Rotating joystick for Qbert project

[severdhed]

Hey guys, i'ts been a while since i've done anything here, but i'm getting the itch to build another cabinet. Early next year, we will be moving our I.T. business into a new building with more space. When I do, I plan on building a cabinet or two for us to use in our free time.  my 4 player pedestal cabinet is probably moving from my house to the office, but i want something dedicated for vertical monitor classics.    I plan on building a wall mount cabinet with a vertical monitor, 4 way joystick and just a few buttons. (still deciding if i want to put in a trackball for millipede/centipede or just continue to play them on the big one.


anyway, one of my all time favorite classic games is QBert.  Normally i just use an 8 way stick with a square gate and map the controls to use the diagonals, but sometimes this leads to missed inputs.  i really want a 4 way joystick mounted at 45 degrees to properly play this game, but building a dedicated qbert cabinet seems like a waste of space/materials.  So decided to engineer my own solution.  i fired up tinkercad and started 3d modeling a mounting plate that I could use to secure the joystick that would allow me to rotate it for qbert.  My first prototype finished printing this morning, so i threw it in a cardboard box and started testing.  so far, i'm quite pleased with it.  I was originally planning on using a Sanwa JLW stick, since they are my favorite, but i didn't have one with me while i was modeling at work yesterday. apparently i used the measurements for a JLF stick instead.   Fortunately I had some JLF sticks that i can borrow from another project. 

basically i removed the metal mounting plate from the stick, and replaced it with a 3d printed circular plate. this has a lip on the bottom that rides in a groove on the back of the larger outsite mounting ring. there is a slot in the back right corner with a knob that can be rotated so switch the stick from normal 4 way mode, to 45 degree rotated mode for qbert.  i need to tweak the tolerances a little, and design some kind of retention system to help hold it in place at the two ends of the travel, but overall i'm fairly happy with how it turned out so far.    you have to cut a 4" hole in the wooden panel below for the body of the joystick to freely rotate.

what are your thoughts?  do you see anyting that i should change/improve?    Since the JLF stick is a little bit smaller than the JLW, i may try to reduce the overall size of each piece a little.  I normally cover my control panels in plexi, but i'd have to somehow route a curved slot in it for the knob to travel, i don't think the current slot is large enough for my flush trim bit to fit in it.  the other option i guess is to just surface mount the plate and skip the plexi.



Full plate mounted in cardboard box


closup of pacman knob


under side of joystick plate


underside of mounting ring

[pbj]

That’s really cool and would have blown our BYOAC minds back in the day.