U360 alternative options project

[Ummon]

You may remember I recently asked about some items at Lizard Lick Amusement for modification and retrofit of some U360s I was planning on getting, which I did. The items were purple (officially dark blue) ball tops to replace the stock reds, and the Sanwa round and octagonal restrictors. I can officially say that the octagonal restrictor will not work without modification - the flanges are in the way, and anyway the screw holes are off - which is likely why Ultimarc fabbed their own.







The round restictor is indeed the same one so yes it works.

But this isn't all there is to the tale. How was I going to accomodate not having the special hardware Ultimarc includes in the restrictor kits? I went and removed the PCB and the PCB mounting brackets from one of the sticks and placed the restrictor on the underside of the stick base - and then carefully slid the brackets underneath it. The distance was the same so it should work, right? I couldn't know for sure because the screws that attach the brackets to the base were too short for the added depth of the restrictor. Hardware store run, of course.








I don't remember the measurments of those screws, but they're metric and I just figured about twice as long. The new ones were phillips head, but otherwise worked just fine. Bonus.








Okay, nice. But I had some other ideas, too. You see, I like a REALLY short throw on sticks, and I had a feeling the restrictor wasn't going to be enough for my preference, particularly after mounting it and feeling the mile-long throw the stick had, stock. (I also figured the stock shaft would be too short for my wood panel, so opted for the extra long shaft from Ultimarc. A wise choice...unless you like a really stumpy stick.)

That was the next thing I went to the hardware store for - though I was casual about it because I didn't really expect to find anything that would work. The question first is, how do you close the gap? Well, after inspecting the stick mechanism and all, I realised I could a) fab a new actuator the fit the spring (essentially, it helps retain the spring) and cylindrical - ie: the same diameter as the upper part of the actuator - or, b) find something that would fit over the lower part. 'b' getting satisfied means it gets done now, and it turned out to be some fairly hard tubing that I had to rather grossly cut evenly and then use some pliers to press it over the bottom.
















Now to hook it up and test it. Well almost. I'll give the results of the restrictor first. I was worried about two things. Yes, the travel relative to sensing - but first in my mind was actually whether the material would bind against the restrictor. Fortunately, the tubings hard enough so there's no issue there. Now for overall performance: though 4-way was fine, the short travel requires the '8-way easy diagonals' for 8-way.

Okay, what's left? Initially, I was pretty leary about the spring resistance as there almost isn't any with the stock spring. But then I thought, well maybe it'll just mean it's super easy to control! Yes, too easy in a way. See, I have this tendency in some games to let off the stick pretty sharply. With my P360s there's not issue because the spring is pretty tight and forces the stick to center. Not so here, and occasionally it would go over into the other direction - like say in Donkey Kong and suddenly I'm facing away from a barrel. Um, yeah.

Last item at the hardware store was a spring. 'But, they're only three bucks from Ultimarc (or Divemaster)', you might say. I prefer to think of myself as economic. This sometimes gets me into trouble where the effort is far more than the savings in cash - but I was already at the store so hey. And what do I find??







A little longer, but despite it being (quite a bit) tighter it compessed just fine. Ah yes, much nicer. And here's the thing all together.








So far, as I re-fitted the unmounted one, I've just tested it holding it in my hand and it's performed well. Pretty tight Pac-Man and Bubbles, respectively. Since then, I've been creating this thread (which took me I think more than two hours - I can't remember now, it was so full of headaches - first and last time I tell ya), and will soon go and refit the mounted stick and test some more, but I'm anticipating some nice playing. Oh, and all the parts for both sticks cost me a little over three bucks. Each restrictor is $4.95 at Lizard Lick, so I saved a few bucks at least.

[mrclean]

nice post firstly.. secondly I happen to also have a wood panel and noticed that you can order the longer 10mm stick, but i wish they made a 20mm+ because I also have plexi on my panel so this thing is sitting very low. I'm going to order the 10mm extra long shafts eventually but i still don't think it's going to be enough.

 as for the spring resistance I agree with you it's too loose even with the "hard spring" at least to me also. While i'm starting to build my non-MAME cab with a wico stick it seems to tower the height of the u360, but then again that's also on a metal panel.

The wico stick comes up roughly 2.6 inches from the control panel where the u360 comes up about only a stubby 1.8 inches.

Ive read that some people have cut into the wood with a jig to solve the height issues, I don't have that tool and would love for andy or who ever to come up with an accessory for those with that issue.

[TheShanMan]

Even with the hard spring I've had jumpman turn the opposite direction when I let go of the stick, resulting in death. But I'm wondering if the deadzone settings I have for mame are what's causing this: I have deadzone optimized for a steering wheel, not for my u360's.

[TheShanMan]

BTW, I too generally like a very short throw, but my problem is I would like to be able to play analog games effectively with it, and for that you ideally have a longer throw. I'm kinda thinking it would be cool if there was a special clamp on handle or something that could attach onto the shaft + ball to turn it into a much longer shaft in order to enable better precision for analog games.

[AndyWarne]

Note that you can adjust the scale factor in U360, in order to compensate for the shorter throw. It may be that you cant find a factor which matches exactly but worth a try.
Check out section 7 of this page: http://www.ultimarc.com/UltraMap_ChangeLog.htm
Andy

[Ummon]

Note that you can adjust the scale factor in U360, in order to compensate for the shorter throw. It may be that you cant find a factor which matches exactly but worth a try.
Check out section 7 of this page: http://www.ultimarc.com/UltraMap_ChangeLog.htm
Andy

Ah, right, I'd forgotten about this in the midst of my testing.


mrclean: maybe ask Franco, or someone local, to make you one.


Shan: this spring from Ace is very similar to the tension of the spring in the P360. It's not going out of center unless you push it that way.


Some news: I didn't really think about this because the fit of the tubing was so tight, but after having some problems crop up, I realised the tubing might work off the actuator, and it did. Hmm. A bummer because I was getting some frighteningly kung fu movement in games like Strkers1945 and Robotron. So I took the tubing off and set the maps for regular 4 and 8-way and haven't been satisfied with the response. I think I'm going to have to get a custom actuator made.

General question: I notice in scrolling game lists in Mame32 that the U360 is slower than my P360. I'm not totally sure this doesn't have a corresponding effect in digital control games. Is there some way to alter what I'm guessing is the poll rate of the U360?

[u_rebelscum]

General question: I notice in scrolling game lists in Mame32 that the U360 is slower than my P360. I'm not totally sure this doesn't have a corresponding effect in digital control games. Is there some way to alter what I'm guessing is the poll rate of the U360?

Scroll faster as in the speed the lines move up or down, or do you mean the reaction speed as in move stick up wait x milliseconds before list starts to move?

If it's scroll speed, that doesn't indicate anything about game play difference, nor anything about polling frequency.  (I'm assuming you're holding the sticks constantly up or down. 

How is the p360 hooked up?  Keyboard encoder?  The u360s are direct, right?  (not wired through another encoder.)

If so, you might be comparing apples and oranges.  Have you tried other gamepads and a normal keyboard on the scroll speed?

[Ummon]

Some more news: I've been seeing if maybe the restrictor alone is adequate. It isn't, but it's not ridiculous. At first, I was worried because I was getting stalling of Mario using the stock 4-way map in DK. Not happy...but then I noticed the 4-way no sticky one and that's a treat. Too sensitive for Pac, though, I think.

Also, I think I've gotten used to bat tops, though I think some of it is the thicker shaft of the P360. I fits in my non-kid-size hand better. So I may switch back. (Of course, the P360 is another cm or so taller than this taller shaft. Hmmm.) I could just keep the U360 in the middle as a variable 4-way. We'll see.

General question: I notice in scrolling game lists in Mame32 that the U360 is slower than my P360. I'm not totally sure this doesn't have a corresponding effect in digital control games. Is there some way to alter what I'm guessing is the poll rate of the U360?

Scroll faster as in the speed the lines move up or down, or do you mean the reaction speed as in move stick up wait x milliseconds before list starts to move?

If it's scroll speed, that doesn't indicate anything about game play difference, nor anything about polling frequency.  (I'm assuming you're holding the sticks constantly up or down. 

How is the p360 hooked up?  Keyboard encoder?  The u360s are direct, right?  (not wired through another encoder.)

If so, you might be comparing apples and oranges.  Have you tried other gamepads and a normal keyboard on the scroll speed?

I wondered. I meant the scrolling rate up and down the list, not the delay time before it starts to scroll. I'll have to get out my gamepad and see. It seems like, for example in Strikers1945, that the movement of the player's plane is slower. I don't really see how that could happen....I checked the game speed and it said 100%....but it just seems slower. I dunno.