I have a JLF that came with a cool dust washer but I don’t like the look and feel of the shaft cover. It does keep out alot of dust and pretty much closes the hole in between the shaft and the joystick cover. However, since removing it, my hand fits better on the joystick, and my general execution improved a bit. What kind of bad things would happen if I played with the shaft cover off?
Nothing bad will happen to your joystick without the shaft cover. The shaft cover is for aesthetics more than anything else. Just make sure to get dust covers that fit the uncovered shaft like these: Sanwa JL-PP1 Dustwasher
or if you wanna feel special get some of these: Welcome to Art’s Hobbies
Actually, the dust cover does help protect the shaft from discoloration and corrosion.
Should be fine without the cover. It helps prevent oxidization in a heavy traffic arcade.
It is okay to play without the cover, however, it is not okay to play with a gaping hole in your dustwasher that was intended to cover the area where the shaft cover was, which means it won’t be able to stop all the dust from getting into the sensitive workings of the joystick, and slowly messing it up. Get a Sanwa JL?PP1 dustwasher, or get something fancy from Tek-Innovations. Most common is the sexy arrowed dustwasher (available at Lizard Lick), but you can get a laser-etched dustwasher with whatever you want on it from tek-innovations.com.
These shafts are made of stainless steel. It should be a very long play time with very sweaty fingers before they get rusty.
Depends on the environment. If you live somewhere where it’s hot and humid (and if your sweat is more acidic than normal) then you better take care to wipe it off after every play session.
what was the cool dust cover that came with your jlf? what was it made of or did it have a cool design?