At that point, the art of properly structuring and reinforcing is going to come into play very heavily. While I understand the concern, there’s no other ideal way of handling this unless a third party PCB gets created specifically for this, and let’s face it, that won’t happen. There would be another way of doing this as well now that I think of it, but as it seems the idea isn’t popular, I won’t bother haha. If I put together a proper functioning solution I’ll be sure to post it with details of what I did.
It is not difficult to have an arcade stick that is compatible with all versions of Smash. You would simply use either the Toodles Cthulu Multi-Console PCB or the X-Arcade PCB. These are both compatible with the Gamecube, and the Toodles PCB has an in-built Smash mode–that I wish someone would tell us more about.
The only difficulty is the issue of the analog sticks, but we come back to the question of: How much do we lose from using a digital stick?
In most Smash games, the answer is “Not much.” And that is the voice of experience talking because I’ve already been doing this for two months.
The one exception might be Melee because of it’s higher skill ceiling and numerous advanced techs. I don’t have an answer in that case because I don’t have a Gamecube at the moment. I could install Melee to my PC via Dolphin to test it and report back if people are interested.
Honestly, for both Brawl and Smash for Wii U, there is little need for an analog stick or a C-stick. There is almost nothing you can’t do with a normal digital stick.
I think for me it comes down to absolute precision. May not effect as many characters but I feel like it would effect my Marth play for sure as well as some of my Zero Suit as well.
Could you possibly use an analog flight stick? I don’t think virtual on sticks were but I believe most flight sticks are.
If you already own an arcade stick, you might try testing it by buying an adapter to make it compatible. That would allow you to determine how much precision is lost from the switch.
I’ve used almost every control scheme possible, and I find I like the arcade stick the best for a few reasons:
-
Comfort: I have thumb issues that make normal gamepads uncomfortable after a while. Sometimes, I can’t play at all. The arcade stick eliminates those issues. And man, I love the way it feels.
-
Efficiency: I’ve got all major functions down to just four buttons, and I’m able to keep a finger directly on each button at all times. And Sanwa buttons are nice and sensitive.
-
Accuracy: Whether using a thumbstick or a D-pad (Wii Remote), I had a higher incidence of wrong input. I modified my stick with a Seimitsu Ls-56, which has a short throw and no deadzone, and while no player is error free, I feel my wrong inputs have been reduced. (This could also be a psychological bias.)
But I am not someone who made liberal use of the C-stick for smashes and tilts, so the loss for me may be significantly less than the loss for you.
I would also note that the entire project cost me less than $50. I found a used stick on Amazon, and they had a deal for opening a credit card, I got a $70 gift certificate. The stick was only $60. The Seimitsu stick and Sanwa buttons cost me only around $50.
I also bought an adapter from Raphnet so I could use the stick on my gaming PC for other games.
It’s definitely one of my favorite controllers of all time.
Well here is a very rough mock up of what I believe is possible
http://i.imgur.com/r1yXxKc.jpg
Took me like 30 seconds in MS Paint, and it may not reflect the finished product but it illustrates what I am thinking off
Making a Franken Pad from a GameCube controller with the Joystick handle from THE MAD CATZ XBOX 360 ARCADE JOYSTICK
There, you have your Analog joystick in a game cube arcade controller stick, and if we do it right you still have your C stick to use.
The old A B X Y and Z buttons and the L trigger get epoxied and replace with nice arcade buttons
Much more easier that trying to graft a Sanwa JLF into an analog joystick.
I think you missed the whole point here, were discussing having an analog Joystick for Game Cube use not just using a stick for game cube use.
Most of those Flight Analog sticks are really expensive, and the Flight sticks from happ are really bulky. Unless you want to figure out how to chop apart a equally expensive PC flight stick.
And the Virtual On sticks are Digital not Analog.
As I just recently got into this type of stuff, could someone smarter than me explain why something like this wouldn’t work? For the record I don’t think that it will without a bunch of work, I’m just curious as to why it wont.
I’m failing to see what’s realistically different about my solution and the proposed Franken-solution, however if it works it works. Just need to put it in a pretty case.
Another way to make the solution work with something like a JLF would be to instead of try and modify the analog stick on the PCB, make it insert into the bottom portion of the shaft, remove the JLF switches, and ensure to position it appropriately. May need some modification to get full range of functionality, but it would definitely work.
Looking at the Data sheet http://www.nidec-copal-electronics.com/e/catalog/joystick-encoder/cj25.pdf
Electronically it would not work as this stick isn’t analog, it uses optical encoders (similar to the official Nintendo brand N64 joystick) unless you got some decoder board. You also run the risk of introducing some latency this way. There no feasible way to mechanically get the joystick to with with standard arcade joystick shafts.
Any ways this is only a 4/8 way joystick, it still not work for what we want to accomplish in Smash Bros which takes advantage of 360 degree range of movement.
It appears you have no idea how a JLF works mechanically or understand whats all installed for you.
The JLF does not pivot at the end of the shaft, but half way down the shaft. So the switch you are hitting is positioned the opposite of the direction you want to input.
How are you going to get that working with this
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31-%2B3pIoEdL.jpg
Which has its own pivot on the bottom of the shaft.
You have to create some ball/socket hinge and intentionally wire the potentiometers backwords.
and find away to connect the potentiometer cube to be mounted to the JLF body in some way.
This is the Seimitsu LS-64, Seimitsu’s only analog joystick, its long since been discontinued, expensive and hard to find.
Here is a comparison of the Sanwa JLF to the Seimitsu LS-64
http://bbs.a9vg.com/thread-1159254-1-1.html
This is the Analog Joystick with Ultimate Handle from Suzo-Happ
http://na.suzohapp.com/images/50/50-2876-00.jpg
You can buy one for $162.57 each or units of 6 for $156.66 each.
The Happ joystick is alot bigger than the Seimitsu joystick.
What I showed you before is probability the cheapest way to go.
You described precisely what I didn’t have time to do so while at work. It’s probably the most amount of work but other than a terribly expensive solution like the two proper joysticks you mentioned, there’s not really a whole lot else in the real of possibility is there? Lots of work or expensive is what this boils down to isn’t it.
Here’s a novel idea. Just use a Gamecube controller. That’s how the game was intended to be played.
Depending which character you use, I believe that analogs might actually be used/necessary to control precision:
- Ness and his PK Thunder
- Zelda and her Din’s Fire and Farore’s Wind
There might be others as well.
If the original analog sticks were metal… & threaded. And the JLF shaft could thread onto the analog sticks, voila you’ld be done. Fabricate that JLF shaft and and threaded metal analog stick and you’re good to go.
Picture a JLF with a ball handle on one end and analog stick on the other end If he really wanta to make it work.
Why we keep going on about JLF shafts?
-
The Seimitsu LS-64 takes standard ball tops.
-
See that little analog cube, it’s spring tension is too weak to hold up a JLF shaft. There will be too much weight for those tiny springs inside.
And if you are connecting an analog cube to a whole JLF, how are you going to make it work?
JLF talk, because OP wanted to use one
1.) Yes, it does.
2.) Yes a weak cube that in its current state woild not work. Post is about OP’s dream of an analog stick and this is one of the many dream solutions. To faabricate the oroginal analog stick with material strong enough a JLF shaft can thread directly on it.
Now lets see OP start a work log 
If you really want to make a JLF act like an analog joystick (it would not be true analog)
You have to make a custom PCB for it
You ether need optical sensors or hall effect sensors/ magnetic induction
You get these sensors to provide data for X and Y coordinates and you translate that though some encoder into two sets of analog voltage outputs
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31-%2B3pIoEdL.jpg
See this analog cube has 2 potentiometers, they take voltage and add resistance to that voltage.
And you get a drop in that voltage, that difference from the reference voltage is how much each potentiometer moves
full voltage would be one end of the spectrum, while zero voltage is the other.
Its why we take the half way point for neutralizing analog triggers and analog sticks in PCB hacks.
its also why on the PS4 and Xbox One pad hack threads we suggest to keep the analog block in place, let the analog go to neutral and just glue the stick into place.
As the resistance value is already there, and we don’t have to search to see whats the neutral value.
which your game controller, PC , game console translates back into X and Y coordinates for analog movement
This would take some time to build, test and debug.
I can imagine you have to make the steps the custom PCB use to identify each direction of movement match up with all the steps of of movement of the Game Cube analog and Smash Bros.
FYI Smash Bros via analog thumb stick has 64 directions you can choose. It is not a smooth arch of movement,there steps or increments that are detected. Why, because your PC or game console CPU is digital not analog.
So if you were to find a different DIY style analog stick that works with analog outputs through potentiometers could that feasibly work?
Now in this dream, imagune the --already existing-- analog pcb and hardware with a stick shaft now strong enough the --modified-- threaded bottom of a JLF stick shaft can just screw on to the analog pcb stick. The JLF shaft height can be maniuplated or cut until it matches the same inputs of a regular analog sticks inputs.
I mean at that point don’t waste your money on a JLF, just buy some cheap knockoff stick and use that instead. You’d be wasting your money buying the good authentic parts, and then removing everything that differentiates it from the cheap stuff lol.