How to install joystick on 3/4 plywood?

[Rice Cube]

Hey everyone, i was wondering if I did this correctly because when i play, my joysticks seem a bit off. I have two Happ competition joysticks. I made a hole the size of a standard pushbutton and then mounted my joystick on the bottom of my control panel that is made from 3/4 plywood. didnt do anything with the joystick, just assembled it and drilled it straight into the plywood. everything looks like it is put in correctly, the joystick sticks out and when i rotate it, it doesnt touch any of the wood, but when i play with it, it just doesnt seem right. like i move the joystick to jump at my appointment but my player just goes straight up. all the controls work, just not exactly how they would on a real arcade cabinet. (i built mine from scratch with 3/4 plywood)

any help or suggestion are greatly appreciated. thanks!

[HanoiBoi]

Have you tried several games?  Your example seems to be lacking information as in what game you're playing.  Usually jump is initiated by a button, not a joystick.  When you say your player just 'goes straight up', that kinda sounds correct (without better detail)...

[Donkbaca]

Are you sure the joys are mounted square?  It could be that they are not, so when you are pushing what you think is the up diagonal you are only hitting the up microswitch

[Rice Cube]

no the jump function is a button. lets use street fighter 3rd strike since that was the last game i played.

hey donkbaca, so the joystick should be positioned like a square and not a rectangle? because the joystick isnt a perfect square.

[dfmaverick]

I think Donk was just wondering if up was straight up, etc.; I think that is what he meant by "square".

Doesn't matter which way you mount a rectangle joystick as long as you wire it up correctly.

One thing is to double check that the wires are going to the correct switch and not upside down as if you are looking at the joystick from underneath. (ie. Up could be down and vice versa.)

[Jack Burton]

Are you sure it's a competition joystick?

Does the bottom look like this:


or this:



If it looks like the second photo then you have a Super joystick, not a competition one.

The Super Joystick has two modes, 4-way and 8-way.   If it is set to 4-way operation you will only ever be able to jump straight up even if you hit the diagonals.  

 To change between modes you flip the actuator that goes around and hits the switches.  The joystick you bought may have come set in 4-way mode.  To change it around take off the C-clip and flip around the actuator and put it back on.  

Super joysticks are still pretty good sticks btw. 

[boardjunkie]

I hate microswitch sticks, but the Supers have a better, more solid feel to me.

[Rice Cube]

hey jack, yeah i have a competition one. i would like to get something with leaf switches, though, looks a lil better to use. yeah i have everything wired up correctly. i think it might be the microswitches. im thinking i might not have the problem if i have leaf switches.

[Donkbaca]

Its not the microswitches if the diagonals aren't working.  Its either a software mapping issue, or as I mentioned, it could be that you did not mount the joysticks so that the top is parallel to the screen, so that when you think you are moving diagonal, you are only hitting the top switch

[djm858]

Its not the microswitches if the diagonals aren't working.  Its either a software mapping issue, or as I mentioned, it could be that you did not mount the joysticks so that the top is parallel to the screen, so that when you think you are moving diagonal, you are only hitting the top switch

If it's just misaligned, he should be able to at least get a diagonal jump out of 1 (I guess technically 2) of the 8 joystick directions.  Rice Cube, I think it'd help if you push the joystick in each of the 8 directions and tell us what happens for each.  Use Street Fighter as the game.  I think this will really help to eliminate any confusion on the diagnosis.

For example, we'd expect to see:

U:    Jump straight up
UR:  Jump diagonally to the right
R:    Move right
etc....

We'll at least find out if your diagonals just aren't there, or if they're out of position, or something else entirely.

[Rice Cube]

yeah i have it set up/wired right. when i go up it goes up and so on. im sure the problem isnt computer related. i think it might just be the quality of the joystick. because it works when i try and do a jump forward or UP and RIGHT at the same time. it just doesnt work like how it would with a real arcade machine. like it doesnt do a jump forward/UP and RIGHT all the time. it really does feel like the joystick because i dont have any problems with my 2nd player joystick. im thinking i may have to switch the joystick or the microswitches. but yeah i think i asked the question originally to find out if there was a certain way i have to mount the joystick to my plywood.

should i attach a picture?

[Donkbaca]

If it goes up when you press up and right when you press right, it has to be software related. Joysticks are simple things, they are just levers that make contact with switches. If the basic four directions work, the switches work. If you move it to a digonal and the actuator makes contact with two switches, the joystick is working exactly as it should. If the right inputs arent registering, it has to be either the encoder not handling the inputs properly (not likely) or you have it set up wrong on mame

[dfmaverick]

You could open up a text document, use the joystick (assuming you're using a keyboard encoder), and see if the output of the encoder corresponds to the software inputs.

[Donkbaca]