okay well i got back awhile ago from my local arcade. i asked the owner to take a look at it and he told me about sticks and stuff since i am a noob about this stuff and we took a look inside the stick. we didnt take anything apart but there was 0 lubrication. no grease or anything. when you buy parts from japan or something they come with some type of lubrication. everyone should try to grease your stick. i have a ps3 SE stick but i cant get it to work on my pc for some reason. anyways once it works ill lube my stick and give feedback. shogo told me the grinding/stick getting stuck is because they did not grease the stick at all. so definitely try that out. i would do it now but i wanna wait til my stick works on the pc (since i dont have a console) and then do it.
NO! the “grinding” is the loose washer scraping the pcb. the “sticking” is the spring retainer getting caught on the edge of the loose washer! i’m not being preachy, that’s just what it is. while applying lube is definitely a good idea, you must fix the main issue or else your stick will destroy itself over a short period of time.
Yeah, I completely agree… I spent more than a reasonable amount to get the TE and get it without waiting because of the rarity, etc- but just the fact that these sticks were so highly hyped and anticipated, and part of many peoples launch experience for SF IV, it really sucks that anyone has to deal with defects like this- regardless of how the price compares to other sticks.
I thought these would end up being rare due to the original production run, but now that they are doing more production runs, I’m not sure how rare they will be in the end, haha.
if you grease the washer it will stay in place. i mean there isnt any grease or anything. okay if you guys are gluing it w/e its a BAD idea from what i was told. the guy who told me owns an arcade and im sure he knows what he is talking about haha. cuz if you glue it or w/e you will eventually grind out your stick again. anyways even if you stick isnt defective lube it and clean out your buttons. it will last a lot longer.
So against my better judgement I picked up a SE stick yesterday at Gamestop. I went in to buy a pad but they had a few SE sticks and Gamestop’s return policy is solid, so I gave it a whirl.
Within minutes my stick started to “catch” on something and have some problems returning to the neutral position on it’s own. Sweet! I can move it around and let go and sometimes it will stay pointed in the last direction I left it. It is not a smooth fluid stick at all. While in the middle of a fight it’s making some weird noises as well.
I guess that’s what I get for being adventurous. Now do I call madcatz, return it to gamestop, or try and fix it myself.
Well, you have pro stick modders here who also know what they’re talking about, so pick your poison. And just “owning” an arcade doesn’t automatically make a person pro. If you know he also fixes and/or mods various arcades and boards, then there’s more credit to that.
But the point of gluing the washer is so it won’t be pushed out of place and grind against the PCB. So if it’s not moving, how would it continually grind the PCB?
put some sanwa stuff in there. you will be happy.
For one thing, how would lubing the washer make it stay in place?..that doesn’t make any sense. Espeically more than GLUE…haha.
Also- the problem is that it’s rubbing against the pcb, which will eventually rub off the contacts…that is not going to get fixed by lube, that is a design problem. Lubing the stick might be a good pratice in general- but it’s not a solution to bad design, or metal scraping a pcb…
And for the record- I don’t doubt the guy knows his stuff, but… you do realize you dont’ have to know about the insides of an arcade machine to own an arcade right? I mean…you could own a McDonalds without knowing how the fry machine works, haha. You just pay people to handle all that stuff for you!
Since I planned on replacing the stick anyway, I wouldn’t mind having the common problem of the stock stick catching on certain directions – instead, I get a stick that just decides not to work entirely. Unless there’s something I’m missing, it just doesn’t want to turn on.
Call madcatz and they’ll tell you to either fix it yourself or wait for several weeks for them to ship you a new one, while you spend money to ship it to them.
Fixing it yourself will void your warranty incase anything else might come up.
Soooo, why not return to Gamestop and wait for the next batch? Which is what you’d be doing if you (paid to) ship to Madcatz anyway.
hah im just trying to help out 
but i guess im no help so ill keep quiet…
“if you grease the washer it will stay in place.”
/end thread, we’re all saved.
seriously though, the only grinding happening after the washer is glued down is from the spring retainer sliding across the washer (which it’s supposed to do in the first place). people have even taken the washer out completely to fix the problem. as long as you’re lubed, you have no worries about components grinding and wearing out. but whatever, do what you want. however i’m sure after you disassemble the stick to see how it works you’ll immediately see the main issue i’m trying to tell you do deal with.
EDIT: we’re just teasing ya… at least me anyway. if you’ve already opened your box up, you should take the stick apart to see how everything works. it’s not as intimidating as you think. i’m happy to answer any questions you come across if you choose to.
still… if you hate your SE sell it to me. 
no really pm me…
markman just posted that madkatz will more likely than not cover the shipping costs. if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks call madkatz.
Yeah, the Mad Catz PR mentioned “free shipping and repair”.
if you are willing to wait about 4-6 weeks for madcatz then ship it to them. thats what they told me on the phone like 2 days ago. he said other wise mod it myself but that would void the warranty.
I order my stick form Barnes and Nobel and got it last Monday. I must say mine is working great so far! I have had about 8 hrs on SFHD and about 4 hrs today on SF4. I just feels a lot better then my Hori EX2. Although I’m still planning on putting sanwa parts in my SE stick.
Wow another usefull post. I returned two of these sticks with same problems and finally decided to mod it. Way to go madcatz :lol:
Follow up.
Well, so far, it seems my speculations were right. If you check in store it should up your chances. I opened mine up when i got home, washer wasnt movin, been playing it for about…8 hours now? And everythings still working great! knock on wood
Since im lucky enough to not get one of the many defective ones, i’d have to say im lovin it! Still gonna swap out parts i think, but i dont know how soon i’ll order since things seem in order.
And damn, street fighter’s about ten times more fun with this, and i can pull off so many moves i could never do with controller. Money well spent, its a damn shame the problems plauging these are keeping it from being the quality product it should/could be.
I fixed my friends by glueing a rubber washer to the pcb. I didn’t want him to jerk the stick to much and crack the pcb with the metal washer glued to it.
So far no problems