Joystick questions (I know, there's like 4 a day, but I bet I have the most ?'s)

[MacGyver]

I am trying to update my control panel with new joysticks (I currently have Mag-Stik Plus's), with new lighted joysticks, here's what I've found.



JLF-TP-8YT (Sanwa)      http://www.arcadeshop.de/product_info.php?products_id=627{1}28
About $35, Add about $25 extra for the hollow shafts and translucent ball-tops (That have to be drilled out by me for the LEDs).




Paradise LED Joystick     http://paradisearcadeshop.com/119-paradise-led-bubble-top-arcade-joystick.html
$25 complete, ready to go.




J-Stik Ball-Top Red        http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html
$21, Add about $25 extra for the hollow shafts and translucent ball-tops from arcadeshop.de (That have to be drilled out by me for the LEDs).

So my questions are:
What's the deal with the Paradise ones?  Are they good quality? Why so cheap? Are they Sanwas?
Are the J-Stik and Sanwa JLF the same only with a different 4-8way restrictor?
Will the hollow shafts and ball-tops from arcadeshop.de work on the J-Stik?
http://www.arcadeshop.de/Seimitsu-Joysticks-Seimitsu-Ball-LB-39-clear-blue_609.html
http://www.arcadeshop.de/Sanwa-Joysticks-Shaft-JLF-TP-hollow_1035.html

Does anyone know a place to get illumination friendly Bat-tops for Sanwa (I would prefer Bat over Ball tops)?
Have anyone ever wired up a servo with a gear to the geared restrictor plate on the the J-Stik so it can be switched to 4 or 8-way electrically by the frontend or via a switch?

I'm not a big fan of the MSP's because they don't feel like the ones I used to use on the old Street Fighter II cabs, will the Sanwa/J-Stiks feel any closer to what I'm wanting?
Do the Sanwa/J-Stik when switched to 4-way feel like a Ms Pacman joystick?
If I decide to go with a dedicated 4-way, which one is the best for Ms Pacman, and can have a lighted ball-top added to it?


Part two:

I am sick of trying to play Afterburner with my Trackball or dual spinners (takes some getting used to), and was thinking about sticking a huge flightstick in the middle of my control panel, but don't know anything about them, least of all enough to try to buy one.  I have seen the following.


Heavy Duty Analog Trigger Joystick    http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/95070100.htm





Analog Joystick B-8 Grip         http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/95025100.htm
Now the analog joystick questions:
They both have a PC option that ends up as a 15 pin joystick cord, will this be able to be configured to work in MAME with games like Afterburner?
I ask because Afterburner seems to like using devices that use rotary encoders (trackball and spinners), and these joysticks are using potentiometers, what interfaces are you guys/girls using to connect potentiometer based joysticks to your cabs?  (I'm not sure I can find a "Joysick Card" to support the 15-pin PC version)
Can normal 8-way joysticks be setup to work with analog based games like Afterburner?
Are there any other analog flightsticks that are "Arcade Quality" and mount like these but don't cost so much money? (These things are $181-$341)
Will this fit on the Heavy Duty model?

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=91&products_id=319




I have read lots of posts here, and tried to find out as much as I can, but the search engine here is bizarre, sometimes it returns nothing, then the same search 10 minutes later will return 15 pages of results.
Any advice or lessons learned would be much appreciated.

[MacGyver]

Well I hope I did the right thing, I just bought 2 Sanwas and 2 hollow shafts with a red and blue ball-top from ParadiseArcade:

Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT Joystick    http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/12-sanwa-jlf-tp-8yt-joystick.html


Paradise Arcade Balltops        http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/66-paradise-arcade-balltops


Sanwa JLF-S9F Titanium Shaft, Hollow       http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/paradise-arcade-custom-parts/113-sanwa-jl-s9f-titanium-shaft.html


Now to find some LEDs that will fit in them.  I hope they are as good as people are saying they are.
I still would like to know about the Flightsticks.  I would have liked to have gone with the J-stiks, but without knowing that the shafts and ball-tops would fit in them, I had to go with the sure thing. (I really liked the idea of maybe adding a automatic 4-8 switching servo.)

[Brian B]

Arcade Emulator has some additional analog flight stick choices (and some for less dough)...haven't tried any myself though.

http://www.arcadeemulator.net/cgi-bin/shop/cp-app.cgi?usr=51F843165&rnd=721704&rrc=N&affl=&cip=75.35.237.235&act=&aff=&pg=ste_cat&startrow=10&searchstr=&searchrpp=10&searchtyp=&ref=Joysticks&cat=&catstr=

B.

[MacGyver]

Thanks Brian, I had never been there before.  They do have much better prices on the B-8. 
I wanted to keep the panel as clean as possible but also have the most controls, I think I have that now, but I'm missing an analog solution, and it's the one thing that will push the panel over the edge and into being cluttered badly (right now it's just mildly cluttered).

(I'm a crappy photographer, sorry about the color, focus, framing..)
 I got sidetracked for about two years, but I should have now both money and time to build the cabinet (hopefully).  Wish me luck.

[MacGyver]

Does anybody think that this would be too cluttered like this?, the green square is where I could shoe-horn in a analog flight-stick, if I shifted everything else as such (sorry for the paint.exe edit job).

I'm also concerned at how tall something like the Heavy Duty one will be, as nothing else on here is close to as tall as one would be. I think the B-8 is shorter, but even at arcadeemulator.net they are still close to $250.

[Donkbaca]

Yes, the analog would get in the way of spinning the trackball

[MacGyver]

You mean like bowling games? I could see that happening, but I'm not really a bowler.  I am usually pretty calm when playing Centipede so I'm not really worried about wacking it.  I was more worried about it being overly cramped.  The cabinet is for my daughter, but my wife wants to play only Afterburner, hence me trying to find a solution.

I'm still on the lookout for a small authentic arcade analog flightstick, oh and a reputable dealer to buy these from for under the overlay around the spinners.

I just wish I could find an individually addressable 15 segment 5v SMD LED ring in red and blue (too many wires with RGB) so I could wire them both into a LED-Wiz 32. These are all on or all off and 12V.  

I'm thinking I might have to go the U360 route with a hollow shaft, and graft a small non-arcade flightstick to it, and run the button wires down and out.

[VanillaGorilla]

Link? Those are awesome!!!

[MacGyver]

Hamster Stargates made by "The Hamster Ancients"  

But really they are called SMD LED Rings, a brand name I found was "Angel Eyes" and I found them in about every color including RGB, they are used by people to mod their headlights, hence the 12V, but I just found out the the LED-Wiz32 I ordered now has a "power rail input" and I can input 12V into it and drive 8 outputs with 12V instead instead of 5V, which is cool because I thought it only did 5V. (It did 2 years ago anyway)
I did end up finding them at a site I used before for some LEDs for my dash and I guess that's as trustworthy as I'm going to get.  I won't post their name as I don't want to be responsible if they are not, I can tell you it was not whatever name is printed across one of the pictures, I would never even go there as that site shows up for just about anything searched for, and that just screams of scam/ripoff.  I plan on putting them below my control panel overlay around my spinners so they can be lit up when a game requiring spinners is selected. I found them in 50, 60, 70, and 80 mm sizes.

[Gray_Area]

...my wife wants to play only Afterburner, hence me trying to find a solution.

Really? The world continues to surprise me.

[MacGyver]

I just wanted to say thanks to ParadiseArcade, I just got my Sanwa Joysticks, hollow shafts, balltops, and LEDs.  It was complete, and got here in 2 weeks, and that is pretty good for going from Hawaii to Pennsylvania (A re-mailer) to New York to Germany. 

[VanillaGorilla]

That is a long strange trip!

I have bought the $10 Zippy's from paradise, and they're terrific. I've bought a bunch of other stuff too. Don't know if I'd buy an actual seimitsu after using the Zippy. Time will tell, the only hang-up I could see is durability, but thats purely assumptive. The give me no reason to believe that they are lower quality, or wont last. I'd like to buy the hollowed Zippy shafts for $15, that would put the total outlay for the lighted setup @ roughly $25 per stick, and he has long and short shafts for the Zippy's so that gives you lots of options re: control panel thickness..