Strange P360 Problem

[Doc-]

I wired up two P360's tonight.  One of them is working perfectly.  The other works in all four basic directions, but does not seem to catch diagonals at all on one direction (down I think).  In fact it does not even register the down direction unless it is approached from a perfectly vertical angle.  Anthing on the diagonal or even slightly off center registers as nothing.

I checked the assembly twice (disassembled and reassembled).  Both the actuator and pivot are facing the correct direction.  The wiring is also correct.   The joystick is really not usable in this state as the diagonals are pretty important. 

My thoughts are I might have a bad optical sensor in that direction - but I thought I would check here first before disassembling and trying to send it back...

Cheers!
Doc-

[Thenasty]

one more thing to check, before sending it back, swap the joysticks. I mean if the working one is Joystick one with INPUT 1234 and JOy 2 the bad is 5678 make Joy2 the bad one INPUT 1234.
Just make sure its not the INPUTS. Don't know how its connected, it might be GHOST if a keyboard hack is used.

[spiffyshoes]

It is possible one of your optics is bent.  It's not that hard to bend it back so that it's facing the right direction.

[Doc-]

Nasty,
  I did swap the joysticks (I have a modular panel) and indeed the "good" joystick works in either position while the "bad" one does not.

  Spiffyshoes - Any advice on "aligning" the optics - I'm certainly willing to give it a try rather than send the thing back.  It certainly looks like an optical alignment problem to me based on a side-by-side comparison with the working joystick.

Thanks!
Brad

[Thenasty]

before doing that alignment thig, maybe just try to clean off the optics first. Just use a AIR BLOWER or something to see if there are any dirt/lint covering it.

[rdagger]

I had the same problem and it turned out to be the actuator, which looked OK except for an abrasion/scratch near the bottom.  I replaced the actuator and it fixed the problem.  Try swapping your actuators.

Also the P360  requires dedicated ports on the keyboard encoder.  If you try to share the port with another stick or button without using a diode you can get strange behaviour.

[Doc-]

Follow-up,
  Not sure exactly what fixed it, but I disassembled the whole thing (down to the PC board), carefully cleaned the optics, and put a new actuator on it.

  Both now work perfectly, and they are quite amazing.  You can really tell the difference in games like Robotron where you need precise movement and short throws.  It almost feels like I'm cheating!

  I'm a little confused by the need for dedicated ports.  I have a totally modular panel and all of my joystick and button ports are mapped multiply (2 ports for joy1, 2 ports for joy2 and so on - see the web site).  I just plugged in a 4 way joystick along with the P360 on the same joystick port (joy1) and both work perfectly for in-game play. 

  Any reason why I would need diodes if it is working fine?

Thanks again for all of your help!

Doc-

[Thenasty]

it was that DIRT 

Anyway, you can also hook up a leaf style switch installed diagonally for your 360 for the perfect Q-bert/Congo Bongo Games.