no problem =p
Bit late to the party, but congratulations XMetal! I’m glad you managed to finally get your hands on a FLASH 1, 2 of them at that! :lol:
thanks ikagi chan 
did you end up finding any differences between the ascii and the sanwa?
OK so I was thinking about this and had an idea. What if you get a skilled wood worker to fashion a mock up housing a little bit smaller in dimensions than the actual housing and then vacuum form it. Smaller in dimension so when it?s vacuumed formed it comes out the right size. I?ll admit it?s going to take a whole lot of time to do them manually but was thinking more of like a test run. Making your own vacuum form machine is relatively easy and cheap. Just thought it could work to test a couple of housings to see if they fit. Here?s a video of vacuum forming to better explain what I?m talking about.
[media=youtube]5jOxhQ1lhV8[/media]
Actually, you should look into reaction injection molding. It’s similar to injection molding but instead of using heat to melt the plastic you mix two chemicals together that polymerize in the mold. That means you don’t need an expensive heat/pressure resistant mold to produce whatever you’re trying to make (in this case, the optical component housing) and you can produce smaller amounts more cost effectively.
http://www.armstrongmold.com/pages/rim1-tech.html
A place like this might be able to provide better info.
Welp, I was thinking about getting a second one for myself but I’m dead broke… so if anyone wanted to get an Ascii clone, here’s your chance for a pretty good price:
Total would come to $108, not bad at all for an optical.
I’m not the seller, but that’s the same person I got mine from. I hope someone from here snags it 
Haha, sorry to say XMetal, but I haven’t done my tests yet. Been really busy as of late and I still haven’t figured out a reliable way to test the throw and all. :xeye:
But, rest assured, I’ll test it in due time. :tup:
i wanted to post that after doing some tests, there seems to be a clear difference between the ascii optical and the sanwa flash. i didn’t take measurements but i’m certain the engage distances on teh sanwa flash are shorter, thereby increasing the engage zones and evening out the difference in engage zones between the primary directions and the diagonals. the ascii seems like it’s acutally a jlf clone in regards to the engage distances and engage zone. when you use the jlf or ascii on a octo gate or circle gate, the diagonals are much harder to hit because the diagonal engage zones are so small. in marvel, fast fireball motions don’t come out sometimes because you miss the diagonal. i notice this mostly with sentinel doing fast fly and with cable’s ahvb. with sentinel he simply dooesn’t fly (or unfly) sometmise and with cable you usually get the super jump with fierce. this does NOT happen with the sanwa flash.
i did lots of experimenting awhile ago with teh jlf and reducing the engage distance for using with the octo and circle gate. one thing i tried was putting pieces of paper inside the switches of the jlf, the way per does in his “ultimate mod”, to reduce the engage distances, and increase the engage zones. this increase in engage zone benefits the diagonals much more than the primary directions, thereby evening out the discrepancy between the two, depending on how many pieces of paper you put in. the ascii optical seems to have the exact same engage zones as the jlf. the sanwa flash engage zone feels like it’s a jlf modded with a piece of paper inside the switches, the thickness of which is 2 post-it notes. again i did’nt take exact measuerments or anything, but the feel difference is pretty dramatic and i’m surprised nobody mentioned this before.
as a rule of thumb i would say if you like the square gate, go with the ascii. if you like octo or circle, go with the flash. hope people find this useful
I use square on my Flash and Ascii with no problems whatsoever.
never meant to say anyone would have a problem, just pointed out that the jlf is made for the square specifically and the ascii’s engage zone more closely resembles that of teh jlf than the sanwa flash does. my note is mostly for marvel players anyway as street fighter isn’t nearly as execution heavy and the differences between input methods are more noticable in marvel
With your tests did you retro fit the ASCII with a sanwa shaft? The shafts ate typically shorter in the ASCII.
actually yes i did. could that account for the difference? does the shorter shaft change the depth of the shaft below the control panel or only the height above it?
edit: i’m looking at the ascii shaft i have here and it looks exactly the same as the jlf. i dunno if other models came with different shafts though. the ones i have come from the dreamcast models
While some ASCII joysticks did have shorter shafts, the engage angle or distance won’t be affected. The bottom half of the shaft has the same length as you’d find on an official Sanwa shaft, it’s just that the top half is different. It’s the same way with the budget Hori sticks actually; they’re shorter than official Sanwa shafts, but they engage at the same distances.
I’m glad to hear your impressions though, XMetal. To be honest, I’m like masturfader in this argument; I haven’t felt a lick of difference between my ASCII Answer (Optical) and my Sanwa FLASH 1. :wonder:
I will be getting concrete numbers in the near future so ya’ll can relax if you’re of the variety who rides on fact as opposed to testimonies. kowal, if you’re still browsing this thread, how did you go about testing joystick engage distances and angles?
i see. thanks for your input ikagi, i been wanting to hear it. if you can get your hands on one, try to get a round gate made out of a two way gate so the throw is small. on the ascii basic fireballs just don’t come out often. my statement was based on feel so while i feel pretty sure about what i found, i’d be very curious to see if i’m wrong. i’ll be waiting on your exact measurements 
Your findings may be the reason why I love the round gate on my sanwa flash…HMmMmM
I just purchased a DC FT Capcom Special stick. The stick is REALLY mushy feeling. I assume the spring (if they use springs?) is worn out. Can I use a JLF or Sem. spring? I haven’t torn the stick apart yet. Is there other parts of it that fail?
Picked up a “Sanwa Modded” ascii optical last night for $100
I’m not sure what that means exactly, it has an ascii octo gate, but what looks like a sanwa balltop/shaft. I’ll have to wire it up soon.
Hi, i’ve been looking into trying out new sticks, and am definitely interested in trying out optical. I came across this stick http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414F886PHYL.jpg . I see it is called the ASCII FT2 but haven’t had any luck in finding information on it. When I search that name, it brings up a fightpad.
Is this an optical stick? Has anyone had any experience with it? What is a general value on it? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
No that stick doesnt have optical on it. Only micro-switches.
What meus said.
The First Post, First Page has a Quote of me showing which ASCII has Optical.