/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>600506
>but is an 8way happ just as good

The Sanwa sticks are more precise and have lighter engagement. They're the sort of stick you'd grip with two fingers instead of a fist.

Happs are tanks and their panel footprint is huge. They're not built for precision so much as resistance to the heavy abuse arcade goers would inflict on the machines.

>>405628

American Happ parts tend to find their home in those kinds of cabs because Sanwa & Seimitsu's stuff is very troublesome to mount in thick MDF.

Happ stuff also seems a bit less precise but a lot more durable, which is probably another reason it's used in American machines where it'll get abused to shit by the animals that use them.

>I found the light guns but at 95 dollars each they're a bit pricey

Yeah, not a whole lot you can do about that. They're niche items with little competition. Even just a spinner knob for Arkanoid is like $70.

>I don't know is what I should do about the controls.

The big names are Happ, Sanwa and Seimitsu. Sanwa has very smooth and precise controls, while Seimitsu's stuff feels like cheap Sanwa. Less expensive, but almost as good. Happ's gear is the American standard. It's less precise than either Japanese brand and fuck-off huge but a lot less expensive ($9 for a Happ joystick vs $24 for Sanwa) and far far more durable. You know what Americans are like with "public" things.

>Should I drop money on an xarcade pad?

God no. They're built with some shitty no-name parts. They look like Happ but they're not. The buttons feel hesitant and the sticks are sloppy. The plastic is cheap and non-reinforced, so they lack durability too.

If you're doing up a cab, do the control panel right.

>>336112

Noice. What's the brain made of?

>>336423

Not the guy, but you can get acrylic or polycarbonate most places you get other building materials. Home improvement stores usually carry it in their laminates department.

Do not attempt to cut acrylic with a saw; terrible things will happen. Score it deeply with a blade along a straight line, position that line at the edge of a bench and then snap it off.

Google Sanwa, Seimitsu or Happ for stores selling arcade parts. Those are the common brands for joysticks and buttons. Happ parts are cheap (like $8 sticks and $1.50 buttons) and sturdier than than Sanwa or Seimitsu, but they're fuck-off huge.

>>302702

There's actually an official, licensed replacement graphic that comes as a full-panel vinyl sticker.

Can't recommend it. Period authenticity notwithstanding, the yellow on the official vinyl is in fact inaccurate.

Don't worry about a little bleed under the stencil edges and getting lines laser-perfect. The original artwork wasn't.

Hell, some cabs have speckling of one color or another from paint air particulate during manufacturing.

>>303610

May as well build a whole reproduction cab in that case.

iirc the cabinet is made of MDF, but I also recall the original wood had visible grain on the inside of the cab... so either wood laminated MDF or possibly not MDF at all.

Bat top vs ball top:

Ball tops are controlled largely by wrist action and tend to be fast, yet the flicking motions this promotes can lack accuracy. This issue can largely be negated by attaching a restrictor gate to the stick underside that best matches your control style. Hitting diagonals too often by accident? Use a restrictor that partially blocks off the diagonals so they're harder to hit unintentionally. Sanwa/Seimitsu sticks are mostly ball-top.

Bat tops are controlled mostly by forearm arm action, which is slower than wrist flicking but offers more control. Happ sticks are mostly bat-top.

The differences are actually rather minor so your best bet is to use whichever is more comfortable for you.

One thing to note though- while Sanwa & Seimitsu offer bat top options, bat control tends to place more force on the controls, which the Japanese sticks don't deal with very well long term.