Any reason to stay away from xarcade joystick? \ suggestions

[aldub516]

Hey guys, and as always, thanks for the help ahead of time. As you know im building a pedestal for my friend.. Originally he gave me a xarcade tank stick setup to use, and i said eff that, start from scratch.. I had 2 happ joysticks, either competition or ultimate, really not sure. Anyways, they were in my last  machine, which never got finished, so i decided to pull them out and use them in the new machine. I mounted them perfectly straight and all, and as im testing some mortal kombat, im realizing it is near impossible to hit diagonals on the left joystick. The right one somehow is better.. but the actuator is making me go way too far to hit the diagonals. Ive read that happ quality has dwindled, and its possible to just have 2 different joysticks with different quality. 6 out 10 diagonal jumps are missing. My problem is im so far along in the panel, have the artwork ready to go, and really dont want to go through shipping times and such for new joysticks. So i ask your advice. I have the 2 xarcade joysticks from the tank stick, and as im looking at them, they seem great. All the switches are hitting on movement, they just overall seem like a good replacement, which i can do right now and problem solved. Is there any serious reason to stay away from the xarcade sticks? I am indeed more or less "rushing" to just get this part done, but also have no reason to order new sticks if these will be fine. I would like the joysticks to handle fighting games the best as those require the most precision.. any other games should be fine under that guideline. If not, what 8 way joystick would you suggest? Before anything, i can promise ive done my research on joysticks,and various opinions/facts.. But eventually get lost in pages of joystick talk, restrictors, and all kinds of crazyness. If there is a serious reason to not use the xarcade sticks, or any simple advice, on some nice 8 way joysticks i can settle on and order? My friend did inquire about led joysticks but from what i gather, sacrifice quality for the gimmick of led.. PREFERABLY id like bat style sticks as opposed to the balltop, But im just looking to either use the xarcade, or order sticks within the next few hours

Thank you as always, and forgive my excessively long posts, my words tend to make very long paragraphs for no reason.

[Slippyblade]

Honestly, the X-Arcade stuff tends to get a bad rap around here.  It's not the best, for sure, but it doesn't suck either.  I'd just go with what you have on hand and use the X-Arcade.

[ark_ader]

Better to get some Happ Ultimates.  I have swapped mine from the xarcade.  Far superior.

[mgb]

Id say you kind of answered your own question.
Your friend gave you the xarcade parts to use in the build. You instead used some old Happs you had. They're not hitting right but the xarcades are.
I'd say drop in the xarcade sticks if they're working well. They can always be replaced with supers down the road or probably better, the IL equivelent.
The happ sticks you have, do they have square restrictors because that's what competitions have but I have usually found them to be good on diags.

[fwiler]

For an all around joystick, I like them.  I really don't think they deserve a bad rap either.  Is there better? Sure there is.  Is there worse? Absolutely.
In your situation, I would definitely use them.

[aldub516]

thank you all.. Yes the actuator on the bottom of my happs was square. I noticed also on one of the happs, the joystick no longer centered perfectly either. I have since installed the x-arcade sticks, and moved on. Thank you all for input! Just wanted to know if theres one like terrible con to x-arcade like switches stop working in a week or something lol. Thanks as always!

[Cynicaster]

The X-Arcade sticks are pretty much knock-offs of Happ Supers, best I can tell. 

In the spring, I ordered an X-Arcade for a quickie garage pedestal project.  I tried to like the stock X-arcade sticks, but couldn't get into them. 

Out of the box, they wouldn't hit diagonals very well at all, which made shooters a nightmare.  I took the thing apart and tried adjusting the levers to increase the sensitivity of diagonals, but after I did that, the left microswitches kept sticking during gameplay, which made the joysticks pretty much useless (at my birthday party, no less).  At that point I said "screw this" and just replaced the stock sticks with Happ Competitions, which bolted right up without modification.  Night and day difference--but then again, I'm a huge fan of the Happ Competition. 

To be fair, I'm sure I could have taken the X apart and fiddled some more with the actuation levers to get the stock sticks to work well, but it came down to a question of how much I value my spare time.  I just wanted to play some damn games in my garage, so I decided that dumping $30 on a pair of Happs (shipped) was a worthwhile expenditure, for the sake of getting me into a game of Xevious.

Honestly, I don't know why X-Arcade doesn't work out some kind of deal with Happ to put Competitions in the tank sticks.  They're not expensive, they feel right at home in the X-Arcade, and they're hands down superior to the stock parts.