Would a restrictor like this work?

[Mike]

I have oscar restrictors and they work well. Except they are a little large on the control panel and you have to see them. I thought of another way to make a restrictor that i think would work also. I'll never manufacture them so I thought I might as well post it and see if someone thought it would work and wants to start making them(hint hint kelsey). Yea my drawing sucks but basically what i was thinking is the top part of the drawing would attach to the top of the joystick and the bottom drawing is the side view. There is like a cylinder that would go up through the control panel. In this cylinder you could drop inserts in to make the diamond shape for a 4-way joystick or insert that make a two way. I realize the drawing isn't perfect and you might have to cut like slits in the cylinder for the inserts to lock into. Basically, I just want to know if it's possible. It seems like it would be cheaper to produce than oscar's current restrictor.

[radiator]

looks like it could work...

ya mean like this right:

(top down view)

...the 'shaft' that sits around the joystick


a 4-way plate (the notches fit into the slits in the shaft, so it doesn't move)


2-way plate

 

[Mike]

Yep pretty much the insert would have to be two pieces to it can be put in around the joystick and removed.

[creatine28]

Hmm,  I've been working on a  4way restrictor plate also,  what I've done so far was duplicate the diamond shapped hole on a 4way Wico leaf stick (using a small square piece of plexi glass) and made an insert for a wico 8 way stick. It seems to work but the the way mine is, you would have to leave the restrictor plate on all the time.  I'm trying to figure a way to make it removable though.    Glad to see other people are working on alternative 4way restrictor ideas!

[OSCAR]

Heh, this design is where I started!  Funny to see it come full-circle (again).

For doing a one-off for yourself, this type of design is doable because I made some like this.  However, it did require quite a bit of tweaking and recentering of the joystick to get good results.  Because the Happ joysticks are so diagonal-sensitive, precise placement of the restrictors is critical.  This is how I ended up having to go with a mounting plate so the joystick would be centered through the use of it's mounting holes with respect to the restrictor plates.  I hated the idea of having to add a mounting plate, but it was the only good way I could make sure the customer always had a properly centered joystick and still make it simple.

For me to produce & support a sellable product, it needed to have repeatable and predictable results.  The "drop-in" style restrictor was too flakey and relied too heavily on customer installation (exact centering of the joystick hole) for good results.  My take on it is when people buy something, they expect it to work.  If you build it yourself, you expect to tweak & experiment around a bit to get it to work.

[shmokes]

Wouldn't it be difficult to get something like that out when you wanted to switch back to eight-way from four-way?

[radiator]

make it out of metal and keep a magnet handy?

 

[_Iz-]

or have a little pull-tab hanging off each piece (that's big enough to grab but small enough so it's hidden by the joystick's hole cover disk thingy)

[Mike]

Heh, this design is where I started!  Funny to see it come full-circle (again).

For doing a one-off for yourself, this type of design is doable because I made some like this.  However, it did require quite a bit of tweaking and recentering of the joystick to get good results.  Because the Happ joysticks are so diagonal-sensitive, precise placement of the restrictors is critical.  This is how I ended up having to go with a mounting plate so the joystick would be centered through the use of it's mounting holes with respect to the restrictor plates.  I hated the idea of having to add a mounting plate, but it was the only good way I could make sure the customer always had a properly centered joystick and still make it simple.

For me to produce & support a sellable product, it needed to have repeatable and predictable results.  The "drop-in" style restrictor was too flakey and relied too heavily on customer installation (exact centering of the joystick hole) for good results.  My take on it is when people buy something, they expect it to work.  If you build it yourself, you expect to tweak & experiment around a bit to get it to work.

The reason I thought this would work is because you still have the mounting plate like you do now it's just under the control panel instead of on top. So the Joystick should still be centered with the hole so the drop in restrictors would line up correctly.