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Suzo Inductive Joysticks, the full story...
Level42:
On the Buy/Sell/Trade section there's been some discusion about the Suzo Inductive Joysticks. These are (or should we say: were) the answer (or were Suzo first ?) to Happ's P360. Although they use completely different techniques, they are simular in that they have no moving parts inside (except the shaft of course) and they require 5V to operate. And both put out "regular" contact type signals.
Since I grew up with a Suzo joystick (don't get this wrong ;D ;D), and played many in arcades, I love them. I think there's no better stick. I have a home version that uses leafs and I still play it for my Atari's today...the more recent sticks use microswitches (both home and arcade) and I can't stand the sound of them, nor do I like the "pressure point" of them...
So these inductives should be the ideal stick for me. I picked up 2 of them yesterday, here are the first impressions:
Pic1: the box. Very old suzo logo, also, it says Suzo Rotterdam all over, they moved from there several years ago, so I guess this is not exactly something brand new....
But how about that promo-line: "A Suzo stick is a joy forever...". Now that's what I call a promo line, this might end up on my cab ;D
Pic2: the bottom. Shiny like a mirror so very hard for my simple autofocus digi-cam to focus...Anyway: the joystick sides are indicated with letters ABCD and the corresponding contacts on the connector are also indicated. THis allows the stick to be placed like you wish to (so A can be either top or bottom).
To the lower left is the pot-meter. Apparantly (strangely) this seems to double as 4/8 way selector. Very interesting how this will work. Anyway, it instantly made me think of movind this Pot to behind my CP and putting a nice knob on it :) :) :) !
The feel of the stick is indeed very Suzo. Only 5 degree angle, very short travel and throw. It's a bit weird to reach the end of the movement without hearing the click. The stick doesn't "bounce" back a couple of times, it rather just seemt to return immediatly to it's center without any "spring-like" action.
When you circle the stick, you can feel that there are "marks" for the 8 directions, so you feel some small transitions between the positions. The wiring is connected through a single connector. So 1 "common" for both operating power and contacts. Suzo indicates the power must be between 4,75 and 5,25 volts, so PC powering it might be a good idea.
Level42:
Opening the bottom is very easy, and then we see the electronics. All descrete parts, no SMD or something. You can clearly see the "coils" printed on the PCB that pick up the magnetic field ( I guess). On the shaft you see the magnet (or magnetic material ?) Just two simple IC's inside and a couple of pots that are sealed.
Again "Suzo Rotterdam" on the PCB...the city I was born,makes me proud HAHAHA ;D
The bad news is that the shaft end is very small (so to fit the magnet) and nothing like the shaft of the regular 500 series Suzo sticks. This pretty much rules out replacing the shaft with something fancy...
Don't have time to connect it and give it a test-drive today....but will ASAP and report here.
Grasshopper:
I'm slightly disappointed that the handles cannot be swapped with the ordinary series 500 handles. I suppose that means you can have these joysticks in any colour you want as long as it's black. :(
Also, from your picture it appears that the joystick doesn't have a physical restrictor for 4 way mode. They appear to work in a similar way to the Happ Supers. So you have a more or less circular zone of movement and in 4-way mode you adjust the sensitivity to a point where the diagonal areas are outside the restrictor's zone.
I think these sticks would become infinitely more useful if they could be hacked into true analogue joysticks. You could then through software divide the joystick's circle of movement into 4 equal slices and have something that is much closer to a genuine 4-way joystick.
They are probably excellent 8-way sticks (maybe the best) but on the basis of what you've said so far not the ultimate 4/8 way solution I was hoping for.
Anyway I await your findings.
Level42:
OK first test runs done.
FIrst had to wire up the thing...because it uses a single connector and my Jamma harness of couse has the well-known connectors. I decided to use some cat-5 cabling as this would nicely fit in the connector of the joystick. I didn't want to cut my original Jamma harness so I soldered male connectors to the other side of the wires for the direction and the common.
I use +5V (and only that wire) from a regular disk drive power connector from my PC, since I discovered that there's no +5V coming from my cab power supply...
It's all not very well done, and surely not definitive, but it works.
OK, remove the old 500 and put in the inductive in my metal CP.
Then the exciting part, connecting it....I had the PC running in AdvanceMenu. first connected grnd, then +5V and then "up". Pushed the stick up and, yest it works :) Al directions connected and tested fine.
I haven't messed with the pot-meter so far. Fire up Donkey Kong as this is a 4-way game. Played it and, wow this feels great. No irritating clicks, very short throw and travle, the stick really seems to do what I want, even if it's not completely in either 4 or 8 way mode....
Then, Mario seems to jump either too late, or sometimes he jumps when I'm not pressing any buttons....this scares and puzzles me a bit...
Then I open the CP and discover that the cat-5 cable going to the joystick connector is pressing down on my #1 button leaf ;D;D So that was a very stupid mistake to make, I almost feared the inductive had some strange effect on the J-pac....but not so. Re-routed the cable a bit and now it works fine.
Then a joystick only game, my fav. Ms. Pac Man. Not too bad, not too bad at all. But you do have to "remember" to use it 4 ways only. Every now and then it does something unpredictable when moving near diagonals.
OK a diagonal game: 1942.............is this stick great ? No. Is this stick good ? No. This stick is FANTASTIC !!!! Can't remember moving so swiftly around the screen. Hitting diagonals is a breeze compared to having to push two microswitches to action. No problems with the direction markings. Yes you feel them, no they're in no way annoying. In fact they help to "know" where you're going....
OK, another fav. 2-way only....Galaxian. Excellent, great fantastic.....dodging thos e missiles is a breeze, moving from left to right (or vice versa) takes a fraction of a second.
OK, so the first tests are positive. Gonna try tomorrow to adjust the pot. I may be able to find a setting where it's not needed to switch between 4 and 8 way....I think it's possible with this stick....
Sure it doesn;t have a true mechanical restriction. If you cannot live without that, this stick is not yours...but otherwise, it's very promissing.....
And I really like the possible hack of moving the pot-meter to the CP (or under the CP), making it possible to switch between 4-8 ways electronicaly/adjust the settings per game.....
The only minor problem is that I feel the stick is a little small and tiny with it's 32 mm ball. My 500 has a 38 mm ball handle, that's also a bit longer. Maybe becauser I'm just use to that now.....
The 32 mm handle is almost identical to the Suzo home stick (Competition Pro).
I think I am going to love these baby's......but we needs more testing to do....pics and more report later...
Grasshopper:
Can you explain how the magnet attaches to the shaft. I'm wondering how easy it would be to hack another handle to fit this joystick.
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