Crazy Climber Joystick Pics

[NoOne=NBA=]

"No, really honey, it was just there when I woke up this morning."
-NoOne



That's yesterday's score for me.
I had to drive 7 hrs round-trip to pick it up though.
I didn't get home until 1:00 AM.

Last Thursday, this one appeared in my living room.



Gotta love them elves.


I do have a question though.

Has anyone ever seen board problems, where the controls will function intermittently?
When I fire up the Crazy Climber, it will have short periods where the left stick won't go up, then that will work but the right stick won't go left, etc...
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it that I can determine though--like left doesn't work here, up doesn't work there, etc...

I'm planning to replace both sticks anyway, but the stupid CP is bolted into place, rather than panel-latched, like my Radical Radial.

[AlanS17]

I would tend to blame your problem on bad wiring or a bad connection either at the switch or at the edge connector. I would exhaust all those avenues before assuming a board problem.

[Glaine]

Sweet peat, man! You are one lucky (and probably tired) mug. I agree with above, it sounds like louse wiring on the CP. Maybe loose PCB, but I doubt it. Curious, what board is in the other machine (or is it computert controlled)?

[NoOne=NBA=]

What board is in the other machine (or is it computert controlled)?

At the moment Extermination.
I also got boards for SF1 (vid problems), Pit-Fighter, 1943 (sprite problems), Empire City 1931, and Double Dragon 2 in the deal.

It's just a standard 25" JAMMA sit-down.
I need to do some graphic work to it (marquee and CPO replacement), and I need replace the joysticks/buttons; but overall it's really sound.

[AlanS17]

Last time I had such an issue, the problem was in the molex plug attaching the button wires to the PCB wires. I had to re-seat the one of the pins.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I think I've isolated the problem, at least a major portion of it.

The left joystick was intermittent on up, but would register up-left.
I checked out the bottom side of the sticks, and found a bent roller-lever on the up microswitch.

The right stick is weird, in that it is intermittent based on stick rotation.
If you turn the stick about 120 degrees when it isn't registering left, all directions register.
Left is the only direction that goes out on it though.

I did find out that Crazy Climber uses one of the weirdest joysticks I've ever seen.

It is a combination leaf/micro/pivot ball joystick.
The stick pivots at the bottom on a pivot ball, but uses a disk similar to the old Atari joysticks to trigger rollerswitches.
The center of the joystick actually presses against spring steel leaves, that provide the tension on the stick.

Here are pics of it.
Anyone have a couple NOS ones laying around?

[Kremmit]

Now those are bizarre.  Never seen anything like 'em before.

Nice score, man!

[NoOne=NBA=]

Thanks.

Unfortunately this is putting my two scratch-builts onto the back burner for the foreseeable future.