Ultrastik 360 Rotary Upgrade - Anyone use it?

[MydknyteStyrm]

I ordered the rotary upgrade from Ultimarc and am having a bit of trouble assembling it.

The rotary kit comes with a new long shaft, for ball tops, and has a thinner stem at the magnet side than the normal Ultrastik shafts. There also is a glass/steel encoder ring that is supposed to fit around the shaft, as well as a pcb board emitter that plugs into a new PCB board at the bottom of the controller.

The problem I am having is this little glass/steel encoder ring barely fits onto the shaft. Its as if the shaft is a microhair bigger. I emailed Andy at Ultimarc and he says I just have to push harder. Now that being said, its become damn near impossible to fit this thing on without fear of bending or breaking it.

My question is, does anyone out there have this rotary kit, got it assembled with no problem, and has it working in their cab? Any insight you might provide, as well as pictures, would be completely appreciated. Im curious as to how far down the shaft the encoder disc is supposed to fit.
The instructions on the ultimarc site are not very precise, or maybe I'm just completely 

Thanks!

[lamprey]

I have a couple, but I don't use them because they don't work for 12-way rotary games they way I'd like. It takes a bit of force to assemble for sure.

[jeremymtc]

Maybe try putting the shafts into the freezer overnight to reduce interference?

[Angus]

Take a can of compressed air and invert it.. spray on the shaft.. see if that helps.. will be colder and quicker than the freezer method..

[MydknyteStyrm]

Pretty smart idea. I'll try it out.


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[haynor666]

I have a couple, but I don't use them because they don't work for 12-way rotary games they way I'd like. It takes a bit of force to assemble for sure.

I have the same problem even with mouse, it's probably mame bug: http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=6154

[lamprey]

I have a couple, but I don't use them because they don't work for 12-way rotary games they way I'd like. It takes a bit of force to assemble for sure.

I have the same problem even with mouse, it's probably mame bug: http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=6154

Mame has a bug. But it's more of an issue with constant movement instead of having 12 "locked" positions. No worries though, I'm gathering pieces for a multi-rotary cab so I don't have to worry about it in Mame.

[BadMouth]

Did you try reducing the sensitivity in MAME?

I haven't used the Ultimarc product, but I have messed around with some DIY setups.
They all worked except for the ones that used extremely low count encoders.
I got some cheap 12 or 16 count per revolution encoders from sparkfun that had detented positions which would have been cool.
It worked on a couple games, but on other games MAME wouldn't even detect any movement when trying to map it.
I swapped in a 900cpr encoder and it worked as expected.  I've seen other DIY solutions using 360cpr encoders and they didn't mention any problems.
This was circa MAME v.142 in case there have been any changes since then.

I'm assuming the Ultimarc ones don't have a super low count, but you could try swapping in a higher count wheel if you can figure out the manufacturer.

Although not having the detents allows you to use the joystick as a spinner or steering wheel, I found that I really missed the feel of having the joystick lock into position.
My latest experiment is with 12 position mechanical switches which have enough of a detent to feel when you're moving positions.
I've stuck the parts together and turned the joystick to see how it feels, but haven't wired it up or used it to play yet.
Unfortunately the setup requires more depth than my CP has.   

[haynor666]

Refreshing topic as I finally bought and assembled rotary upgrade for U360. Just like MydknyteStyrm wrote is really, really hard to mount glass encoder into shaft. Because of this I have a problem - my U360 rotary uprade is little to high to fit my box. I decided to disassemble rotary upgrade for some time until I get higher box but I can't gently remove this glass encoder because the only way is to press hard on glass side. Anyone tried to remove rotary upgrade?

[Thorvald]

Interesting timing... I'm going through all this myself right now for my new U360 with Rotary.

First off, yes I've had to disassemble mine about nine times now... a few for screw ups but mostly to try so solve a "sticking" joystick that sends too much "down" when it gets stuck in that position.   To remove the encoder ring you have to do a few things:

1.  Put some electrical tape on the bottom of the encoder so you don't accidentally scratch it.
2.  Push down and hold the black plastic mount for the encoder to get enough room to fit a small flat blade screw driver in there.  I also put a small piece of electrical tape on top of my screwdriver just to be 100% sure I don't scratch that encoder.
3.  You will see a small lip on the shaft of the encoder then you can just get a screwdriver under. Then position the screwdriver over one of the two mounting screws for the encoder PCB (DO NOT USE THE SMT COMPONENTS for leverage!).
4.  Carefully lift the encoder up using that lip (two hands, very slowly and hold on tight, you don' want a slip).
5.  Once you get the encoder up a few millimeters you can then get the screwdriver under the bottom edge of the encoder ring shaft/cylinder.  Then you can apple pressure easier and more safer to get the encoder ring further up the shaft to the point you can pull it off with your fingers.
6.  Remove the electrical tape and clean with alcohol to remove all the gummy residue.

It's not fun and its a pain in the behind to remove.

----

That being said the encoder has a slight design flaw at present that I'm hoping to work with Andy to solve.  Because the mount is attached to one of the posts, moving the joystick in the axis that the mount is not attached to results in the 'ever so slightly' tilting/rotating of the shaft and the encoder.  You can see this behavior easily on your windows desktop.  Just plugin the joystick and move the stick around, you will see the mouse cursor move a good ways when that axis is exercised.

To solve we need some sort of an offset applied for when we move the shaft in that direction (basically like pre-comp on an RC controller).   Right now it's very frustrating in certain games that when you move the stick you aim changes... (but only in that single axis, the other direction is fine).  It is not as obvious in some games however.

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That being said I do love this stick and once I can figure out how to solve the rotary issue, I'll be buying another for "Player 2".

Cheers
   Tim

[MydknyteStyrm]

Couple of issues that I spoke with Andy with back when I originally posted this.

The shafts were a nanometer too thick, so he sent me two new ones, where the encoders slipped on pretty well. So that kind of solved that.

The big black plastic cover over the encoded causes another problem that it butts up against the white nut fittings that hold the board to the plastic posts. What I did was shave the white fittings down so there was no grip around it, and just a cylinder to hold the bolts. This allowed more movement with the fat cover on the encoder.

The biggest issue I have is the magnet doesn't really sit too flush on the bottom of the shaft. This would cause "floating" where if I pushed down, and let go, the controller would still see "down" slightly. You could see the evidence in Ultramap, where the cursor would not be centered. I use a hard spring and the octo restrictor as well.

I think my only solution is to find a smaller magnet? The controller does work on rotary games, from Ikari to Forgotten Worlds.

Overall I'm happy with the controls, but they're best used for rotary games and not for normal use. I have a 4 player CP, and used to have the rotary sticks as 1 and 2, but they weren't responsive enough to notice flaws in playing street fighter and MK. I moved them to player 3&4 and use regular Ultrastiks for 1 and 2, since they get more use than rotary option games.

If Andy upgrades the design flaws, I would be interested in replacing my rotary sticks.


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[MydknyteStyrm]

Oh, and in case you're wondering, most of my Mame settings have the digital speed to 1 or 2, this allows the U360 encoder to work damn near flawlessly when turning the stick.


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[haynor666]

All You wrote here is true.



The black plastik that covers rotary encoder also on my U360 hits restrictor and magnet hits screws as well so magnet slightly moves of the shaft. Solution would be use restrictor with slight smaller hole.

There is also one funny downside of upgrade - it seems that connector for buttons is now on the opposite side of PCB vs original U360 pcb as my directions after connection are opposite. Sadly I have too short cables for buttons to mount it correctly so I have to invert directions in mame and frontend :/

That being said the encoder has a slight design flaw at present that I'm hoping to work with Andy to solve.  Because the mount is attached to one of the posts, moving the joystick in the axis that the mount is not attached to results in the 'ever so slightly' tilting/rotating of the shaft and the encoder.  You can see this behavior easily on your windows desktop.  Just plugin the joystick and move the stick around, you will see the mouse cursor move a good ways when that axis is exercised.

I'm affraid all rotary sticks has the same problem.

About issues with 12 positional games like Ikari Warriors. It seems that either mame needs lower sensivity than 1 or U360 rotary needs lower resolution. Right it's impossible to set Ikari Warriors to fully rotate player with one full rotation of stick. Described it  here - http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=6154

[Thorvald]

The biggest issue I have is the magnet doesn't really sit too flush on the bottom of the shaft. This would cause "floating" where if I pushed down, and let go, the controller would still see "down" slightly. You could see the evidence in Ultramap, where the cursor would not be centered. I use a hard spring and the octo restrictor as well.

I think my only solution is to find a smaller magnet? The controller does work on rotary games, from Ikari to Forgotten Worlds.

Interesting you say that, mine also has an issue with down but it due to slop in mine, I can actually get the stick to rest in three directions with a fair bit of angle still.  I've torn it apart multiple times and tried new grease etc, going to have to setting for a larger dead zone for now in all my maps as even in the 8 way map with the large center sticky, I still get random down signals.

I did notice the end of the shaft is not the same as the original.  If you look at the original magnet and end of the shaft, it is much larger (and quote hard to get the magnet on and off).  The two magnets are not compatible as the rotary upgrade shaft is thinner in diameter at the end.  So I would surmise that it is easier for the magnet to not sit "flat" with the smaller surface area.

However the clearance at the extremes of my stick are not hitting the white nuts, VERY CLOSE but not hitting.  However I'll keep an eye on it and either flip the white nuts or make new ones out of nylon that are not so tall.

Cheers

[Thorvald]

FYI, think I found a solution for my "slop" in my stick.  Andy pointed me in the direction and some googling found it.

The Ultramap editor does not show the "map border locations" (at least not yet... *hint*) but you can edit the map files manually.  I increased the "center cell" to create an artificial dead zone and initial tests look good.

here is a image courtesy of a user named "Ruckage" over on the Mameworld forums (link posted as well):



http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=340247&page=3&view=expanded&sb=7&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

The image perfectly explains how it works (in fact, Andy you should ask to borrow that image and put on your website, it's perfect).  I changed all the MapBorderLocaitons on all my maps (don't forget to go into the LEDBlinky directory and change the maps there if you use it) to use the second image settings.

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This doesn't solve the rotary issue but should help my slop.

Cheers
   Tim

[AndyWarne]

Looking at the above, I am not sure why some people have had clearance issues with these although the white thumbnuts can be fitted the other way.

We might need to look into this in more detail.

I am open to suggestions about firmware changes which help with the issue of the rotary turning when the stick is moved. It would be possible to inhibit rotary movement when the stick is being moved in the X-Y directions but not sure if that would impact usage in games.

Andy

[Thorvald]

Just an update, the MapBorder feature seems to have solved my issues. Happier this morning, time for more Baileys and Coffee :-)

---

Thanks Andy, I'd love to help out with this.  The one suggestion I can come up with is a simple config option for "mouse axis offset".

1.  Ask user what axis the rotary bracket is located on (X or Y), this axis will not affect the rotary so we select the opposite axis.
2.  Have user center joystick as perfectly as possible, record current rotary position
3.  Have user deflect stick fully in one direction on this axis found above in step 1, record rotary offset 1.
4.  Have user deflect stick fully in the other direction on this axis found above in step 1, record rotary offset 2.
5.  Apply offsets to rotary based upon axis position.

While not perfect as I have found the offsets to drift slightly as your hand also causes the stick to rotate (or not) it should be a huge improvement.  I just need some time to mock up a simple app to test.

Cheers
   Tim

[haynor666]

Looking at the above, I am not sure why some people have had clearance issues with these although the white thumbnuts can be fitted the other way.

This will not help - magnet still hits plastic screw.

As for movement of magnet I used glue to attach magnet into shaft. That solves problems on original U360.

BTW. Why buttons connector is on the opposite side of PCB vs original design ?

[MydknyteStyrm]

This is how I shaved the white fitting nuts.



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