Solved an issue with some diagonals not working on my arcade joystick

[Crtified]

Pre- note: For veterans, this won't be a new issue. Systematic build method would prevent it occurring in the first place. So I present this merely as anecdotal fodder for future searchers.

Situation

In the midst of doing arcade cabinet maintenance, I needed to replace a controller board which ran a cab's arcade controls. After subbing in a new controller board, I had issues with two of the joystick's diagonals not working in games. A lot of Google results regarding problematic diagonals suggested a physical problem. For example: badly aligned stick installation, or restrictor gate, or bad switch. But I knew that in my case it could not be those.

Cause found:

After troubleshooting, I located the cause: the joystick's pinout is, strangely (don'taskmewhy!), DRUL. Interleaved axes. While the controller board, is ordered in the more standard UDLR order. That is to say, paired axes. Normally, you'd expect such differences wouldn't matter - one can simply configure in software, as needed.

The problem here is that the controller board disallows what it thinks of as 'illegal' UD or LR combos. So it simply purges those. Leaving the user in an initially-confusing situation where all four of the main directions, and two of the diagonals, will seem to work perfectly fine - and the other two diagonals (corresponding to the controller board's UD + LR pin combinations), not at all!

Conclusion:

If you're having problems with your joystick diagonals after a new install, check that your joystick's pinout and your controller board's expected pinout match. Particularly in terms of how the axes are paired together. Else situations can arise where all of the individual directions will work perfectly fine, but (some of) the diagonals will not! Hope this helps somebody facing this niche situation in future.

[Zebidee]

Thanks for the post. Interesting issue to get your head around. What joysticks in particular were you having these issues with?

[Crtified]

It's a Sanwa joystick. To a DIY Daemonbite adapter. Which makes my issue unusual, because the pinouts should have matched, in theory. My machine is not made for working on, so it's a real pain to get in there and figure out exactly why they didn't - I won't, today. Potential/theoretical causes abound, I suppose.

Anyway, just thought I'd post it. Because while Googling for a solution to issues with diagonals, I came across a number of forum posts describing very similar issues - namely, 2 of the 4 diagonals not working - and very few of them figured out the reason why. After my experiences today, I strongly suspect some of them would have been unknowingly encountering the issue I did.

Namely, a controller board which is actively parsing it's inputs, and disallowing certain combinations, on the basis that it has assigned specific pins as U, D, L, and R.

[Zebidee]

It's a Sanwa joystick. Which makes my issue unusual, because the pinouts should have matched. My machine is not made for working on, so it's a real pain to get in there and figure out exactly why they didn't - I won't, today.

Anyway, just thought I'd post it. Because while Googling for a solution to issues with diagonals, I came across a number of forum posts describing very similar issues - namely, 2 of the 4 diagonals not working - and very few of them figured out the reason why. After my experiences today, I strongly suspect some of them would have been unknowingly encountering the issue I did.

I suspected you were talking about Sanwa's. They are less common of these forums US-based forums, and have the integrated connector.

I am building a cab with Sanwa joys ATM, but still early stages so haven't encountered the interface issue yet.

I am wondering if this is due to joystick X-Y orientation? Also, can it be resolved by physically moving connector pins?

Interested in what you find.

[Crtified]

It's a Sanwa joystick. Which makes my issue unusual, because the pinouts should have matched. My machine is not made for working on, so it's a real pain to get in there and figure out exactly why they didn't - I won't, today.

Anyway, just thought I'd post it. Because while Googling for a solution to issues with diagonals, I came across a number of forum posts describing very similar issues - namely, 2 of the 4 diagonals not working - and very few of them figured out the reason why. After my experiences today, I strongly suspect some of them would have been unknowingly encountering the issue I did.

I suspected you were talking about Sanwa's. They are less common of these forums US-based forums, and have the integrated connector.

I am building a cab with Sanwa joys ATM, but still early stages so haven't encountered the interface issue yet.

I am wondering if this is due to joystick X-Y orientation? Also, can it be resolved by physically moving connector pins?

Interested in what you find.

You're quite right, it's probably related to orientation of installation - I have it in the (I think non-default) horizontal alignment.

I have resolved it by taking the 5-wire cable connecting the joystick to the controller board, and swapping two of the wires over (by cutting and resoldering in-situ, which happened to be the easiest method in the moment).  That grouped the directions back into the adjacent pairs LR/UD, from the controller's point of view, and everything is happy again...

[Zebidee]

Very good, and thank you for posting your solution   

[Crtified]

Many thanks good sir 

[ZephyrResto]

It's a Sanwa joystick. Which makes my issue unusual, because the pinouts should have matched. My machine is not made for working on, so it's a real pain to get in there and figure out exactly why they didn't - I won't, today.

Anyway, just thought I'd post it. Because while Googling for a solution to issues with diagonals, I came across a number of forum posts describing very similar issues - namely, 2 of the 4 diagonals not working - and very few of them figured out the reason why. After my experiences today, I strongly suspect some of them would have been unknowingly encountering the issue I did.

I suspected you were talking about Sanwa's. They are less common of these forums US-based forums, and have the integrated connector.

I am building a cab with Sanwa joys ATM, but still early stages so haven't encountered the interface issue yet.

I am wondering if this is due to joystick X-Y orientation? Also, can it be resolved by physically moving connector pins?

Interested in what you find.

You're quite right, it's probably related to orientation of installation - I have it in the (I think non-default) horizontal alignment.

I have resolved it by taking the 5-wire cable connecting the joystick to the controller board, and swapping two of the wires over (by cutting and resoldering in-situ, which happened to be the easiest method in the moment).  That grouped the directions back into the adjacent pairs LR/UD, from the controller's point of view, and everything is happy again...

Thank you for this post. Here I am 3 years later with the same problem. I had to mount my ServoStik's orientated 180 degrees from normal to fit into my CP. Can you share which two pins on the cable you switched?

Thank you!
Brett