanwa’s part.
It doesn’t really make for swapping out be harder.
For my testing, my focus was on how well the Diagonals work.
Because posts by M K L and kowal showed problems with Diagonals in their Circle for JLF.
http://shoryuken.com/f177/custom-restrictors-169798/
http://shoryuken.com/f177/jlf-round-restrictor-201984/
I can’t provide numbers like kowal and M K L did.
All I did was play games to get feel.
Okay, so each GT-C Insert; Small, Medium, Large; have 0.7mm difference between.
Medium is a circle that circumscribes the Sanwa Square.
Small is 0.7mm smaller than Medium.
Large is 0.7mm bigger than Medium.
I tried out the Large first.
Man, the throw is so big!
Laugh.
I was able to get all Diagonals consistently.
Then I tried the Small.
Throw is small.
It’s cool.
I got a lot of Diagonals not registering.
Just a lot of Up and Down.
I want to say that it is just me not playing well.
I don’t want to say it is the Insert yet.
I need to do better tests.
I’ve only tried on Melty Blood and playing Shmup.
I got mine today and I agree entirely with JDM all three are much better designed than any custom I have played on. After only a few minutes of play time I would say the large is a no, but I am fond of both the small and the medium. I plan on doing hours of testing this weekend. I will post again with more feedback but really you have done an excellent job, needles to say I am impressed.