Atari Star Wars yoke

[kspiff]

Star Wars yokes -- as far as I know -- all have metal/steel handles.

If there is any interest I could likely check my RoadBlasters yoke to see if the handles could be made to rotate (but it looks like it would be mucho trouble to do and require many parts).  Keep in mind, however, that RoadBlasters yokes use optic boards/encoder wheels rather than pots so there's more hardware you'd have to purchase (extra optic board, gears, encoder wheel) and the hack would be different (Opti-Pac or a mouse hack).

As for TwistyGrip, I got started on one of these and ended up just scrapping it and getting a SW yoke instead -- it didn't feel right, wasn't very sturdy, looked akward, and the buttons (that they suggest, anyways) feel crappy.  I guess it works for some, but it would look kind of stupid on a cab.

[Wolfman]

Thanks, I'll need to add 2 pairs of buttons, so I was wondering how much drilling I'd have to do. As for the Roadblasters yoke, I don't think I could convert it to rotate if its fixed, not with my limited amount of tools anyway.

[kspiff]

2 more thumb buttons?  That might be possible, but the hole would likely have to be drilled on the seam between the handle pieces like the other button (which might be a pain unless you have a drill press or Dremel tool).  Also, while there should be enough 'real estate' left in the handle for another microswitch and button assembly, there wouldn't be any rails to guide the button's shaft or place to mount the microswitch.  I wouldn't want to undertake a project like that -- seems like a lot of trouble and I'm not even sure what you'd hack it with, with that many buttons.

If you do undertake such a project, try to get a few pairs of classicade.com's replacement thumb buttons.  That guy is awesome and so are his buttons (besides that I have no idea where else you'd get them ).

You may want to look at Xiayou2(?)'s yoke.. it's completely/mostly made of wood.. would leave room for flexibility and probably be inexpensive.

k-spiff

[Wolfman]

I will rewire the buttons serialy so that 2 buttons perform the same fonction, one on each grip. The Atari yoke has 4 buttons (not sure about the S.T.U.N. yoke), in Windows this gives you 4 functions. I'd install another button for each. So for example, the 2 triggers would be rewired so that both are connected to the wire from the left trigger, while the wire from the right trigger would be connected to another pair and so on. This would give me 8 buttons which perform 4 functions.

This means that I would have to install 2 buttons, and 2 special switches, called Palm Switches (the big red ones with finger indents, check the photo on the 1st page of this thread). I already have the parts with finger indents, just need to see if there is enough room in the grips on the yoke to stuff them in there. If not, I'll settle for just 2 extra buttons.

Thanks for the tip on where to get the buttons, I was already starting to wonder about that one.