The Arcade Stick and Convertor Thread & List

this is for serious slasher.

Lizardlick.com is by far the best place for all your joystick needs, me and Jaxel swear by that site. As for the PCB's your gonna have to gut a controller yourself. For the 360 get one of the mini ones that gamestop makes. Its laid out almost like a ps1 controller. For the playstation gut a psone controller or the cheapest 3rd party controller you can get.

As far as dificulty is concerned......its like installing a car stereo because of the mess of wires (im not sure how hard building an RC car is, i've never done it). But by far the hardest part for me was modding the controller. I get impatient and i have HUGE hands, so it took me a few tries.
 
I have to agree with whitey on lizardlick, Chad gets stuff out fast. Ordered my buttons last friday night, they were shipped out saturday morning.
 
ooberallen said:
I have to agree with whitey on lizardlick, Chad gets stuff out fast. Ordered my buttons last friday night, they were shipped out saturday morning.
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Same. I ordered my buttons on a Thursday night, so they shipped Friday and I recieved them Tuesday. Pretty quick. I was expecting 5+ business days. But it was only about 2. Came home from work and was like wtf is this box? YAY! MY BUTTONS!
 
ooberallen said:
I just finished swapping out the buttons my on HRAP3 it was a pain in the ass getting the new buttons in and getting the start/select ones out. If I had the tools to do so I'd build my own in a heartbeat but for now the sanwa swap will do just fine. The new buttons feel great too.
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My new buttons and octagonal gate have been shipped out from Germany yesterday. I expect them tomorrow.

I heard they were easy to swap. Apparantly not as much. Perhaps I'll even leave the start/select ones in place then.

I have already opened it up to take a look but after getting the screws out there were a lot more and some nuts which seem hard to take loose. Determination and brute force usually works for me though :)
 
harlekein said:
My new buttons and octagonal gate have been shipped out from Germany yesterday. I expect them tomorrow.

I heard they were easy to swap. Apparantly not as much. Perhaps I'll even leave the start/select ones in place then.

I have already opened it up to take a look but after getting the screws out there were a lot more and some nuts which seem hard to take loose. Determination and brute force usually works for me though :)
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Yea the start/select were jammed in pertty good, they were hard to get out and just as much of a pain to get in. The quick disconnects were a pain to get off too, had to use a flathead screwdriver and slowly wedged them off. Putting them back on was real smooth though, they just slid right back on with enough resistance to make me not want to grab some pliers and tighten them.

As for the face buttons they were a little annoying to get in. You have to punsh down on them kinda hard once they snap in you have to push a little more to get the base of the button (the lip around the actual button) to sit flat on the panel. I left the gate alone because I prefer a square gate but switching out the ball top was easy too.

Overall though the Sanwa buttons feel great. They have a much nicer "spring" to them and don't feel squishy like the Hori ones. Also I like the colors now more than the pure white Amazon version HRAP3.
 
Well, my buttons arrived today so I upgraded my HRAP3. It came out real nice, but I ran into the exact same problems as you did. Changing the gate was the easiest part. Just click it loose and click the new one back on.

I didn't have a ratchet to get the nuts off so I just used small pliers instead. So for me this took a while. That could have been easier with a small ratchet.

I used pliers to get wiggle the connectors loose and then squeezed them back together lightly to fit them back on tight enough. The start/select button took some force indeed to push in, but I'm glad I changed them just for the look alone.

It's a nice stick, but overall it cost me more than I had in mind. I'd recommend everyone to get a custom instead. In hindsight I would have as well even though I'm overseas.

The new buttons are black with grey pushdowns and I also chagned the stick ball to a grey one. Not only does it look better, but more importantly the buttons feel much nicer. You just have to slightly touch them. I'm also happy with the octagonal gate. I feel I got more control.

Well here's the result immortalised with my crappy phone camera:

 
harlekein: looks great, I never used pliers to tighten the quick disconnects on my buttons because when I slid them back on they fit on pretty tightly, they went back on with just enough resistance to make me feel comfortable about it. The grey looks real good though, I didn't have as many options color wise with mine since it was the white Amazon Hori.
 
So I have a fighting stick ex2, and am thinking about making it Sanwa. Mostly because of Yoshi's 2a:B, though I also plan on using the stick for all the other new fighters since I don't own a PS3.

However, I have no experience with anything like this and have heard that this stick is especially difficult to mod. Do people provide this service, or should I still learn to do it myself?

I also have an old Hori SC2 stick with a couple wonky buttons, and a T5 stick that doesn't properly plug into the PS2 anymore. I know the former could be modded if I desire, but could the latter be salvaged?

Thanks,
Josh.
 
hmm...i spent like $80 on a new T5 stick to replace that other one not too long ago

i guess i just want to get as much use out of the fighting stick as i can. will think about it
 
whats wrong with the hori buttons, why does everyone want to mod them? ive not tried them and am wondering... are they too stiff or loose? or are they just bad?
 
They feel mushy in comparison to Sanwas. Honestly, they don't feel terribly far off from Seimitsu buttons but they still just don't feel nearly as nice. Plus they break pretty fast in my experience.
 
The Hori buttons, aside from hearing stories about them breaking, are annoying because they have some dead space. When pressing them they sink in about 2 millimeters before getting resistance. That's what I mean by dead space. They'll respond before it hits that resistance, but it feels different. The Sanwa's have resistance all the way and are still extremely sensitive. They don't have that dead space.

If I didn't know about the Sanwa's I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but when you compare it you don't want to go back to Hori's.

PS. I don't understand why people prefer the square gate over the octagonal. Doing diagonals is so much easier with an octagonal gate. You also feel the horizontals hit if you want, but you still got enough space to never hit the gate and still move. Well, I guess it's a matter of personal preference.
 
Ok so I did a bit of research, and I am going to have GODSPU make me a stick. However, I am still going to build one of my own, just because it sounds fun. I can order almost everything I need from Lizardlick.com (thanks guys for the tip there), however I am noticing it doesn't look like they sell cases. Plus before I order my buttons, I have to figure out if I am going to go metal or wood case. Is one harder to work with than the other? Also, what if I went acrylic? Would I use the non-metal Sanwa buttons? I am ordering about $40 worth of buttons, so I want to be absolutely sure I am ordering the right thing before I do so. Also, any tips on where to get cases? If possible I would love to get a case that would allow me to put artwork on it. Even it is just a case with a clear top layer that screws down.

Whitey: Thanks for the info on the difficulty level, I have done car stereos before so I am confident I can pull this off as well.
 
After having the Hori SCIV stick (360) for two weeks it has already crapped out on me. The blue X button can be fully depressed without it registering. I have to slam on X for it to register. This was my first stick and when I got it I thought wow these buttons seem mushy and cheap. Guess my initial impression has been confirmed.
 
Too bad they don't make those Hori's like they used to. My friends Namco stick is finally on its last legs, and he never swapped out the stock stick or buttons. I'm lucky enough to have a guy who likes to mod sticks in our circle, and he hooked me up for free seeing as I had all the parts.

Still, I'm hooking him up with an old Red Octane case w/10 Happs Concave buttons and a Happs Super stick. Also throwing in 6 Sanwa buttons. Can't just take two free mods for nothing.
 
@ seriousslasher: i can make you an extra case too if you want to have something to build with, or i have several old hori/agetec cases i have no use for going relatively cheap. sent out an email reply today, just let me know
 
@serious slasher

dont make a stick out of acrylic, it shatters if you dont cut it right. It will also warp. If you have the tools do a steel case, but if you're poor like the rest of us wood is your best bet. Its easy and cheap to work with. Most sticks you see on the internet use maple project wood, 1/8" thick mdf, 1/8" thick lexan and peg board
 
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