Why did Happ mess up the concave buttons?

[dmarcum99]

      At first glance, it sounds kinda petty to come out and complain about about some arcade buttons.  But, since I am clearly an idiot, I'll share my story.

      I have an ongoing project, a mame cabinet.  I found a really good deal on a gutted Maximum Hangtime cab..it had buttons, but no electronics and the artwork was shot.  So I did the humane thing and promised to get it in a running condition and redo the artwork to my liking.

      The game came with iL buttons.....and I'm pretty sure the buttons were original so we're talking 14 years old.  A couple of them were worn down but most of them had a nice stiff spring and the buttons with cherry switches had the crisp clicking sound.  But...they were orange, and red...colors I wasn't going to use on my build.  Now it's time for me to order buttons.... I heard people say "Get the iL buttons or you'll regret it."  So I set out on my journey to re-skin the cab and make it presentable.  I couldn't find any people selling the iL's but Modchipman.  HA!!!  what a mess that turned out to be.  A month later and I had to get Paypal to refund my money for non-shipment/non-contact.  (don't get me started on that mess!!  I should have known better)

      So, I order the Happ buttons from a more reputable retailer...and they show up in a week.  I pull out the bag of buttons....grab one and immediately they feel lighter.  Hmmm....I go ahead and install the buttons and I hate them!!!  OMG I hate them!!  They have some wimpy little spring in them that will almost bounce if you hit the buttons hard enough.  The e-switches...they're OK, but they do have a slight different sound when they engage.  BUT the spring and the play (slop) in the buttons are inexcuseable.  I wish I had enough springs from my old buttons so I could do a transplant.  For grins, I replaced the spring from the older iL button in the new Happ. button and it made a world of difference, but there is still slop in the button.  It's almost like the plunger isn't wide enough for the body.  

     So there's my rant...stay away from Modchip man and stay away from the new Happ concaves unless you like wilted lettuce for buttons.  Maybe I'll look-up ponyboy to see if he has iL buttons.

[mwong168]

The original buttons that came with your cabinet, what direction were the micro switches? 

Vertical like these HAPP Ultimate Push buttons


or

Horizontal like these HAPP Push buttons


I've used the second one on many projects and managed to source out some iL buttons and they are marginally better compared to the HAPP ones, now if you want to compare HAPP vs iL sticks that is another story.  I can say this without bias because on my 4 player showcase the two outside players (P1+P4) use HAPP and two inside players (P2+P3) use iL.

I will say the HAPP Ultimates feel really nice because my good buddy restored his SFII CE cabinet and ordered the same parts as he took out of his machine the way he bought it.  I was wondering how come his buttons felt a bit stiffer and a bit of a stiffer kick back when you let go and this is why.

[Ginsu Victim]

Funny, I love the Happs and hate the ILs. Go figure.

[dmarcum99]

All of my old cab buttons were iL horizontal buttons except one...I had a Happ Ultimate vertical button.  It felt very similar to the iL button.  The top of the plunger was higher than the iL's, but it wasn't noticeable.

Well, I was able to reach a happy compromise.  I still dislike the Happ buttons, but in an effort to save money I'll make lemonade out of my lemons. 

Last night I tinkered with the Happs.  I removed the springs from the new Happs and I stretched the coils & elongated each spring by an extra inch.  This gave a firmer response with button pressing.  They feel much better now.  However, the slop around the plunger can't be fixed.  There is still too much slop between the plunger and the barrel.  There is about a 3/64" gap around the plunger and barrel fitting.  There is virtually no gap on the iL buttons...to the point I see friction marks on the sides of the plunger.  On the Happs, you can actually wiggle the plunger around and it feels a bit off for me. There are other differences compared to the original iL's but none that are really noteworthy.

[Jefferson]

I like seeing this talked about... I too made a new CP with buttons from Tornado Terry's (RIP) and they just dont feel as HARD as the orig buttons on my cab. I can feel the springs buzzing the buttons sometime and theres a tiny bit of wiggle in the plunger (side by side as well as a tiny gap between the plunger foot and the microswitch)

P3's red buttons feel firm as hell, maybe a different mold or something, but P1 and 2 are a little loosey goosey. I'll try stretching the springs though! maybe switch in some cherry's I have lying around.

[RandyT]

It's funny to see this type of thread where people complain that the buttons aren't hard enough, or don't have that "sharp click" that they like.  It really goes to show how varied individual tastes are with these types of things.  Generally, a stiff feeling button just causes more fatigue while playing, and that sharp click usually means that they are difficult to rapid cycle (and noisy).  Things that most folks dislike, but seem to be sought after by a few here.

Folks just like what they like .

[Ginsu Victim]

Tornado Terry's (RIP)

Why the RIP?

Terry is still in business. WTF?

[MKFan4Life]

Yeah, I still see Tornado Terry's Ebay auctions up?  Was about to order a kit of buttons and sticks for my MK1 from him.

[Ginsu Victim]

and his website http://www.tornadoterrys.com/surplus.htm is still there. I don't know where Jefferson came up with that "RIP". 

[Jefferson]

Oh crap guys. My bad. I saw this guys name was 'Terry Shaw', and this collection was not Tornado Terry's:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=95047.0

That's what I was thinking of. Whew. Sorry. False alarm.

(BTW I stretched my button springs and MAN, I am in BUSINESS over here.)

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, Terry Shaw is the guy I know that lost his home and arcade.

Terry BELL is Tornado Terry.

[SavannahLion]

However, the slop around the plunger can't be fixed.  There is still too much slop between the plunger and the barrel.  There is about a 3/64" gap around the plunger and barrel fitting.  There is virtually no gap on the iL buttons...to the point I see friction marks on the sides of the plunger.  On the Happs, you can actually wiggle the plunger around and it feels a bit off for me.

Hhhmm.....

Please note that I'm not arguing for or against the Happs. I'm just wanting to point something out.

It strikes me that Happ engineered the gap into their buttons for a reason. Happ does not cater to people like us (as evidenced by the difficulty and expense in ordering directly through them), they cater to arcade ops. Arcade ops often place their cabs in some of the worst places imaginable. Pizza parlors, bars, laundromats, and the like. And while pizza grease is an excellent lubricant, soda, beer and buffalo chicken wings are not. No matter how tight fitting the buttons are, crap is still bound to find its way in between causing the button to jam and forcing the op to make a call to clean/replace the stuck button. I would guess making such a gap helps prevent this.

On another note. It also strikes me that it's also an attempt to reduce manufacturing costs as well. I'm not an engineer, but I believe tighter tolerances also equates to greater costs. By relaxing the tolerances and having room for variation, Happ is probably less likely to discard or reject buttons that don't fit within the older, tighter, tolerances.

I'm not supporting for or arguing against anyone here. I'm just thinking Happ is probably killing two birds with one stone.

[AndyWarne]

This has been covered before here but Happ buttons changed when they outsourced production to China.
We sell only I-L buttons.
But I have to admit that we are finding Cherry microswitches very difficult to source at the moment so we have had to change to the E-Switch. They do seem OK though when used with the I-L buttons.

Randy is correct though, its very subjective, (as are joysticks) so there is no "answer" as such.

[SavannahLion]

This has been covered before here but Happ buttons changed when they outsourced production to China.

That makes sense. I bet if one were to take a large enough sampling of the Chinese buttons, we would find the variances that justifies a loose fitting.

[bradx]

i use old leaf switches