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Author Topic: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)  (Read 8184 times)

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EagleTG

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I was pretty disappointed with the MagStick Plus from Ultimarc.  It wasn't due to a lack of engineering, or the overall cool factor of the stick.  No, it just didn't "feel" right to me.  It was nice that it has such a small throw, but you have to push entirely too hard to make it do its thing.  It seemed that I'd even miss directionals at times, having not pushed the stick hard enough.  Either that, or the switches were just sticking.  I'm unsure which it was.  The final straw was during a particularly heated session of Pac-Man: Championship Edition.  I was almost certain that the MagStick had resulted in my demise via ghost touch on a few occasions, but never more-so than during the specific game in question.  I hit down, I know I did, and the MagStick Plus didn't register.  As any gamer would do, I forcefully "punched" the stick in the direction it had missed.  Lo and behold, the stick no longer registered the downward direction at all.  That's it.  I have to do something about these crap microswitches.

This modificiation will make your MagStick Plus perform much better (in my opinion) with a lighter throw and a perceived greater responsiveness.

The MagStick Plus uses microswitches that have metal actuators attached.  One thing that you'll notice when looking at the bottom of the MagStick Plus is that it uses switches that have shorter actuators than what you'll typically find in the wild.  No problem there, I have a Dremel.

I needed some donor parts, so I went to the box of arcade crap and found a potential ::cough::victim::cough:: donor stick.  It was some garbage no-name stick I bought off of eBay (mostly just to get the other stuff that was in the auction lot).

Here's our brave parts donor stick (it's a no-name Seimitsu knock-off, and a pretty bad one at that):



It has microswitches from "Acemake", whoever that is.  I'm sure they are junk, but would suffice for my purposes.  I'm going to order some Sanwa microswitches and do this mod with them, but for now I'm using these.

Here's the bottom of the craptastic donor stick once I got all the metal plates and restrictors out of the way.  Just raw exposed microswitches, baby.



ANYTHING had to be better than the stock Ultimarc parts.  For the record, the stock Ultimarc switches are SAIA brand, a Switzerland-based company.  Upon having the raw switches in-hand, it became apparent that the SAIA/Ultimarc ones needed FAR greater pressure to actuate than the Acemake (which are very similar to Cherry, by the way).

Here's the bottom of the MagStick Plus for comparison.



On some microswitches (like the Acemake), you'll have the luck that the switch is easily disassembled so you can remove the metal actuation lever for easier cutting.  On others (like Cherry), the switches will have melted tabs or rivets holding them together.  Either way, cut the actuator on the line you drew using a Dremel or other tool of wanton destruction.  Note, you'll want to deburr and round the corners of the freshly cut part.  That'll prevent you cutting yourself on the edge, and will also make less of a chance that the part will want to get caught on something and bind-up.  The original SAIA sticks are riveted so you can't  just steal the actuators off of those and use them on the new switches.

Here you'll see the Ultimarc/SAIA switch on top, and the Acemake switch on the bottom.  What needs to be done should be fairly apparent.



Below, you'll see the cut-line marked with the ultimate in precision:



Below is the same process repeated 4x.  You'll note that I'm lucky enough that these Acemake switches disassemble easily, and I can remove the metal actuators for the cutting.



Once you have the switch actuators cut down to size, reassemble the stick.  You'll note that the Ultimarc switches used a .250" quick disconnect, yet most common switches are .187".  You can use your existing .250" quick

disconnects, just pinch the connector's sides with a needle-nose pliers.  You're not trying to make it "narrower", but so that it grips tighter.  You are going from O_O to o_o if you look at the end of the connector, not O_O to OO.  Ascii art for the win.

You'll have to use your imagination for some of the steps, as the last picture I took was it all assembled.



You may ask yourself if there are tangible results from this mod.  The answer, my friend, is a resounding YES.  Prior to the mod, the best I could do in Pac-Man: Championship Edition was ~170,000 points placing about 14,000th in All-Time Ranking in Championship Mode.  In my SECOND GAME after this mod, I now place 7,500th in All-Time Ranking with about 230,000 points.  That, people, is a 60,000 point increase and around 7,000 people higher rank, all for about 20 minutes of work.  To me, that PROVES beyond the shadow of a doubt how bad the original Ultimarc switch elements are.

(You can also check out this post on my blog: http://www.togeo.com/togeo/wordpress/?p=67 )

kowal

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2008, 05:53:31 pm »
Yes SAIA XG series is total crap, they are horibly slow and uneven - different clik, 
they kill dynamics. I do not know why iL uses this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- on Magnetick and Tstick. the worst switche in the world Chinese they are better.

ultimarc sold SAIA X3 (very good micrositches) for T-stick but for Mag stick is too soft. Mag need harder switches. I use Omron V series with short plain lever and and this acts magnificently but is normal all stick on Omron work 100x better:P other good microswitches microYamatake, Matsushita. all Japanese...

 


EagleTG

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2008, 10:30:20 am »
Omron work 100x better

Ooh, good idea... I'm going to get some of the Omron's too.  I'm still really intrigued by using a decent SANWA switch in these, too.  Thank goodness someone else is as much of a geek as I am about this stuff.  LOL

jhabers

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2008, 08:37:35 pm »
Yes SAIA XG series is total crap, they are horibly slow and uneven - different clik, 
they kill dynamics. I do not know why iL uses this ---Cleveland steamer--- on Magnetick and Tstick. the worst switche in the world Chinese they are better.

ultimarc sold SAIA X3 (very good micrositches) for T-stick but for Mag stick is too soft. Mag need harder switches. I use Omron V series with short plain lever and and this acts magnificently but is normal all stick on Omron work 100x better:P other good microswitches microYamatake, Matsushita. all Japanese...

 



where can I get the Omron switches from, do you have a website?. Thanks

kowal

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2008, 01:53:08 am »
V-161-1C5
http://www.tme.pl/katalog/artykuly.phtml?id_g=46&id_p=7&f_radio=&id2=45&id_drzewo=60&from=tree&s=14#products_list
but dispatching for borders is road. someone has it to sell in USA, search internet

akihabra sell matsushita microswitches for LS33, LS55 and LS56
http://www.akihabarashop.jp
omron too but only WO plain lever:(

EagleTG

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2008, 05:21:23 pm »
I was going to order from DigiKey or one of the other electronics vendors.  Looks like the part in-question is:
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=SW987-ND

Newark also has them in-stock:
http://www.newark.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=93B6018&CMP=KNC-G10000679&HBX_OU=50&HBX_PK=VX-012-1A3

The lever is too long on those, but it looks like those are the only "stock" item similar to that switch that DigiKey has.  All others are special order in minimum 100 piece quantities.  I'm still looking around at other vendors as well.

For the record, the OMRON switch part numbers look like, this one is a million operation:
VX-012-1A3 (standard lever)

They also have a 500,000 operation switch (available through Mouser):
VX-52-1A3 (standard lever)
http://www.mouser.com/catalog/634/1511.pdf
The pricing difference doesn't make sense to order the 500,000 operation switch.  It's about a $.50 per switch difference to get the million duty ones instead.

For those who care, here's the datasheet in-question:
http://www.components.omron.com/components/web/PDFLIB.nsf/0/55A93EF1E7C83BB485257201007DD4A0/$file/VX_0607.pdf
(Page 5 has the diagrams of the dimensions.)

Personally, I think I'm going to get the Sanwa ones to start.  I'll probably throw a few of these OMRON switches on the next order I place through DigiKey (I order quite a bit of stuff for pinball repair from vendors like Digikey).

Edit:  I just found this over on Shoryuken... Apparently some of the Korean manufacturers are using the OMRON V-102-1A5 switch, which has an operating force of 200 grams.  As per a photo from user "laugh": http://laugh25.com.ne.kr/microswitch_omron2.JPG

Using that info, I found this page on OMRON's site that has a bunch of good info... http://www.omron.com/ecb/products/sw/11/v.html
« Last Edit: May 06, 2008, 05:45:03 pm by EagleTG »

kowal

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #6 on: May 07, 2008, 06:17:32 am »
V-161-1C5  has 50mln mechanical durability
corean stick not use Japan switches only korean gersung, deco, starion black switches smillar to omron it is Gersung microswitches. stock stick never use Omron. Laugh use Omron but is is custom mod.
all clasic horizontal microswitch is "V-series"

richard d

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2011, 01:57:08 pm »
I realize this is an old thread. Does the Magstick still use these switches, or better ones now? I just upgraded my Xarcade to a Magstick and really like it, but maybe I'd like it even more with better switches?

Gray_Area

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Re: Ultimarc MagStick Plus Modification (Potential Sanwa Hack?)
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2011, 02:26:37 am »
I realize this is an old thread. Does the Magstick still use these switches, or better ones now? I just upgraded my Xarcade to a Magstick and really like it, but maybe I'd like it even more with better switches?

Look on the bottom. Take a picture. Post it here. Incidentally, those switches used a shorter actuator because the switches were much closer together, resulting in shorter throw.
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