U360 Spring Options and Observations

[fytr]

Hi,

I'm using 2 U360's on my lightly converted Gauntlet Legends cabinet for the 2 front players (P1 and P2), along with 2 Sanwa JLW-TM-8's for P3 and P4. The idea being to provide maximum flexibility and general playability for classic 80's games in Mame for P1 and P2, and also supporting 4 player action (my 3 boys and I  ) for games like the Gauntlets, TMNT, etc.

In general, the U360's work as advertised, the automatic setup in Mame using analog input mode is fantastic! However, I'm having trouble finding the sweet spot for the spring strength to use in the U360s. I started out using the stock spring with the circular restrictor plate. That was very soft, felt pretty good for Donkey Kong's, but was way softer than the JLW's and too soft for most games.

Then, I installed the optional "hard" spring from Ultimarc. This was a generally better feel than the stock springs, but after playing them awhile I'm finding that they are a little too stiff for many games. For example, last night I was playing Astro Blaster (high score competition and all  ) and the with the hard spring the U360 is way too stiff for subtle left/right movements required in this game. Also, the U360s with hard springs are stiffer than the JLW's.

What I would like to have is an approx. stiffness for the U360's that matches that of the JLWs, or perhaps just slightly stiffer. However, I don't see any other readily available options from Ultimarc for a "medium" spring between the hard and stock one. Of course, it's just a spring, I suppose I could source it from lots of places, but don't really know where to start looking. I was also considering stretching the stock spring to see if I could  make it stiffer that way.

I can't be the only one who has this issue with the U360s. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?

Thx.
  Ken

[Turnarcades]

The difficulty is how is anyone to measure stiffness or adjustment in a way that can be written down in an answer? If you need the spring resistance to feel a particular way, get the needle-nose pliers on the springs and adjust them to your needs - only you will know what feels right.

[Benevolance]

How does a person adjust the spring tension with pliers? Just stretch the spring?

[Ginsu Victim]

Stretching the spring will make it have more resistance, which is not what the topic creator wants.

[Bender]

the U360 is based off the JLW so just put one of those springs in there
I'm pretty sure you can get them from Lizard Lick

[fytr]

the U360 is based off the JLW so just put one of those springs in there
I'm pretty sure you can get them from Lizard Lick

That's excellent to learn!

I'm going to try one of the springs from my JLWs in my U360 to see how it feels. I may also try stretching the stock U360 spring to see what that does for it.

I'll report back my findings.

Thanks a bunch! 

Regards,
  Ken

[Benevolance]

Stretching the spring will make it have more resistance, which is not what the topic creator wants.

Can you decrease the tension on a spring by...I dunno, anti-stretching it somehow?

I haven't played much with springs and for some reason this concept fascinates me this morning.

[Ginsu Victim]

edit: durp. 

[kagaden]

I also find that the U360 joysticks can get "sticky" after a couple of months of heavy play. Take em apart and lube them with molykote 44 medium grease. Makes them feel much smoother if you're having issues with subtle movements.

[ubiquityman]

I did the same thing.  Silicon lubricant on the ball & socket.  Also, increasing the dead zone in MAME is another solution.
The stickiness is main issue I've had with the U360.

[DillonFoulds]

What about compressing a "hard" spring, and heating it up with say, a pocket torch?

[Bender]

The stickiness is main issue I've had with the U360.

weird I have several U360's and I've never had any feel "sticky", wonder if a batch has some bad grease?
As far as I know the section is stock JLW

[kowal]

all stick with hemisphere pivot need lube after 6month
on U360 i use shaft from jap ver. JLW-TM8, stick have short throw and work better

[kagaden]

The stickiness is main issue I've had with the U360.

weird I have several U360's and I've never had any feel "sticky", wonder if a batch has some bad grease?
As far as I know the section is stock JLW

Couple of thoughts on this:
1. My sticks get a lot of mashing abuse and are in use about 8 of 24 hours a day. (free play, at work for co-workers)
2. They're installed in a wood control panel and the wood may be lightly dusting? I haven't seen any physical evidence of this though.
3. I've replaced the assembly with stock JLW's already... same "sticky" issue in same amount of time (1 month).
4. The grease helps keep them in playable shape for long periods of time tremendously.

Personally, I don't think they're heavily lubed enough for the type of play I've built my cab for.

There are other issues I have with the U360's after 5 months of owning them + arcade-like play. They work, and will do the job, but I've had a lot of issues with these sticks.

1. There are some obvious bugs in the software: For example, if you use stickies on your joystick map and the position of the stick is within a sticky, it will not register any button presses as it holds the joystick direction. Wonderful.

2. I've had those silver aluminum pillars get "stuck" in the sanwa assembly and snap off when I've tried to gently loosen with pliers. This joystick is definitely not meant for taking apart and putting back together. I'm afraid of what will break every time I do, especially considering they need re-lubing so often. The silver aluminum pillars can take some abuse on the disc part that rests over the restrictor by heavy joystick movements with a circular restrictor on... the square restrictor seems to protect them a little better. This is what caused the earlier issue of the pillar getting stuck. No more circular restrictors for me.

3. Joystick speed is too slow for fast movements. I don't know if this is a limitation of windows gamepads or the joystick itself, I'm leaning on time to process the magnetic field. I play a hellova lot of fighting games and these sticks are piss poor slow for quick movements like SF3:3s... which to be honest is probably the most demanding game you can put a joystick through. Still, an ipac/jpac feels a ton more accurate than the U360 playing this game. They are okay for slower fighting games like SFII or more input lenient ones like SFIV.

4. Deadzone and mapping doesn't feel very accurate. The stock default on the sticks have almost no deadzone, in any mode... with or without restrictors. It sucks, and doesn't feel very arcade authentic at all where you have to travel a bit of distance before you hit a microswitch. I've tried extending my deadzone in mapping and it doesn't appear to extend it very far at all... or I go another square around and go way too far so I'm no longer getting certain directions what-so-ever. While I'd like to think of the joystick mapping as equal segments, my experience is far from the case. I found something that works out "ok" but it took a lot of tinkering and still isn't quite what I was expecting.

Suffice to say while I loved the idea of a mappable, switchless, joystick with a built in encoder... I was disappointed with them over my old P360's overall... and kinda regretting un-jamma'ing my cab thinking they'd be simpler and perfect. I'm now considering removing them and re-wiring/installing new P360's + ipac.

[kagaden]

I did the same thing.  Silicon lubricant on the ball & socket.  Also, increasing the dead zone in MAME is another solution.
The stickiness is main issue I've had with the U360.

I tried Teflon silicon lubricant the first time... it lasted about a month like the stock lube.  Which is probably why it sounds like a recurring problem for you.

[SammyWI]

1. There are some obvious bugs in the software: For example, if you use stickies on your joystick map and the position of the stick is within a sticky, it will not register any button presses as it holds the joystick direction. Wonderful.

Have you contacted Andy at Ultimarc about this?  I just tried it myself with a test map I made up and sure enough - no buttons register when the joystick is on a 'sticky' cell.  Can probably work around this by making all my maps with no sticky cells, but it would be nice if the bug was fixed.

I've also experienced the sticking issue with the U360.  Lube helps but it's still a problem. I do notice that when the stick is set to 'no restrictor' in the software, the dead zone seems much better.  That is, even with a bit of sticking and the stick not fully returning to center, the software still registers the center position in a basic 4 way or 8 way map.

It's setup right now with the stiffer spring and the circular restrictor.  I'm thinking I may try it for a while stock to see if that works well enough and maybe has less sticking issues.  Still trying to figure out how to improve the sticking issue.  I'm thinking of maybe polishing the ball joint with a felt bob and some polishing compound on a dremel.

I really like the flexibility of the U360 and I don't play fighters, so the speed issue is less important to me.  I'm hoping I can get it working well enough that I can use it in my CP. 

[kagaden]

Have you contacted Andy at Ultimarc about this?  I just tried it myself with a test map I made up and sure enough - no buttons register when the joystick is on a 'sticky' cell.  Can probably work around this by making all my maps with no sticky cells, but it would be nice if the bug was fixed.

I actually figured it was working as designed, so I haven't contacted him about it yet. Though I should now that you mention it, if anyone could fix it he could. It wasn't how I'd like sticky zones to work personally, but I can see how this wouldn't be a problem if you didn't use the button harness and used an ipac or something similar instead, which I think is the most common configuration use for them.

I realize my post above may have come off a bit more negative than I intended. I don't want to dissuade anyone from the U360's for the most part they're fantastic and ingenious sticks and well suited for casual home use. Just don't let 400 stressed out young adult co-workers get their hands on em 24/7. ;P


Update: I've sent Andy an email and linked this thread to make him aware of the issue. Maybe he has some advice for us on the maintenance of these sticks too when he's got some time.

[AndyWarne]

Some comments:

The deadzone button problem, now that I am aware of this I will fix it of course. Should not take too long.

No the sticks/restrictor plates are not meant to be repeatedly disassembled. It does state this on the website info page.

We have made a change to the design of the U360 around a month ago. It no longer has any silicone grease used at all in assembly. Instead, the cup bearing on the handle is chrome plated to eliminate friction without the need for grease.

There is one aspect of the U360 which I am looking to improve further, namely the amount of free play in the handle in the center of travel. This requires a precision machined bush to be made and we are working on this. Its likely I will be able to offer the new bush and chromed cup bearing as a kit eventually.

Andy

[AndyWarne]

Kagaden,

I have tested and so far unable to reproduce the button issue you mention. So maybe we can correspond via email about this and find how I can see the problem.

Also need to get to the bottom of any "slowness" you have found as this is not something that has been reported and there is certainly no lag in the stick itself.

You mention other software issues, so would like any information on these issues as I will look at any problems.

Andy

[SammyWI]

Andy,

Thanks for responding so quickly.  The bushing for the cup joint sounds promising - looking forward to it.

I was able to replicate the sticky cell - button issue with a custom map that was mostly sticky cells with just a few direction cells around the edges.  I watched in the windows gamepad properties window to see if the buttons registered with the stick in various positions.  In most maps it's probably hard to notice the issue since there are very few sticky cells.  I've only tried this on a Windows 7 box, btw.

[kagaden]

Kagaden,

I have tested and so far unable to reproduce the button issue you mention. So maybe we can correspond via email about this and find how I can see the problem.

Also need to get to the bottom of any "slowness" you have found as this is not something that has been reported and there is certainly no lag in the stick itself.

You mention other software issues, so would like any information on these issues as I will look at any problems.

Andy

Thanks so much for the quick response Andy! It's great to hear about improvements with the upcoming U360's. If you offer kits to modify the previous versions I'll definitely pick a couple of these up.

I'm using Windows XP with Mala: Final Burn Alpha (sfIII:3s+SSF2T), Daphne, & SFIV-pc.

For the latency, it feels to me like inputs are being dropped if you give the stick very fast joystick inputs at once. This seems much worse when I DO NOT select "Keep Joystick Analog". For example in SFIII:3s, try doing a super art very quickly. It works OK when you slow down, but as you speed up the input it becomes progressively more difficult.  I tend to have to tell people to slow down to perform the double half-circle motion and get a lot of complaints during heated gameplay that "they can't super" when they know they should be able to.  I'll see if I can an intelligent way of displaying this. Right now it's just a comparative feeling between the U360's and my old P360's I had in the cabinet for a year and some.

-----------------------------------

For the sticky cell report I think Sammy's way of doing it is probably easier to replicate than mine.

1. Program the U360 sticks with "8-Way Easy Diagonals" map.
2. Hook the U360 back up to your computer & button harness.
3. Open up Windows Gamepad Properties in the Control Panel.
4. Move the stick around and tap the buttons occasionally.
5. --> When you hit a "sticky cell", the buttons will stop responding... holding the joystick in this position will prevent any other inputs from being read until you leave the sticky cell.

Additional Info: Personally, I thought this was working as designed considering the idea of sticky cells (they hold the previous input), but it would be nice if you could still use the buttons.

-----------------------------------

The other software issue for me tends to be the way the maps play out on my U360's. For me, I can tell little difference when I attempt to reprogram the sticks neutral deadzone to make it wider. I was hoping each cell would be equal distance but I find on my sticks that is not the case. The outside cells of the map feel far wider than the inside ones. This isn't so much a problem though as I said before... I've halfway gotten used to a smaller neutral deadzone and halfway pushed the neutral area out as far as possible (5x5).

Here are some steps:
1. Load up the 8-way diagonal map in the editor.
2. Increase the neutral area to a 5x5 square in the center.
3. Hook the controller back up to your PC.
4. --> The deadzone is still fairly small, the stick registers motion with slight movements.
5. Load up the 8-way diagonal map in the editor again.
6. Increase the neutral area to a 7x7 square in the center... leaving only 1 square width of input around the map.
7. Hook the controller back up to your PC.
8. --> The deadzone is too large now, at times, pressing at the edges will not register any input at all.

Additional Info: All testing was done on circular or square restrictors... I'm not sure if this is a problem with no restrictors.

Thanks again Andy!
-K

[kowal]

50% dynamic on jap bearing stick is microswitch
W/O micro all this stick work bad but this fell is OK for analog games
JLW is good base for analog games
but average for digital
hard to reconciled true is U360 is very good stick but not perfect for all.
 if you use stick for digital games only as substitute P360, SUZO Inductive -U360 is not good equivalent, but FLASH1/ASCII stick have the same problem with dynamic on digital games, because JLF base still use bearings, for me U360 work better than FLSH1.

I never use map with sticky cell on digital mode, joystick sometimes stopped on sticky. But for me sticky cell is unnecessary. It is only option, and I do not use this.

I never have problem with deadzone, but i use custom separators for restrictors. Cause can be in different distance PCB from magnet. You can easy fix this alone, use bush or somethings on bolts

Andy this new bush work how pivot bushing on Seimitsu LS33/55?

[AndyWarne]

The dead zone can be further tweaked by manually editing the UM map files and add the MapBorderLocations line, to adjust the size of the cells.

'------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' The UltraStik Map text file (*.um) format looks like the following:
'------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'# Comments are lines begining with "#" character, but will be lost upon saving!
'MapFileFormatVersion=1.0
'
'MapSize=9                   #<--Only "9" is supported for format 1.0
'MapBorderLocations=30,58,86,114,142,170,198,226   #<-- Number must be between 1 and 255, inclusive, with each successive # larger than the last.  There must MapSize minus one number on this line, each comma-separated.
'MapRow0=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x   #<--"x" should be one of: -, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW, C, * (where -=Analog, C=Center, *=Sticky)
'MapRow1=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x   #<--# rows and columns should match MaxtrixSize
'MapRow2=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow3=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow4=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow5=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow6=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow7=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow8=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x
'MapRow9=x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x

Still cant reproduce the no-button problem. Maybe you have an ol version of firmware, so I will send the latest by email.

[AndyWarne]

Here is a comparison of the old bearing cup (left) vs new (right)

[Franco B]

Smaller radius judging by those pictures then Andy?

[isucamper]

Its likely I will be able to offer the new bush and chromed cup bearing as a kit eventually.

Yes please!

[SammyWI]

Still cant reproduce the no-button problem. Maybe you have an ol version of firmware, so I will send the latest by email.

I don't think that's the problem since I'm using 2.4 which is the latest on the website.  I also notice that if I hold down a button while the joystick is registering a direction input, the button will stay registered when the joystick is moved to a sticky cell - even when the button is released.  Something odd is going on.

[kagaden]

Still cant reproduce the no-button problem. Maybe you have an ol version of firmware, so I will send the latest by email.

I don't think that's the problem since I'm using 2.4 which is the latest on the website.  I also notice that if I hold down a button while the joystick is registering a direction input, the button will stay registered when the joystick is moved to a sticky cell - even when the button is released.  Something odd is going on.

Exact same firmware (the update with button shifting), and I get the same result as Sammy. It will hold anything you have pressed as you go into the sticky on the joystick map.

Andy, thanks for the info on the deadzone! This looks like exactly what I need to customize the areas. I'll definitely give it a shot.

-A

[AndyWarne]

OK after much headscratching I finally realized whats going on with the non-working buttons in sticky cells.
I fixed this bug ages ago and was testing with the fixed version but forgot to release it either onto the website or into production.

The new version 2.5 firmware is now linked on this page:  http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_inst.html

Andy

[SammyWI]

I hate when things like that happen to me.  Unfortunately, when I update to the 2.5 firmware, the problem continues.  In fact, device manager still says I have the 2.4 firmware installed.  Here's the line:

HID\VID_D209&PID_0501&REV_0204&MI_00

I've installed the 2.4 firmware before this.  I tried installing 2.5 several times now.  Unplugged the U360 and plugged in back in.  Still no joy.   

[AndyWarne]

I tested the firmware by downloading and sure enough, it didnt upgrade. So I re-uploaded and repeated. Now OK.
Not sure but seems something went wrong with the original upload of 2.5.
can you try downloading again.

[SammyWI]

Sorry Andy, but no change.  I even tried deleting and downloading using a different browser.  Still no luck.  I hate to keep buggin you - it's not a huge deal, just an annoyance.

[kagaden]

Sorry Andy, but no change.  I even tried deleting and downloading using a different browser.  Still no luck.  I hate to keep buggin you - it's not a huge deal, just an annoyance.

I'm not near my joysticks, I'll give updating a shot tomorrow at work.

-A

[kegger]

I have been watching this thread and have tried loading the new firmware but I have the same problem as it will not upgrade

[SammyWI]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I was starting to question my sanity.   

[I/O]

I just tried this and it worked. It shows up as 0205 in 'hardware Ids', as directed by the information on the Ultimarc page. I have not extensively tested the functionality of the stick, but directions do function.

[kegger]

Ok so I have tried this many many  times and every time I get this error after the firmware upgrade as I try to reload a map, error opening device, failed to program device, UltraStik #3 Error 0x0: Failed to transmit data to UltraStik.  Does anyone else get this and is this normal as Andy doesn't mention it. To gain control over the joystick I have to unplug it from the usb then put back but I'm wondering if at that point it some how reverts back to the last firmware? As I get this error every time I can't load a map after and I can't change Id's because ultramap doesn't see the joystick anymore after trying to load the firmware....    When I go through the steps to run the firmware upgrade it tells me it was sucessful but then Ultramap wont talk to it anymore till I pull the plug on the USB to the Joystick.

[I/O]

I think the process I went through was: Ultimarc instructions, re-program stick with map, no response of stick, disconnect and reconnect stick, manual scan for ultrasticks, re-program stick with map. Good to go.

I guess the stick needs to be disconnected and reconnected, and manual scanned in Ultramap before it can be re-mapped and then active.

[SammyWI]

Kegger - I get the same error when I try to update.  I got the same thing when I updated to 2.4 and that worked fine when I just unplugged and replugged in the stick.  So I thought this was normal.  Maybe not.

I/O - I tried following your instructions with no luck.  It still has 0204 in hardware IDs.

[kegger]

Ok so I tried this all over again on a win 7 pc, my cab is xp and still have the same problem. So I/O could you attach the firmware file you used that was successful so I could try it?

Reason I'm asking as the 2.5 and 2.4 are the same size and this might be the case but for the added shift function I thought it might be a bit bigger than 2.4. This is just a shot in the dark.
 
Thanks Keg