if youve ever thought of making a custom joystick go for lexan it will save you loads of time and might come out cheaper in the long run after you destroy your third acrylic sheet lol, after trying lexan im never going back to acrylic again the thing just wont crack i drill it, used a spade bit , used that little cylinder with teeth in the sides to grind the hell out of the sides but it still wont crack.
oh and if your looking for PCB’s ask for the series H that is a liscensed copy cause the original PCB’s on series H psone dualshocks have that ribbon and has a diffrent mapping than spiffyshoes hack.
I would like to know what the Tekken 4 stick is, what are the buttons, stick, etc. I really like it but want a customized version with different graphic and bat top. Any help appreciated.
There are just too many pages of writting. I have some spare joystick parts and a spare dreamcast wire. Are there any tuturials on how to make my own quality arcade controller for dreamcast? The really good offical dreamcast controller at the min. is $60 a piece at ebay and even then I am stuck with their design frame.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… I know that they are many pages to surf through, but with the page options you can shorten your views. Have it showing 40 posts per page to help. It should now be 80 pages instead of 160 or whatever… Use the advance search option and try things like dc controller and such to narrow your search. new years resolution is to add a link to ‘important pages’ or frequently asked questions with the link provided to the questions answered. Keep in mind, this will take about 2 months as I am really busy with other things right now. Peace
Hi, i have no skills with working with wood, but these custom arcade controlers intrest me. I would love to make my own. Now the part thats un clear to me is how to cut hole in the wood to place the buttons. How would i do that?
I just had a couple of questions. I did read up a lot since this is my first time attempting to build a stick. I read the Sanwa mod thread and various other threads, but this whole thread was a little large so I just tried using the search for what I needed so if this has already been answered I’m really sorry! More than anything I just want to make sure what I’m planning on doing is correct.
Here’s the lowdown.
I’m making a PS arcade stick (I pretty much retired from gaming and only recently started getting back into Tekken 5 in preparation for DR’s mass release). I’m never going to use it for any other systems more than likely. I’m going for the Spiffy Shoe’s solderless A-series hack. I have two of them on hand (I did check them for the ribbon cable so it’s all green!) Because I’m kind of a OCD/neat freak I wanted to keep this as clean as possible. Thus in addition to the A-series hack, I’ll be using quick disconnects (I’m going to solder the wires to the disconnects for added security, but other than that no soldering). I’m ordering all Sanwa parts from Rod (JLF and snap ins).
Questions:
Since I’m using quick disconnects and the solderless hack, there’s really no point in using barrier strips, correct? From my understanding it’s just another method of easily replacing parts (either the buttons, joystick, or the PCB) when you solder to the parts.
Like I said, I’m a neat freak so the next thing I’m doing is probably going to seem pointless to most of you. There is one wire from the PCB that is designated as a ground which I know needs to go to each button and the joystick. I’m trying to find a way to do this WITHOUT daisychaining because I don’t like how it looks/performs. Thus I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to “split” this one wire amongst 9 (8 buttons and 1 joystick) different ground points. I asked at some places to see if there is such a thing as a wire splitter connector of sorts to no avail. What I finally settled on is using an “terminal grounding bar kit” (http://electrical.hardwarestore.com/14-47-grounding-rods-clamps/equipment-grounding-bar-kit-607099.aspx). I figure I could mount this into the case, connect the live ground wire to it and then have 9 additional wires that connect to this and go to each of the buttons/joystick locations so I have one wire per ground connection. I know this is a little risky since there’s no insulation protection (like plastic around the barrier strips) but I figure since all my wires are insulated, there will be very little chance of problems.
Kind of directed towards TRNG since it’s a question based on one of the insides of his stick (http://www.arkadesticks.com/Untitled-1%20copy.jpg) but open to anyone who can help. I see that you route out the wood area around the buttons and joystick and put in a metal sheet. It would appear that you use the lexan/plexi and the sheet ONLY to secure the buttons (and in turn the buttons hold the sheet to the lexan). Is this true or is there a thin layer of MDF/wood separating the metal and lexan that is used for additional support? I’m guessing for the joystick you don’t use a metal sheet and just route out a little less so you can bottom mount with the mounting plate directly to the wood.
And that’s it! Those are my major questions about the insides. Designing the box is something I have yet to do. I’m not experienced with woodwork so have to think about it a lot and figure out exactly how to prodcue the shape that I want so I’m sure I’ll be asking questions about that in the near future. Thanks for everyone’s help!
You don`t have to use barrierstrips, you can just solder to the buttons and joystick (or in your case hook them up with quick disconnects). I use barrierstrips because:
A: It looks good and organised.
B: It helps the stickbuyer to change anything with ease.
C: Did I mention it looks good? ^_^.
I guess you could use that also, yes.
Well, for the buttons, first off I route out on the top of it (2mm), then route out a hole and then put my 2mm metalplate on it and screw it in (the metall is fastened with 5 screw in the mdf, yes 5). And then I put lexan over it.
I use a 6mm metalplate for the joystick and yes I route out and screw it in the wood also, just like I did with the 2mm metalplate for the buttons.
Take a look at this: http://www.arkadesticks.com/boxmaxp.jpg
Wow! Just plain wow! That is so much more detailed and creative than I had previously thought! The pics really help with the instructions.
I was thinking about using the barrier strips anyway because they do a great job of organization. I bought some (American style) and even bought some spade terminals to use in conjunction with them (again OCD so I don’t want to use just stripped wire).
My biggest concern was definitely organization/splitting of the ground wire so thanks for reassuring me that my sort of unusual idea will work.
That 6mm metal plate you use is a replacement for buying a mounting plate for the JLF/Flash, correct? And it looks top mounted upon closer inspection, am I right?
Lastly, from the picture I noticed that you make your sticks out of a solid block of wood. I was wondering how you got it to that shape and with the insides looking like they do. That just seems like a lot easier than working with MDF and putting the pieces together and such. It has to be a good deal more solid as well.
You and finkle are my inspiration to stick building, seriously! You and your wood boxes are amazing and I love finkle metal fabrication. I hope to become HALF as good as you guys in the distant future! Thanks again!
Paik4Life
The 6mm metalplate is for mounting on top yes (as you may see I routed out the top for it). Also, it dont look like that when I mount it, I always spraypaint the metalplate with "zinkeffect" so it wont rust or anything like that and keep it 100% new all the time.
About the box, you must have very good equipment when pulling this off, I don`t use any regular stuff nowdays and I get help from my dad alot because he has a friend who works in a small woodshop and he has routers and big sandmachines.
But it is not as easy as you think, haha. It is still A LOT easier to put pieces together with glue so my advice is to go with that.
It is very solid yes.
I actually have a short clip of me and a friend in the beginning of building a stick, but that is it. We were in the testing phase of filming and never got it completed due to time and our job (Marines- we were in different units and such) It’s like 4 minutets of something along there, maybe even shorter. Not really worth looking at because we really didn’t teach anything, just talked about the panels and reason to rout the part out for the joystick. REALLY CORNY!
I updated the links and have added some new ones. Working on a new layout for my site that is more user friendly and picture friendly.
If you are buying Happ parts, I just found a seller on ebay that sells new happ parts cheaper than you would pay over at their official site and with a 2 day delivery!
I just bought 2 new competition joysticks for only $26.98 with shipping! Over at Happs, I would have paid $27.90 for 2 comps without the shipping and without the handling charge which would have came around $37 or so.
The ebay seller’s name is bottlenose58 and tornadoterrysdot (same person I assume since both ship from same town, same stuff, same everything)
Me, I screw mine down by using any holes on the pcb if they are available. If not then I drill some of my own, but make sure that if it’s a two sided pcb that has traces on the other side not to drill through any of them. I use tiny screws small enough to get through the pcb and to the wood. You could also use a project box to hold your pcb. I’ve seen a VHS cassette case used to house a pcb. I’ll be trying to post some new pictures up soon on my photobucket account and post the links.
I just finished soldering all the bits and pieces on my custom stick, and checked everything with a multimeter and it seemed to be fine, however I ran into probelms when I went to use it.
Half the time it works fine, the other half the time, buttons won’t activate and the joystick position switches on/off repeatedly (so if I were to hold down it would act like I was quickly alternating between down and neutral). I assume this is due to faualty wiring (most likely a ground wire as when one of the buttons doesn’t work, non of them work). However I have the joystick and buttons connected to ground at different places, yet whenever the buttons screw up, the stick screws up, and vice versa, which seems kinda odd since afaik they’re connected independantly, so I was wondering if there was likey to be any other cause before I triplecheck my connections to the ground.
I will buy a Sanwa Joystick (JLF-TP-8Y), Mounting Plate (8YT) and a Octagonal Restrictor Plate (GT-Y). I suppose that all those parts are compatible.
My doubts are focused to the construction of the superior panel. I understand that I need to make holes for the stick, but will I have to route the mounting plate portion to get it mount well?. I will use plexi.
Is metal mounting plate extremely necessary for the buttons (OBSF-30)?
I want to replace the ball top with a bat top, is it difficult?
Excuse my bad english. Thanks in advance for any help.
Alonso.
P.S: Sorry, I had posted in a wrong thread (I deleted the previous post)
