8-way 4-way are the same on the servo stiks

[Dekieon]

Hello, I ordered two servo stiks from ultimarc, and they arrived today.

I seem to have a problem with both of them. It doesn't seem to matter which position I set the white plate too, it seems to be an 8-way joystick.

I set the joystick to 8-way it is an 8-way joystick as expected.
I set it to 4-way, and the micro switches still both get pressed when the stick is moved on an angle.

Understand that they aren't connected or anything, I am holding them in my hand and looking at the bottom of the stick and manually positioning the plate from 8-way to 4-way, and you can clearely see and hear the micro switches getting activated.

This happens of both of the sticks I purchased. Is there something setup wrong on these sticks that would cause this issue?

[chopperthedog]

When in 4 way mode hold stik up to ear and push in any direction and slowly move to another direction and at the mid point you will hear the clicks of one releasing and the other engaging but both are never on at the same time.

* chopperthedog waits for you to complain about the springs falling through the washers

good day.

[Dekieon]

I have done that exact thing already, I even took it one step further and hooked up a multimeter set to continuity and it is definitely engaging  the next micro switch before the previous one is disengaged. this happens on all directions and on both sticks.

Additionally I took a very close look and moved the stick very slowly from the sticks resting position to the edge of the plate that should stop the sticks movement. It only moves about half way there when the switch engages. It is like the hole is cut out too big. to stop the stick.

[chopperthedog]

Gotcha. There was some chatter about new plates being made. Skim the the last page here http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,121819.0.html. I got mine in December and remember listening for the clicks. Something must have changed with assembly or part supply. Contact andy, or he may chime in here.


good day.

[sharpfork]

Andy stands behind his products and will make it right.

[Dekieon]

I just sent him a private message about this and asked him to take a look at this thread to see what can be done.

[AndyWarne]

I did some checking on this.

I have to admit I am quite surprised at what I found.

I checked a large number of the genuine Sanwa TM8 / UM8 sticks which we use, out of the box unmodified.
It is true that these sticks do activate two switches when in 4 way mode.

I am not sure that this is a big issue as the main benefit of a 4-way restrictor is the mechanical feel of the stick and the ability to slide it from one of the 4 directions to another without it going into the corners. Mame does not have any issue with two switches being closed in a 4-way game.

But, the situation can be rectified by "tuning" the stick.  In fact I remember reading about this on one of the forums such as shoryuken.com.
The switch actuators can be slightly bent towards the switch and this cures the issue.
I will nevertheless feed back to Sanwa about this as its rather strange that the sticks are delivered in this way.

Note the special restrictor on the Servostick has exactly the same restriction profile as the Sanwa restrictor.

[Dekieon]

Thanks Andy. 

It took me about 10 minutes to do both joysticks. I took it slow and made sure all micro switches were at the same bend, and added more bend to them as needed. after I got one stick perfect, i used one of those microswitches and bend the remaining four to match the bend and they now both at 4 way and 8 way switchable.

I appreciate, not only that you took the time to give me a fix to this, but that you tested your products and took steps to get the issue corrected at the source. I am sure future customers will appreciate it as well.

[zabrin]

Andy always stands by his products!!!

z.

[Endprodukt]

 I feel like these sticks need a little too much tuning to work the way they should. Took me an hour to sand down the restrictors to fit the actual base and another one to fine tune the actuators. Mame can handle two inputs for 4 way games but sometimes the game can't.

[AndyWarne]

The restrictor issue is being rectified on all units now being sent out.

The 4 way switch tuning issue I am not sure about. I will need to make a decision as to whether to reduce the size of the restrictor plate hole. This is easy to do as we are re-molding these anyway. I am not sure if a smaller hole will negatively affect the feel of the stick. Any thoughts welcome. I am tempted to leave as Sanwa designed it but I will nevertheless get some feedback from them on this.

[Endprodukt]

I actually used some shrink tubing around the top of the actuator to have a smaller throw. So having a sligthly smaller hole could be a good thing. Also, just as a feedback... the restrictor is SO square it's a good and a bad thing at the same time. For games that require you to press up in an 8-way arrangement it's pretty difficult because you hit the diagonals pretty often. In Metal Slug for example you will run while shooting, it's prett tought to stand still and shoot up.

It would be highly appreciated to get updated restrictors for my servo sticks.

[Dekieon]

I didn't have any problem with the restrictor plate needing sanding. So that problem appears have been rectified.

I did make a new restrictor plate with a smaller hole just to see if it would be fixed, and I can tell you that by the time that the hole was small enough to stop the 8-way direction in 4 -way mode the stick barely moved at all. Basically from what I can gather, the best fix is to move the micro switches back about 1 mm or 2, but I don't think that is really possible given the design of the JLW. Perhaps a better option would be to change the Servo to work on a different model joystick...JLF's perhaps?

[Endprodukt]

Would have love the servo stick to be an jlf.... Andy, why did you chose the JLW for the Servo Stick? JLF seems much more popular around the arcade scene?

About sanding: Seems like I ordered at the wrong time and got the new JLW that hat a different base. Bummer!