It seems to me that some people are comparing “American style” parts to Japanese parts by using American cabinets as a model to differentiate between the two. I’m sure a BIG CHUNK of you( not everybody) is comparing a cabinet that is sitting in an arcade,pizza place,laundry mat,etc,etc,…that is open 7 days a week for at the very least 7 hours a day that is taking all kinds of abuse from people playing it(abuse in some cases) with people in charge of these machines not having a clue on how to fix them(they need to call someone who does to get the time to come down and fix it for them) and comparing that with the parts that are in their fight sticks that get used how much a day and how many hours a week??!! Please. What’s the worst that happens to your fight sticks? They fall the distance of your knee to your carpet? How many times a year does that even happen to your fight stick??
American style parts are made with big wooden cabinets in mind with thick wooden control panels, lots of under the panel clearance, and to be used (and abused) by the public.
Japanese parts are designed for thin metal, plastic or fiberglass panels.
I have installed IL parts in a stick before, I don’t like how bulky the stick’s case becomes.
I feel that Happ and IL parts were never intended for home controller use.
So today I had a chance to actually see the underside of the Eurostick/Competitoin (it was from about 2005 so was that Suzo-Happ? The buttons were Suzo-HAPP… definitely not as nice as my iL buttons I had in the past). One thing I don’t like about it is that the actuator is made of a rubber like material and not hard plastic. No wonder it has such a different feel when it hit the switches. On one hand I like of like how it dampens the impact but on the other hand it does not slide around as nicely as it should. Also, while the lever is fixed in place it still has some spin action which isn’t good because the actuator then tilts, which means it doesn’t hit the switches proper and you have to blindly tilt it back by turning the lever a little.
Interesting though is how they make a “square” gate. I thought it was all in the actuator, but that isn’t the case. It has little walls that stops the actuator from moving in a circle, and since the actuator is square it easily rests against either the switch or the wall.
I don’t know how this thread got into nostalgia goggles but I’m strictly comparing this from a today’s perspective.
In use, the stick feels good and my execution is fine on it, but it does have a few design flaws I don’t like so much. However, I guess what counts is whether or not it works in a every day scenario, which it seems to do. Oh, the small dead zone wiggle is also pretty good on it.
I agree with @Darksakul that these things are not made for home use really, you need to build a custom wood case for them and have a case that has a little weight to them. If you’re willing to do that, then by all means, I would recommend trying one.
However, I feel you can get mostly the same feel as one by using a 4 lb spring on a Japanese stick with a large throw mod and an aluminum top. Or a 3 lb spring with a plastic top.
Interesting, then, that after all my comments I like my JLFs with a 3lb spring! 
It seems to me the largest difference in feel (not design or anything else) is the much higher tension. I think Japanese sticks have shorter engage so they’ll activate faster, otherwise, they mostly function the same. Many differences from a design perspective and theory, but yeah, I think that boils it down. Shorter engage and softer spring on a Japanese stick and a little larger engage and harder spring on a Western stick.
Before I had a chance to try one I was thinking maybe a Korean stick would be more like it but those are beasts of a different universe. I still haven’t found anything comparable to them, and I don’t think I like them. Those damn corners… but softer microswitches seem to help a little in that regard.
The rubber grommet lends them a different feel. Springs are pretty much “on/off” in feel. The grommer makes hitting neutral without going fully centered easier.
Man. I should dig out my MAS stick and my SF Anniversary stick and put some PS360+s in them in case I have friends over who prefer the US style set-up.
@Darksakul, I’m not trying to get in to it with you but it looks to me like you have an answer to what I had to say on this topic. I really believe you completely missed the point of what I was saying with your answer. I think you might want to read what I said again. I’m not talking about what different cabinets are using what different parts, I’m saying that the parts you are comparing with each other are being used in two different ways and therefore you will get different results. You can rest assured that if you put a cabinet in an arcade, pizza joint, laundry mat, etc in the 80s or 90s and it was stocked with sanwa parts taking abuse those machines also would have broken buttons and joysticks from time to time. Sanwa is far from indestructible. How does Focusattack.com or Arcadeshock.com stay in business otherwise? For the record, I like both parts equally and have no hate for either. I enjoy Happ IL all day and the same for Sanwa. It’s all in what you prefer or maybe the type of game you prefer one or the other for.
Don’t get me wrong the one thing American parts excel at is durability. Although my opinion of american parts stems from my own experiences in the arcades.
yes my experiences which leads to my opinions is tainted by arcades with poor or not existent maintenance on their machines combined with vandalism of said machines.
Then again my home is a different environment than the arcades, and I am sure the back area of the local Bowling Alley in my home town is a far cry from a professional Arcade located in Japan.
Those machines have cigarette burns, soda and bear spilled into them. Parts stolen off, art is scuffed or damaged. Hell you haven’t seen bad cabinet conversions until you seen someone tried to squeeze in Mortal Kombat into a original Pacman machine and not even bother replacing the monitor bezel, the control panel and side art is covered in cheap contact paper and the paper is peeling where you can see it was originally a Pac-man Machine. And the button lay out, is a straight Street Fighter layout turned 90 degrees, oh yeah it was a MK machine with a SF II marque.
Why I would have great nostalgic memories of that garbage.
It is a different environment for both US and Japanese Arcades. Happ does more business now selling video slot machine parts and redemption machine parts over actual video game arcade cabinet parts.
The main reason I got into custom stick building is there wasn’t a readily available iL/Happ stick around. While I love both of my Voltech sitcks (one with a JLW, one with an optical JLF) I always seem to fall back on my old reliable QCF tank case with my white iL Comp joystick
Funny thing though: I played on nothing but american arcade machines, so all I knew was a straight layout. Unfortunately the case wasn’t long enough for that, so I ended up with an astro city button layout. Trips people out when they see it…