Rotary Joysticks

[IG-88]

I was wondering if you all could give me some choices of sellers of these types of joysticks, and maybe an opinion?    

[Magnet_Eye]

www.happcontrols.com sells Optical Sticks and Rotary sticks. They are basically the Happ Supers but with rotating feature. The Optical just rotate freely, like a spinner, but a lot stiffer. The Rotary sticks have 12 position clicking, like the Ikari Warrior games. I personally have the Optical, since I don't care about the actual clicking, and it lets me play games like TRON since i can move with the stick, and rotate with it too! Pretty nice sticks I must say. I use them with my I-Pac/Opti-Pac.

Another option is to get the Ikari type sticks (SNK LS-30). You can get them from http://www.videoconnect.com/pages/joys.htm or on ebay. These, again, are the 12 position type. You will need to get a proper interface for these.

Hope this helps.

[IG-88]

Yes that does help. Not a bad price on those LS-30's either. Thanks Magnet_Eye, any-one else?

[spidermonkey]

Didn't Data East have their own rotary sticks as well ? I seem to remember the Ikari sticks having the yellow handles that had like hex shaped sides to make them easier to grip. The Data East sticks had yellow cylindrical handles as well but were the just round and smooth without the hex shape   Maybe they were all SNK sticks with just different handles ? Just trying to think of other game manufacturers that used this type of stick so that you'll have a wider variety of sources. I have nothing to back this up as the last time I played a rotary stick game with actual rotary sticks was many moons ago. Maybe someone else could clarify this.  

[spidermonkey]

Theres a "buy it now" Heavy Barrel machine on Ebay right now. (can't paste the link here for some reason) You'll have to use the ebay search window in the arcade machine section.I think its on page 7 as of today. Notice that the two rotary sticks are different. The one on the right is round and taller. (probably came with the cab originally) The other is shorter and is hex shaped (probably used as a replacement) Are these sticks both made by SNK with just different handles and shaft lenths or did both Data East and Trade West use different brands of rotarys ? Very confused.

[Magnet_Eye]

Theres a "buy it now" Heavy Barrel machine on Ebay right now. (can't paste the link here for some reason) You'll have to use the ebay search window in the arcade machine section.I think its on page 7 as of today. Notice that the two rotary sticks are different. The one on the right is round and taller. (probably came with the cab originally) The other is shorter and is hex shaped (probably used as a replacement) Are these sticks both made by SNK with just different handles and shaft lenths or did both Data East and Trade West use different brands of rotarys ? Very confused.

Actually, there's another heavy barrel machine on ebay too, but it has both the round style sticks. i think these are what it is supposed to have.

Anyway, it all depends on what he wants to play. The cool thing about the Happs optical is that they work just like a regular joystick for non-rotary games. So you get best of both worlds. With the SNK ones, you can't really play any other games but the rotary style.