Arcade Collecting > Miscellaneous Arcade Talk

Children and 2 way joysticks == Bad combination. Any suggestions for repair?

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MonitorGuru:
Well, it had to happen...

My cousin brought his family to stay the night on the way through town last night like they do about 3 times a year. They have a 5 yr old, 3 year old and 1 yr old. The 5 yr old boy loves playing my games and the 3 yr old girl has to "be in the action" at the same time.

Long story short, but just like every time before, no matter how many time you tell them, do NOT push up and down, both with Bubble Bobble and Galaxian, what do they do???  Constantly hang and press up and down (standing on a little step stool as well)

Tonight, I was moving the Galaxian parts out of my Galaga cab that is finally going to become a Galaga, and moving Galaxian into a just finished hand-built copy of an original Galaxian cabinet.

While I was testing the game out.. I feel the joystick is extremely "sloppy" and almost moves as much up and down as it does left and right. (well not quite, but it definitely moves up and down which it never did before)

Luckily the Galaxian is a special 2 way, not a plastic-restricted 4 way converted to 2 (like the Wico's in the Bubble Bobble) and has stood up to this type of abuse.. until now.


Any ideas on how to fix this?  It appears that the shaft with the larger cylindar at the bottom has ground/widened the U bracket it sits in.  I suppose I could get someone to weld it on but then it no longer spins freely in the holder and probably would be more apt to break/bend something in the future.


I think I need to make new control panels to slap on when kids are here... make Galaxian and Bubble Bobble more like the original Space Invaders (or Asteroids)...  a button for LEFT and a button for RIGHT... nothing to be bent or broken and no tempting to go up and down for the children.

Lesson learned :(

SirPeale:
I'm only familiar with Galaxian joysticks, is the Galaga one similar?

ChadTower:
What kind of two way is it?  Who made a stick that can't stand up to 3 and 5 year old home use?  I don't want to ever have one, so if you could let us know who made it, that would be helpful.

SirPeale:
Chad, it's likely the factory installed one, which is specialized.

And your kids have never hung off your joysticks?  Not even once?

On a 4/8 way,hanging off it wouldn't be *too* bad, because the unit is built to go in all those directions.

On a two way it's not.  Dedicated two-way units are far simpler than their multi-direction counterparts.

I had to rebuild my two way with JB Weld because it looked like someone hit the stick really hard and broke the stick mount.

ChadTower:
ah... actually, I doubt they have hung on the sticks.  The only one of my games that they use that has sticks is the POW and they don't like that much.  They're all about The Shadow now.

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