Ram Controls Yoke - The circle is complete!

[Havok]

I received a much anticipated package today; number 1 off the assembly line, Ram Controls reproduction Star Wars Yoke! Here's some pictures, because it did happen!!!

Here's the box:


Packed well:


First view:


A true thing of beauty:


Top view:


Manual:


And an important part for us Mamers (since this one is going in a Mame cab):


Just a couple of quick impressions:

The build quality is fantastic! It's a real solid piece with silky smooth motion. The yoke returns to center, and the finish is superior to the original. You can really notice the quality above the OEM piece easily. I especially like the handles and trigger buttons; a vast improvement! The overlay is dead on, at least from my memory and is absolutely gorgeous. However, that's to be expected from ThisOldGames.

I really have to compliment Dave on the manual; it is chock full of maintenance, adjustment, exploded views and wiring information - right down to the pinouts of the connector. I can't wait to get this on a control panel for my cabinet!


   

[polaris]

Now aint that a beauty!
 

[XtraSmiley]

Wow looks AWESOME!!!!!

Now if you other pre-order folks would chime in when you get yours...

[HaRuMaN]

Wanna sell it?   

[pmowry]

Wanna sell it?  

 

I'm all for ordering one, if I ever have the cash....

[JMB]

Looks pretty amazing! Glad you finally got it.

Are you going to have a cab dedicated for the controller or a swappable panel type setup? If it is going in a dedicated cab what games (other than the obvious) do you anticipate being a good match for the controller?

[saint]

That looks amazing!

[FrizzleFried]

Did it include an apology for lying to your face.... multiple times?  

I'll reserve my adoration until others have received THEIR yokes as well... hell... who am I kidding... I'll always see this duck for what he is... >quack!<

EDIT: Oh... glad you (finally) got yours brother Havok... Who's #2 again?

[DashRendar]

 



 

[MameMaster!]

I'm with Frizzle....once everyone has theirs in hand...Dave then gets my $$.

It is an impressive accomplishment for Dave....absolutely outstanding. 

[TheShanMan]

Congrats on finally getting your baby, Havok. Sure looks sweet!

[Havok]

Looks pretty amazing! Glad you finally got it.

Are you going to have a cab dedicated for the controller or a swappable panel type setup? If it is going in a dedicated cab what games (other than the obvious) do you anticipate being a good match for the controller?

I have swappable panels for my cabinet; this get's it's own dedicated panel, of course! Each of my panels has it's own menu in my AtomicFE setup, so you know which games work with it. Here's my preliminary list:

Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Spy Hunter
Pole Position
Pole Position II
Hydra
Firefox
Stun Runner
TomCat
Vapor TRX

That should keep me and the kids busy...

[XtraSmiley]

What about road blasters?

[Havok]

Oh yeah - forgot about that one. Definitely!

[wp34]

What about road blasters?

I'm actually more interested in this for Road Blasters than SW.  Would love to hear some feedback once you begin testing. 

Glad to see your patience won out.  Congratulations it looks very nice.

[HaRuMaN]

Quit posting and install it already!   

[S0L]

Nice to see one out in the wild

Back to sitting next to the letter box I guess

---
S0L
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[XtraSmiley]

I own a dedicated RB and I actually like it better than SW!  Of course, vector graphics always have a special place in my heart...

[Paul Olson]

What about road blasters?

Road Blasters yoke is optical. I wonder how well this yoke will work for that game.

I am looking at my still not mounted gamecab yoke and starting to wish I had I had waited for this one to be done.

[Breaker]

Congratulations Havok!

..and congratulation to Dave as well - a thing of beauty!

I don't know my number in the queue, but based upon Havok's review,
I'm looking forward to the rest of the pre-orders (and new orders) shipping
without delay!

Breaker.

[RobotronNut]

Road Blasters yoke is optical. I wonder how well this yoke will work for that game.

i looked into this several yrs ago. at that time, RB on a SW yoke worked, but not perfectly. does anyone know if mame handles it better nowadays?

if you go to www.marksarcade.com and click on the "return of the jedi" link, you'll see one way of handling this - take the optical wheel and board from an original RB yoke and add it to your SW yoke. this can be done without disturbing anything inside the SW yoke, so you still have the analog output of the  SW yoke, and you have additional wires carrying the digital signal from the RB optical board. i actually bought a trashed RB yoke that had an intact optical system, in anticipation of doing this some day.

[Necro]

Ok, we've now accounted for the one in the picture that was posted before. 

Once a second person has received one, we know for certain that the prototype wasn't shipped to quiet the complaints .

[Havok]

If you look closely, you'll see that mine is different than the proto picture posted on Dave's blog.

Whomever guesses what the difference is gets an Internet cookie!

[Donkey_Kong]

The big scratch on the right side control.

[Bender]

I've tried to keep out of this but....

Things we know:

Dave has not made good decisions about pre-orders and time estimates
the most disturbing to me is the latest lack of communication

But we also know
Dave is an asset to the comunity and builds fantastic products
The guy is doing this as a hobby (yes he wants to break even or make a little profit)
He is not a thief (he has been in business for 5 years and I have not herd of one person not eventually getting the product or a refund)
Everyone will eventually get there yoke or there money

having done a couple little thing like this I know I am much more concerned with making the product perfect, and am not so good at the "Business" end of things, So I think I have a little more patience with Dave than most

Having said all that I'm not ordering mine till all the pre-orders are filled

[Havok]

The big scratch on the right side control.

That's part of it, but you need to be more specific...

[Donkey_Kong]

What is the big scratch on the right side control?    

[Xiaou2]

The handles appear to have a flat top 'edge' on your set.

[Havok]

The handles appear to have a flat top 'edge' on your set.

Getting warmer...

[smalltownguy]

It looks like your yoke has the machined handles, versus the prototype, which has cast handles.

(I cheated and read Dave's blog, but I read it many months ago, so I still get credit, right)

[Havok]

It looks like your yoke has the machined handles, versus the prototype, which has cast handles.

(I cheated and read Dave's blog, but I read it many months ago, so I still get credit, right)

Cheater!  However, that's only half of it. But you still get the cookie:



The other half is that my handles are not hard anodized, as the original yokes were going to be. They are powder coated. And I am glad Dave made the change; they definitely look much better!

[polaris]

i'm guessing you're going to live with the scratch or were you thinking of returning it 

[ark_ader]

Glad we have a happy ending to this saga.

Hope the rest of the extreme doubters out there enjoy some humble pie in the next few days.

Since I like apple crumble - here's the first slice for Ratzz



Nice Yoke you have there Havok!

[Donkey_Kong]

The scratch was on the prototype.

[RayB]

The scratch was on the prototype.

Oh well, Havok can claim to have the prototype! Even cooler.

I think that reveals that assembling these things is a "beeyotch" and Dave hasn't had time to do so.

**I misunderstood. Thought what was being said was that Havok's has the same scratch.**

[UberCade]

Man, just when I thought I was nearing the end of my expenses for my cabinet, I see this. Now Return of the Jedi is one of my most favorite arcade games of all time, and Road Blasters and Stun Runner are fun too, so dang it I'm going to have to get one of these now!  I just received my Tron control panel in the mail 2 days ago which obviously will be used solely for Tron. I have a sort of swappable control panel set up as well, but I designed it so only pieces of my control panel are swappable, so I won't have to remove the whole top to switch controls. This is turning out to be a neverending project. Some games you just have to have the original controls though, and this is no exception. Let us all know how well it works.

[Minwah]

Pole Position
Pole Position II

Eh?!

[Minwah]

i looked into this several yrs ago. at that time, RB on a SW yoke worked, but not perfectly. does anyone know if mame handles it better nowadays?

Last time I looked was a few versions ago, but it didn't work

I played with the code and got it to work to a degree, but I think the game resets the position of the car after crashes etc, so it gets out of sync with the controller. I don't even see how the original optical, limited travel controller would stay in sync 

[Havok]

Pole Position
Pole Position II

Eh?!

Worth a try. Push forward to accelerate, steer left and right. Ultimately, I don't care if it works because I have a real driving cabinet anyways; Race Drivin Cockpit!

[Donkey_Kong]

The scratch was on the prototype.

Oh well, Havok can claim to have the prototype! Even cooler.

I think that reveals that assembling these things is a "beeyotch" and Dave hasn't had time to do so.

Ok, it's no wonder that I did not win the cyber cookie.  

If you look close at Dave's proto you see a scratch on it, but you don't see it in Havok's pictures. Dave could have touched it up with some paint, or maybe he actually sent Havok a production unit.