ROTARY T-STIK PLUS (PLUS) - Willy Wonka Edition

[hyiu]

I keep thinking.... the only flaw for this design is...

when you move the stick.... it might somewhat affect the position of clicking.... what if I attach a "plane" on the other piece and attach the spinning gear on the stick ??... then
when you move the stick... the "plane" will also move....

ok.... ok.... I don't think you'll understand what I mean....
let me try again..... I'll go dig the digaram.... now...

ok.... go to happcontrols.com... look at the competition stick...

at the part 95-0197-00 (its the square part that you put on the stick....)
you attach a small piece of plastic (like 2 in x 2 in)....

and on that plastic.... you screw / nail the microswitch on it !!!...
so when you move the stick.... the plane will move accordingly !!!... but when you rotate the stick... the plane will not follow the rotation !!

and then the gear and stuffs.... you put on the shaft itself....

well... this is just a thought..... not completely worked out the details yet....  you might end up needing a longer stick or something..... or might need to modd the stick more for this to work....  I'm just thinking out loud....

well... I'll go home and check the competition stick tonight when I get home...

[hyiu]

also... u put the ms against each other... no need for springs !!!....

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Stick this on the bottom of the t-stick and you're set.  

You'd have to extend the shaft in some way, it's way too short to add anything substantial. As it is, this hack uses the pulley in place of the lock-nut as there isn't room for both.

I've thought about mounting a very thin notched disc above the pulley (think larger mouse encoding wheel), then using a thick wire, maybe two, (think heavy paperclip) mounted via the microswitch screw, hanging down and creating the "click". Haven't had time to try it yet.
Maybe this crappy ascii will better explain:
_____________________________
|                                                        |
|                    joystick                        |        
|____________________________|
                        |   |                |[====] <-----microswitch
                        |   |shaft        |    <-----------wire
                        |   |                |
            ==============O    <------------encoder, rounded end of wire clicks into it when turned
                  [||||||||||||]      <---------------pulley      
                         [_]
     

[jcoleman]

Stick this on the bottom of the t-stick and you're set.  

You'd have to extend the shaft in some way, it's way too short to add anything substantial. As it is, this hack uses the pulley in place of the lock-nut as there isn't room for both.

You may even be able to use a tee nut to hold the wheel on there.

 

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Hey, I believe I found a site that sells 12 flange/groove pulleys. See if any of these will work.


https://sdp-si.com/eStore/Direct.asp?GroupID=218

That is a GREAT link! Thanks! I'm searching it now for replacement (pre-threaded) metal pulleys for this hack. I'll post if there is any success.

[depressd]

Your very welcome mr.Curmudgeon. It took me about an hr searching. Like most good things. I stumbled across it.  

[2600]

Wanted to thank mr.Curmudgeon for the idea.

I took your idea, but with a P360.  I also threw out the idea of not modifying the joystick.  I had some extra shafts and didn't really care if I modified them slightly.   It's actually pretty sweet, I've hooked up both P1 (X-axis) and P2 (Y-axis), modified the source in Mame and have two player rotary control goodness.

Thanks again for the idea.  I'll post more info if anyone is interested, just let me know.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

You are very welcome. I'd LOVE to see pics. Feel free to add them to this thread, as it would only serve to help others.

[SpamMe]

why not use something like a dremel flexshaft attached to a spinner?

[2600]

why not use something like a dremel flexshaft attached to a spinner?

Cost?  At least $50 just for the 2 flexshafts, not including mounting, plus 2 spinners.

Accuracy?  Those things operate at thousands of RPMs, How accurate are they for turning 1/8 or 1/4 of a single revolution.

[2600]

Sorry for not getting the pics up sooner, as you'll see I couldn't get a good picture.  But here's what I did for my P360:

1. I used the same pulley, belt, and mouse hack.
2. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the joystick shaft.  Normal drill with a 3/32 bit.  Drilling went pretty easy and drilled down about 1/3"
3.  Bought the RC car shaft for the pulley's and sliced it so that I had both ends of the shaft with a dremel.  I used this shaft so that I could use the pin and e-clip to keep the pulley in place.
4.  Sanded/grinded the end I had cut to fit into the hole I drilled in the joystick with a dremel.   I did this to make it a bit more stable.
5.  I used JB weld to fuse the two shaft together.
6. Then attached the belt and mouse just like mr.Curmudgeon.  BTW, it took me for every to find a thin piece of aluminum to attach the mouse to give it some flex.  The aluminum the mouse is attached to is Plumber's tape and was in a roll in the plumbing section.
7.  The only other thing I did was the pulley wouldn't fit on the y-axis of the mouse for player 2.  So I put it on the x-axis and the cut the lead of the ic for the x-axis input.  I then soldered a wire from that trace to the y-axis input.

Here's the pics:
 

[2600]

Another pic without the flash, to see the JB Weld.  Looks better than the pic suggests.

[2600]

Last pic with Pulley attached:

[mr.Curmudgeon]

AWESOME!!

Sorry I hadn't seen this until now...How's it working for you so far?

mrC

[2600]

It works great.  Can't even feel the pulley attached.   I've been doing some other things, but I still need to adjust my settings in Ikari.  Maybe I need to adjust the difficulty dipswitch while I'm at it, because I got killed last time I played and didn't recall having that many people killing me.

By accident I used it in Discs of Tron and beat my Hi score on the first try with out losing a life.

Thanks again for your idea.

[Silver]

Hmmm does anyone have any ideas for extending the shaft of a joystick - I'm looking to implement something like this hack on my J-sticks, but the shaft is short and has a different end than the t-sticks. ("J-stick has an e-clip to retain it (rather than a nut like the T-Stik)")

I don't really have any tools for drilling into the shaft itself. I'm considering a simple superglue option done with care'n'clamps....

[wj2k3]

Mount a piece of plastic (as mentioned acouple posts earlier) but have it click  against the gear on the mouse, instead of the stick.   Then you don't have to worry about the movement of the stick.

[Stingray]

I came late to this party, but I just wanted to say that this is perhaps the nuttiest hack I've yet seen on this site. mr.Curmudgeon is my new hero. Well done!

-S

[BuZz880]

I started to build one of the original Mr. Curmudgeon versions of this hack last night and the one problem I have so far is the T-Stick PLUS option does not work because the plastic gear does not genereate enough friction against the u-shaped metal piece of the T-stick to turn the lever from 4/8 way locking position.  Basically the gear just turns with the shaft and the locking mechanism stays put... I tried it with and without the lock washer and also tried filing both surfaces to rough them up and create some friction.  I may try super glue but wondered if anyone had found a more creative solution to this same problem?

TIA

[Minwah]

Hmmm does anyone have any ideas for extending the shaft of a joystick - I'm looking to implement something like this hack on my J-sticks, but the shaft is short and has a different end than the t-sticks.

Shaft coupler.  You would slide it over the existing shaft, and tighten up a grub screw, then slide in the new shaft (same diameter) into the other half of the coupler, and do up another grub screw.

...where you would get one from in the UK I have no idea tho 

If you figure anything out be sure to post...I'd given up on this mod for the J-Stik...

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Basically the gear just turns with the shaft and the locking mechanism stays put...

Damn...I haven't had any problem with it yet, still working fine. Maybe I just got lucky with the threading. Obviously the one improvement would be to replace the plastic gear w/ a metal version. I've tried contacting the pulley/gear manufactorer from the link upthread, but they haven't gotten back to me yet.

Maybe someone with more technical knowledge could see if they offer an appropriate gear on the site: https://sdp-si.com/eStore/Direct.asp?GroupID=218

Sorry you're having trouble with it Buzz, I'm looking for a way to eliminate that issue.

mrC

[Nannuu]

Hmmm does anyone have any ideas for extending the shaft of a joystick - I'm looking to implement something like this hack on my J-sticks, but the shaft is short and has a different end than the t-sticks.

Shaft coupler.

[Rip]

I love when older posts come back around and you learn something you had missed 

I tried this solution with no costs, used an existing joystick and an old mouse.  It has not been 100% playtested yet, but it really does work nicely with an 8% sensitivy analog setting in MAME.  Only took about 1 1/2 hrs to put a prototype it together, but I was lucky that everything fit (ie..the height of the roller in the mouse matched exactly the height of the joystick 'groove').

A standard rubber band seems to do the trick.  It seems the wider the better for more surface contact.  The groove on the joystick acts as a natural channel to keep the rubber band in place.

Now if only Frontline was configured to use the mouse 

[Silver]

If you figure anything out be sure to post...I'd given up on this mod for the J-Stik...

I managed to hack a couple of J-sticks to rotary using a different method. I came across a couple of old rotary encoders from old peice of audio kit. I checked the specs and it claimed a "2-bit gray encoding" for the output - however it turns out (after a quick conflab with Andy from Ultimarc!) that this is in fact just a phase difference - which is exactly how analogue arcade controls work - so it works fine with the optipac. If you are interested I can track down some more details......

[Minwah]

I managed to hack a couple of J-sticks to rotary using a different method. I came across a couple of old rotary encoders from old peice of audio kit. I checked the specs and it claimed a "2-bit gray encoding" for the output - however it turns out (after a quick conflab with Andy from Ultimarc!) that this is in fact just a phase difference - which is exactly how analogue arcade controls work - so it works fine with the optipac. If you are interested I can track down some more details......

Yea I'm interested!   Have you got any pics of how you attached it to the J-stik?

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I tried this solution with no costs, used an existing joystick and an old mouse.

LOL!! That's awesome...it looks a LOT like the prototype I built to test the idea myself. I used a rubber band attached right on to the shaft of the joystick and it worked...although it didn't stay on long, but it worked fine for testing.

I'm still looking to improve the current hack, since it seems the plastic pulley is giving people some trouble on the T-stik Plus (ie: not enough torque to switch, due to slippage)....So keep that in mind.

[koolmoecraig]

Would metal gears from an R/C car motor or gearbox work??

Just thinking

[BuZz880]

I'm still looking to improve the current hack, since it seems the plastic pulley is giving people some trouble on the T-stik Plus (ie: not enough torque to switch, due to slippage)....So keep that in mind.

A drop of Super Glue fixed the problem for a while.  Just let go last night.  I think i'll try again though I don't like how this could end up being a fairly permanent thing if it works.

I might try some sort of lubricant on the joystick shaft while I have it apart as well just to smooth out the spin motion a bit... I'm thinking silicone CPU heat transfer grease might work and at least it won't hurt anything. 

Also, I want to invert my mouse on the mounting bracket to try and get closer to exact height between the pulleys but this will reverse the direction of rotation.  I know I can fix this in the MAME setup but that also will reverse my trackball and stuff so instead I think I might try and change the wiring on the mouse.  Any one know anything about all these pinouts?  I don't really want to get into analogmame at this point.

[daywane]

I just read few posts back someone just cut the wires to y and moved them to x or vice versa.

[BuZz880]

Ya, thats not the same as reversing the direction of an axis.

Its OK, I creatively modified the mouse a little more to get it perfectly aligned with the height of the pulley on the joystick shaft.  It is now perfect.. as long as the Super Glue that enables my 4/8 way selectivity holds.  Very smooth.  Zero detectable impact on normal (non rotational) joystick use and I can reach 40,000 in Discs of Tron already and previously had never surpassed about 20,000 (using a Saitek flight stick and trackball combination) - not that I play dotron alot but the point is its a great controller now... it doesn't replace a nice heavy spinner in games like Tempest but I actually think its better than the Discs of Tron original controller setup (I always found it hard to precisely move Tron with the big flightstick yoke thing).  I never really played too many Rotary games in the arcade like Ikari, etc. but this solution seems perfect for those games on my cab... I do not see a huge need for clicking, I can see the point, but overall I would say I prefer not to add even slight resistance to the rotary action.

[muttonchop]

i just found this, and im in love with it.  How well will this work with happs supers?  I may break down and get the t-sticks, but im already WAY ovewrbudget with my cab....and its not even finished yet

[leapinlew]

Nice work Mr. C!

 

[blueznl]

Unfortunately I don't have the tools nor the time for this, but here's my take on this concept, creating a 'Spinstik'. Dear Ultimarc, feel free to turn this into a commercial product, just make sure I get two of these!

It's actually so simple, I might even be able to build this from a piece of Lego, come to think of it... I know that movement of the stick may affect the rotary position, but that should be small enough for rotary stick applications. I think 

[blueznl]

Gosh, I feel dumb. Of course someone had to sell this somewhere to begin with. Well, as was duly pointed out to me Happ did... http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/rotary_optical_joy_e.htm

(At least I can honestly claim I never saw that before I made this drawing. Great minds think alike etc. etc.  )

[mr.Curmudgeon]

 

[abaraba]

BYOAC - "Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic."

I think reply fits, new topic can be started later if preferable.


Anyway, there might be simpler and possibly "better" solution if you are using MAME and have game port on your PC. All you need is 2 variable resistors in range from 0 - 100 kohm to make any two joystick become rotary sticks, or better to say "analog dials".


http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_circuits.html


First, it's good to know how to trick computer into detecting there is joystick on the game port.

Code: [Select]

    pin 1      +5      ________________
                                        |
                                        |
     pin 3      stick 1x _______________|
                                        |
                                        |
     pin 6      stick 1y _______________|

Say we assign X-axis to Player 1 and Y-axis to Player 2 clockwise/anticlockwise rotation. This wiring, without any potentiometers and resistors, would then set both Player 1 & 2 dials to maximum anticlockwise (max. left) position. So, what you want to do is this:

Code: [Select]

    pin 1      +5      ________________
                                        |
                             0-100k     |
     pin 3      stick 1x ____/\/\/\_____|
                                        |
                             0-100 k    |
     pin 6      stick 1y ____/\/\/\_____|


Plug in two variable resistors, so at 0 kohm the dials are at maximum anticlockwise, at 50 kohm they are centered, and with 100 kohm they are at their maximum clockwise position.


Now, the only question remains where to place it, it needs to rotate against static frame of the joystick. There is bottom, the middle and the top, where the problem is keeping the "horizontal" planes of the stick and the static frame parallel.

Code: [Select]

             ___                         BALL horizontal plane
           /     \   ===========================================
          |       |
           \     /                         TOP horizontal plane  
             | | ................................................  
             | |
             | |
             | |                                         MIDDLE
             | | ................................................  
 ___________ | | _____________
|___________\   /_____________|
   |         | |          |                          STATIC horizontal plane
   |         | |          | ==================================================
   |----------------------|
             | |                                         BOTTOM
             | | ................................................      
             ===


The bottom seem to be the most troublesome as the angle between "BOTTOM" plane and "STATIC" frame plane may vary wildly during the gamepley, so this need to involve some springs, rubber and such flexibility, which I think is preferable to avoid, if possible.

Only the top planes always stay parallel for sure, so the best place for this "pot" would be inside the ball. Only you would need a hollow stick to pass wires down.

The second best place could be the middle, where on some joystick there is plastic half-ball joint piece stick goes through and it also leans together with the stick, but stays fixed around vertical axis becasue of the spring downward pressure, so the stick rotates against it. That seems like a very good place for potentiometer, if I could only find one that is shaped like ring so to fix it to this half-ball joint and so that stick can pass through it as well, but in any case that could be made.

...unless, there is some even simpler solution?




BTW, my problem is how to make this work with real PCB, such as Caliber 50, so if you know how actual optical rotary joystick works please let me know - I started thread about it in the main forum.

[abaraba]

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

MAME does not translate analog joystick movement as spinner displacement, but as the speed of rotation. For the above to work you would then need to change this code handling "Analog Dial" in MAME, so the movement is displacement and then normally the speed would become 'displacement over time', as it should be.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I love that someone is still thinking about ways to improve this.   

[abaraba]

This is very good hack here:

http://www.trimoor.com/rotary_joystick/








...btw, I also solved my problem, so I can tell that above right there is all you need to make this spinner work with actual arcade board, and to make it work with your PC and MAME you would also need the rest of the mouse, which then serves the same purpose as OptiPac adapter - converts quadrature code to serial PC packets. These mechanical encoders seem to be much more practical than potentiometers, especially since they are compatible with arcade spinners and trackballs out-of-the-box, so I take back my suggestions about resistors and analog joystick port. Anyway, I explained all this a bit more here, in my original thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107640.0


mr.Curmudgeon,
your hack is also great, especially considering it is only "add-on" as opposed to "modification", very good!