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cj138:
Hi everyone,
I am new to the hobby and would like to thank everyone who contributes to this forum since I have learned so much from it.  I recently decided to jump in well over my head and purchased a flight yoke.  I built a simple Street Fighter 2 style CP with an Ipac previously but aside from that I have ZERO experience, so I am looking for some guidance.  The yoke I bought was on a Lock-On cabinet which had been converted to play Star Wars via MAME.  I am curious if this is an original Lock-On yoke or where it came from otherwise.  There does not appear to be any gears.  There are two 5K pots (Bradley Allen EJ series), two triggers, two thumb buttons, and four sets of three wires (red, black and white) attached to each.
I attempted the dual sidewinder hack last weekend and it sort of worked for a few moments then stopped.  By "sort of" I mean it was not playable at all and the cursor barely moved and jumped occasionally.  I tried to test the pots with a multimeter and the reading jumped around as well.  I bought an APAC to simplify the interface process, wired the pot for the X axis and plugged it in to see what would happen.  The result was the cursor appeared against the right line of the calibration box and when I turned the yoke it barely jittered left.
I am thinking the pots are bad and need to be replaced, but I would like your input before I spend more money.
I am also curious if someone can verify the origin of this yoke.



Thanks,
Cj
Xiaou2:
If your pots do not register properly and smoothly with a multimeter..  then its simply your pots are bad.

 Pots dont last forever.  The contact surface may be dirty, brushes worn, and or the contact material is also worn down.

 Get a new set of 5k pots.  Linear taper - not audio taper.

 Do not forget to calibrate the device in windows.

 If it works in Windows, and not well in Mame..  you probably have a settings issue in one of mames files and or analog settings menu.

 If you cant get brand new pots (tested on multimeter)  to work in win..  then you either hooked them up wrong... or your encoder may be busted... and or the driver software might be corrupted / incompatible with the version of windows your using.
PL1:
Welcome aboard, Cj138.

It's definitely not a Star Wars, ESB, Jedi, FireFox, Star Fire or STUN Runner yoke.

It might be from a Hydra, but I'm just spitballing on that  :dunno  -- check the owner manuals from this or this list of yoke games.

If the pots aren't responding smoothly like X2 mentioned, be sure to get long life replacement pots -- Clarostat/Honeywell is the manufacturer to choose.  (Ken Layton has mentioned elsewhere that some of the the ETI brand pots fail much sooner than advertised.)

When you check the pots, clip the ohm-meter leads onto the tabs of the pot to remove the possibility of bad wires/pins in the harness/connector.

If possible, use an analog meter because digital models have to sample/digitize which takes time and may cause misleading readings as you sweep through the range of the potentiometer.


Scott
Le Chuck:
I haven't seen that yoke before.  The handles are the same as a STUN Runner or Hydra rather than SW (SR's don't have thumb buttons but it's an easy mod).  It looks like there is only one vertical axis centering spring but there could be two in there.  Does it center or does it return to top or bottom?

Looking at the stops I'm guessing it has about 60o of rotation.  If you get regular pots to replace it you'll have to use a uhid or some other interface that allows full range of motion calibration as you won't be able to max out the 270o rotation of the pots w/out the necessary gearing.  The pots that are in it are likely 60 degree pots that give a full variance in that range of motion - which is why it could be straight plug and played into mame. 

Without seeing your wiring diagram (even if it's just a napkin drawing) we can't help troubleshoot the connection.  The pots could be bad but if it was recently working in somebody's mame rig I'm guessing there's a connection issue at play.  Those limited deflection pots are stupid asspensive IIRC so you're better off working through other issues first before spending the cash. 

That's a cool yoke because of the reduced size - no ass end to it, but it creates some challenges because that likely means you're working with hard to come by specialty pots.  Cheapest I've found is about $80 for 5 (you'll have spares) and they're used... and they're from China so for all you know it could arrive and just be a bracelet.  Link: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Used-TOCOS-RVQ24YN03-04-B102-B1K-game-60-degrees-potentiometer/1002737731.html

I've seen these pots for as much as $120 ea - tho I can't recall where so consider that conjecture.  Infact it's a good idea to consider this whole post conjecture.   ;D 
Generic Eric:
That looks like a replacemant part from happs
http://na.suzohapp.com/all_catalogs/joysticks/50-2502-00
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