Will my new JLF's take a beating like my old Happs' comps?

[rackoon]

So I am on my 5th cab ( I teach shop 1 period a day) and I decided to go with custom led JLF joysticks from Paradise Arcade Shop. Man these are sweet. Got an oversize acuator, a hexagon thingy on the bottom, a light spring, zippy micro switches, and a nice led ball top. Just touch this thing and it clicks. I know its going to be fast.

We play mostly fighting games and Golden Tee

Anyway I have always used Happs Bat tops competitions and they take a beating. They get slammed from time to time when I have to put a street fighter 2 beat down on one of my students. They aint use to an old guy kicking ass at video games; I talk a lot of trash too.

Any one out there put some serious time into these JLF sticks? I know the Japanese love them and the fight scene use them a lot. If they didnt cost so much I would beat the crap out of one just to find out. 

[paigeoliver]

None of the Japanese sticks will hold up like a Comp or a Super. That is why not even Capcom used the things outside of Japan. You are unlikely to break new ones in home use though.

As for them being better, it is sort of a chicken and egg thing. The competitive fighting game scene is rooted in Japan, where the only options available are the fragile Japanese style sticks. Thus that is what all the Japanese top players use. All the American players copy the Japanese players, thus they all use the same thing.

Hope you like some diagonals, because an oversized actuator is going to give you so much diagonal that you may not know what to with it all. I have some Japanese sticks here that are like 90 percent diagonal, if you are even off a primary direction by the tiniest bit then you are hitting a corner switch. Going from activating one corner to the next with only a 2mm movement at the top of the ball.

[rackoon]

I have 150 students per day, so its not only for home use. 

So whats going to break on this thing? Its looks like the case will crack if anything. 

i suppose if it all goes south I will complain about it here and switch back to happs comps; I just want to try something different this time.

[brad808]

They aren't going to break on you. Jlfs are perfectly fine. They have been used in candy cabs for over 20 years now and are still used today for a reason. My versus city came stock with them and it was released in 1996. I'm almost positive they were out before that even. If they couldn't take the abuse don't you think Japanese arcades (which are the only arcades in the entire world that are thriving) could source some Happ supers? They wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on cabinets and not be willing to spend $10 to replace a joystick they knew would fail on them.

Keep in mind paigeolivers goal on this site for years now has been to make sure everyone uses crappy clunky joysticks and pentium 4s which he's been very outspoken and opinionated about.

[paigeoliver]

They aren't going to break on you. Jlfs are perfectly fine. They have been used in candy cabs for over 20 years now and are still used today for a reason. My versus city came stock with them and it was released in 1996. I'm almost positive they were out before that even. If they couldn't take the abuse don't you think Japanese arcades (which are the only arcades in the entire world that are thriving) could source some Happ supers? They wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on cabinets and not be willing to spend $10 to replace a joystick they knew would fail on them.

Keep in mind paigeolivers goal on this site for years now has been to make sure everyone uses crappy clunky joysticks and pentium 4s which he's been very outspoken and opinionated about.

I actually prefer Wicos with the grommets, which are anything but clunky, but they are no longer easily sourced so I don't point people towards them anymore.

It is a cultural thing. Japanese players are unlikely to vandalize the machine or actively attempt to break the sticks. American players, not as nice. However your shop students are at school with a teacher and thus they probably aren't going to try to break them.

[opt2not]

JLF's, like every joystick, just needs to be maintained.

They will last you forever with the proper care, and maintenance. I use a wide variety of joysticks for multiple games that require it (i'm a stickler for using the controls the game was designed for).  For JLF's, I make sure I clean and re-lube the parts every so often. Really, the only thing that may stop working over time is the switches...but that's the same with every joystick. Luckily Sanwa products are in abundance these days, so finding a replacement part for the switch PCB is easy. Everything else is made of high quality metal and plastic, down to the even the housing.