Ultrastik 360 restrictor above the mounting plate

[bji]

Hello there.  I'm just wondering if it would be technically possible to build a restrictor plate out of a thin material (like a thin but tough piece of plastic, or maybe thin metal with some kind of coating to prevent it from scraping the stick shaft) and then mount it *above* the joystick mounting plate rather than below in the housing?

I am trying to think of ways to have user-adjustable restrictor plates that can be switched from the top panel.  What if the restrictor was between the joystick mounting plate and the wood of the control panel?  Of course this would require bottom-mounting the stick, or alternately, having a top-mounted stick with a sandwich of restrictor plate and then plexiglass on top.

My goal is to have a stick that can be converted from 2-way, to 4-way, to 8-way.  And I would want these to be switchable from levers at the top of the control panel, so that the player could switch them as needed without opening up the console.  And as a bonus, I am thinking about putting switches in so that my custom front end software (that I am still writing!) can know what position the restrictor plate(s) are currently in and alert the user when they start a game that uses a different joystick configuration that they need to switch.

I think this is going to be quite challenging.  I think that having the restrictor plates on top would make the player switching of them much easier than having to have some kind of mechanism that reaches all the way down to the bottom of the stick to move restrictor plates.  But I don't know if it makes sense to restrict a joystick from the top side instead of from underneath as is typically done.

If I can pull this off, then I will have a joystick that is player switchable from analog, to 2-way digital (possibly just horizontal, or maybe if I am really ambitions, both horizontal and vertical), to 4 way digital, to 8 way digital.  I think that would be the truly ultimate stick!

[bji]

I've thought about it a little more and here's my latest idea:

Use a router to inset the mounting plate for the Ultrastik 360 about 1/4 inch into the top of the control panel.  Then, route out a 'channel for the restrictor plate above that.  Imagine if the 4-way restrictor was split into two halves, each half being a 1/8 inch thin plate on either side of the stick, embedded in the routed channel.  To restrict to 4 way, slide each half in until they meet, joining around the shaft to form the diamond of a 4-way restrictor.  To de-restrict, slide each of them outwards.  Imagine a further thin layer on top of this, so that the restrictor was not visible to the naked eye, and have a layer of plexiglass on top of that.  The restrictor plates woud have a peg coming up out of the plexiglass via a channel that allowed you to slide the restrictor plate halves into and out of position, and to lock them into position as well.

For bonus points, imagine several layers of this: one 4-way restrictor layer, one 2-way horizontal restrictor layer, and one 2-way vertical restrictor layer.

All of this requires pretty thin restrictor plates though, otherwise you start having to put the mounting plate of the stick down too far to fit all of those restrictor plates on top of it.  A long-handled shaft would help in this regard.  At some point, it might even be worthwhile to consider bottom-mounting it with a long shaft which would give even more room for restrictor plates embedded in channels in the control panel.

[bji]

Has anyone ever tried anything like this before?  Any reason that I should not even bother trying?  Anything obvious to people with much more experience with shop work than I have (which is basically none) notice any red flags here?

I realize that the only way I'm really going to know whether or not this approach is feasable is to actually try it.  But if anyone has any guidance that they can give that they think will save me lots of fumbling down the wrong blind alley, I would certainly appreciate it.  Thanks!

[Bender]

I like the idea in theory, But I think it will be next to impossible to make in practice
I'd try just a 4-8 restrictor that you can rotate rather than halves, if you have a 4-way restrictor I don't really see the need for a 2-way, horizontal or vertical, I've never missed a left for an up like doing 4-way on an 8-way if you know what I mean

Having said all that I'd love to see the impossible come to life, so here's to trying

[AndyWarne]

Like this?

[Bender]

Andy,

What is that??!!!!!!!!!

[AndyWarne]

Its something I was experimenting with. A restrictor which is in two halves and inserts into a housing which also forms a mounting kit so that the joystick mounts through a single hole.

It can be inserted in two orientations for 4 or 8 way or left out for analog.

Its not quite right yet so we are re-making one of the molds.

One important factor to note is for this to work the handle needs to be much longer which might be an issue, we have not really tested fully yet.

[bji]

Its something I was experimenting with. A restrictor which is in two halves and inserts into a housing which also forms a mounting kit so that the joystick mounts through a single hole.

It can be inserted in two orientations for 4 or 8 way or left out for analog.

Its not quite right yet so we are re-making one of the molds.

One important factor to note is for this to work the handle needs to be much longer which might be an issue, we have not really tested fully yet.

I wish I had your design and fabrication skills.

I'm thinking of a plate with sliding restrictor halves embedded that mounts on top of the joystick.  I see you have the plate part, and I see a round restrictor there, but I don't understand how the two halves to that collar you show come into play.

I think that when I get serious about this I will mock it up in wood.  I have no tools to speak of and I guess I would need some kind of precision router assembly.  I don't know how feasable it is to have something like this fabricated in very small numbers (like, two) at a local precision machining shop.  I suppose the first step will be to try to draw something up in a CAD program, or more likely, a cheap CAD imitator like google sketch up.

[Bender]

Its something I was experimenting with. A restrictor which is in two halves and inserts into a housing which also forms a mounting kit so that the joystick mounts through a single hole.

It can be inserted in two orientations for 4 or 8 way or left out for analog.

Its not quite right yet so we are re-making one of the molds.

One important factor to note is for this to work the handle needs to be much longer which might be an issue, we have not really tested fully yet.

so it would be fixed and not switchable from above the panel?

[bji]

I'm drawn up rough sketches of what I am talking about.  I have no idea how to draw real plans (obviously) and my drawing skills suck, but I hope I can get across what I am talking about.

There is a top view and side view.  What I'm trying to convey here is how there would be a flat channel in which these metal plates would slide, and there would be a pin which would be lifted out of the hole that it sits in to lock the plates in place, to slide to a new position, and then dropped down in another hole to lock the plate into place again.

And furthermore, whereas I have only drawn one layer here, I actually envision a couple of layers, one for each restrictor type.

[bji]

I had another thought.  Perhaps to make it easy on myself I could support just two restrictors: one routed into the top of the panel (covered by the art layer and plexiglass) and one routed into the bottom of the panel.  Then I wouldn't need to sandwich anything inside the actual panel wood itself.

[AndyWarne]

Its something I was experimenting with. A restrictor which is in two halves and inserts into a housing which also forms a mounting kit so that the joystick mounts through a single hole.

It can be inserted in two orientations for 4 or 8 way or left out for analog.

Its not quite right yet so we are re-making one of the molds.

One important factor to note is for this to work the handle needs to be much longer which might be an issue, we have not really tested fully yet.

so it would be fixed and not switchable from above the panel?

Its switchable from above, the two halves pull out vertically upwards from the housing.

[bji]

Its switchable from above, the two halves pull out vertically upwards from the housing.

Ah, I get it.  The plate is meant to be bottom-mounted, and the circular collar would come up through the panel and the top of it would be flush with the top of the panel.  To switch restrictors, you would dig your fingernail under the collar, pull up on each half and pop it out, then push new restrictor halves in.

Seems like it would solve the problem of allowing lots of restrictors to be used with the same stick and to be user-changeable from above the panel.  The only drawback I see is that it's not quite as 'elegant' a solution as it requires fiddling with metal pieces, and keeping the extra restrictors around somewhere (a pull-out drawer in the front of your control panel?).

I am curious though - does restricting a joystick from the top like that work well?  Does it chew up the shaft?  Is it hard to calculate the dimensions that the collar restrictor should be to create the correct restriction (I hate doing math, especially complicated math that involves trigonometry as that problem does!)?

[kronic24601]

I like the fact that if you have plexi glass, you don't need to cut special holes in it. Andy, this looks really cool count me as interested

[Bender]

Its something I was experimenting with. A restrictor which is in two halves and inserts into a housing which also forms a mounting kit so that the joystick mounts through a single hole.

It can be inserted in two orientations for 4 or 8 way or left out for analog.

Its not quite right yet so we are re-making one of the molds.

One important factor to note is for this to work the handle needs to be much longer which might be an issue, we have not really tested fully yet.

so it would be fixed and not switchable from above the panel?

Its switchable from above, the two halves pull out vertically upwards from the housing.

Cool and as long as the halves are shorter than the shaft (so they could be removed) it would be neatly covered up by the dust washer... Slick!!!!