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A word about Suzo-Happ.

Dark_Rob

Dark_Rob

Champion
For those of you getting all excited that the new MK tournament edition stick will be "genuine Happ" parts, I just want to let you know about something you may not be aware of.
The Happ Joystick of today is not what you remember from 15-20 years ago in your local arcade's Mortal Kombat machines. Back in those days Happ Joysticks were made by a European company called Industrias Lorenzo.(Hereafter Il refer to them as I.L.)
At that time the Happ competition Joystick was basically the same exact thing as the I.L. Eurojoystick. There were a few cosmetic differences but thats about it. These were solid joysticks that have become the favorites of MK players over the years.
The I.L. is still a solid joystick, The Happ, ehhh not so much.

A few years ago Happ merged with Suzo group and became Suzo-Happ. At the same time Happ broke away from I.L. and built they're own manufacturing plant in China and began building they're own joystick parts.
Though they still look the same, the quality of Happ Joysticks since breaking from I.L. has noticably diminished.

The first problem encountered with the newer sticks was with the actuator. The actuator is a square plastic piece that is mounted on the bottom of the shaft and when the joystick is moved the piece engages the corresponding microswitch. In I.L. sticks the actuator spins freely on the shaft so that there is no resistance on it whenever you move the stick in different directions.
On the Chinese made Happs, they were tight, really tight. This would cause them to get stuck in a certain position and would occasionally cause them to miss a direction due to being stuck.

Another issue(and one Ive encountered myself) is with the microswitches themselves. The I.L. Eurostick(and earlier Happ's) used cherry microswitches, a proven microswitch with years of performance under its belt.
When Happ moved to China they began using something called E-switches.(I dont know if this is a seperate company or just a generic name Happ gave to its own switches) At any rate, they flat out suck. They dont last, and alot of them fail from the get go. I bought an MAS stick from arcadeshock.com that had a Chinese Happ in it and right out of the box I had alot of trouble getting the Joystick to register left,down left, and up left. Clearly a problem with the left microswitch. I sold it to Shock who I think has since replaced the stick.

Now Im not trying to worry you guys, just dispensing some info here. Im not saying every Chinese Happ is garbage, Im not saying every I.L. is godlike. Manufacturing flaws creep up in every mass produced product.(Ive seen some shitty Sanwa JLF's to for the record)
But the Chinese Happ has a much higher fail rate than I.L.'s and Happ's that were made by I.L. do.

So if you buy one of these sticks and the joystick isnt quite up to par, consider throwing in an I.L. Eurostick. They look and feel exactly the same but are of higher quality. They mount just the same as the Happ and are interchangable.

One way you can tell the difference is Happ's always have a black dust washer
http://www.lizardlick.com/Happ-Competition-Joystick-Blue_p_70.html

While I.L.'s dust washer matches the color of the stick.
http://www.lizardlick.com/IL-Eurojoystick-8-Way-Blue_p_102.html


This has been a public service announcement.
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Tim Static

Tim Static

Adminerator
Lead Moderator
Already planned on putting IL's in both of mine and putting the convex buttons that are on my cab at the moment of both sticks are well.

GOOD STUFF, Dark Rob!
 
THTB

THTB

Arez | Booya | Riu48 - Rest Easy, Friends
Hopefully you can mod these sticks...with this in mind, I'll definitely change the sticks and buttons if they give me any trouble.
 
Dark_Rob

Dark_Rob

Champion
THTB said:
Hopefully you can mod these sticks...with this in mind, I'll definitely change the sticks and buttons if they give me any trouble.
Click to expand...
Im pretty sure you can. It looks pretty easy to get that plastic cover off. And then everything is right there. Simplicity itself.
 
AC1984

AC1984

Kaballin!
Just want to point out that Lizard Lick have the original IL stick that comes with original Cherry switches. However, their buttons are happ and do not come with Cherry switches but E-switch instead. The E-switch is garbage and I had pretty bad experience with those. They also sell "Cherry switches" that don't even look like cherry switches (made in China). I ordered a bunch of them only to find out that they are garbage too. I had to throw away two of them since they didn't work properly. recently I found arcade paradise and they have all IL parts with original Cherry or Zippy switches by choice. I made a descent order and I'm more than happy and satisfied with the product I received.
 
A

armi0024

Noob
AC1984: Thanks for the mention

Dark_Rob, great post.
Happ actually started taking the approach of going to the lowest cost with the same spec from what I understand. E-switch and Zippy have both been carried by Happ. They do more business with E-switch now, probably because the plant is located in Mexico and the shipping is much easier than importing from Taiwan. I was told that the shift from Cherry was purely a cost decision. E-switches are bout 1/3 the cost of Cherry's for Happ. (In fact we do a very complex dance to be able to offer Cherry switches without buttons, when we approached Cherry Directly for an order of 10k, they gave us a price higher than what we sell them for now...explain that!)
We decided to carry IL because we didn't see the point in Happ. To be completely honest I would put any of our low cost knock off buttons with a zippy up against an Eswitch Happ any day. I think the comment about every mass produced products having a certain failure rate is right on, as well as the comment aobut higher quality in the IL products.
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but if anyone wants to email us directly you can send email to [email protected] . Our products are selected for specific reasons. We do carry a lot of Chinese knock offs for people looking to save a few dollars, but we also test all those products and only carry what we would install (and do install) in our own machines. The IL, Sanwa, and Seimitsu are carried because they are truly incredible lines. If you see something missing from our store, it may be an oversite, but more likely, we just didn't see it's place with the other products available. A great example are the JLW knockoffs people are selling now for 12-15 each.... For about $5 more, and a real JLW, you easily get something worth twice as much as the cheaper stick.... Personally I would never install the knock off when the real thing is available. However, the Zippy for 10 is a great deal, works awesome for some applications, and is aobut 1/2 the price of a Seimitsu LS-32....
Mahalo,
Bryan
 
AC1984

AC1984

Kaballin!
thank you for the information and keep doing what you do. Quality always comes first and I'm glad that some businesses still go by it...
 
Timberwolf

Timberwolf

Noob
I have no idea what model stick they are using for the stock PDP stick, but if the Happ Competition is a crappy knockoff of the IL Eurostick, then the stock PDP stick is a crappy knockoff of the Happ Competition. They somehow found a way to make a stick that is even cheaper and lower quality than Happ's normally "meh" quality Chinese-made sticks, and the spring is unlike any I've seen on any other Happ-like sticks. Everything is cheap black plastic with none of the smooth nylon found in the IL sticks, and the dust washer is a flimsy piece of crap that bends around almost like a piece of rubber, and it's a different, less smooth design. The Stick shaft is a few grams lighter too, probably because it's cheaper plastic or metal.

I have been buying IL for a few years to use in projects, and while nothing beats the precision of a Japanese stick, I have not bought an IL stick yet that I would consider bad. The worst thing I've ever had to say about an IL stick is a cosmetic ding one of them had that did not affect performance at all, and on top of the vastly superior quality to Suzo/Happ, they are availible in more colors and the dust washer color actually matches the stick (this is purely cosmetic, but it does make for better customization options)-- and compared to the stock stick that comes with the PDP TE stick, there is no comparison.

It's actually kind of ironic that in PDP's preview of the TE stick they made such a big deal out of how the stick uses "Happ parts, and Happ is an American company that makes American style parts." Like many "American" companies, Happ gets all their crap from China now, and the stick used in the TE is a third-generation Chinese knockoff of a stick manufactured by the Spanish. I don't mean to diss the TE in any way because it's an awesome stick, and I know that to get it down to the price point it's sold at they had to cut a few corners, but sooner or later you are going to want better quality parts in there-- especially since playing fighters on concave buttons gets quite painful after a while.
 
Dark_Rob

Dark_Rob

Champion
Timberwolf said:
I have no idea what model stick they are using for the stock PDP stick, but if the Happ Competition is a crappy knockoff of the IL Eurostick, then the stock PDP stick is a crappy knockoff of the Happ Competition. They somehow found a way to make a stick that is even cheaper and lower quality than Happ's normally "meh" quality Chinese-made sticks, and the spring is unlike any I've seen on any other Happ-like sticks. Everything is cheap black plastic with none of the smooth nylon found in the IL sticks, and the dust washer is a flimsy piece of crap that bends around almost like a piece of rubber, and it's a different, less smooth design. The Stick shaft is a few grams lighter too, probably because it's cheaper plastic or metal.

I have been buying IL for a few years to use in projects, and while nothing beats the precision of a Japanese stick, I have not bought an IL stick yet that I would consider bad. The worst thing I've ever had to say about an IL stick is a cosmetic ding one of them had that did not affect performance at all, and on top of the vastly superior quality to Suzo/Happ, they are availible in more colors and the dust washer color actually matches the stick (this is purely cosmetic, but it does make for better customization options)-- and compared to the stock stick that comes with the PDP TE stick, there is no comparison.

It's actually kind of ironic that in PDP's preview of the TE stick they made such a big deal out of how the stick uses "Happ parts, and Happ is an American company that makes American style parts." Like many "American" companies, Happ gets all their crap from China now, and the stick used in the TE is a third-generation Chinese knockoff of a stick manufactured by the Spanish. I don't mean to diss the TE in any way because it's an awesome stick, and I know that to get it down to the price point it's sold at they had to cut a few corners, but sooner or later you are going to want better quality parts in there-- especially since playing fighters on concave buttons gets quite painful after a while.
Click to expand...
The stock stick in the PDP IS a Happ Competition. The reason you think its crappier is for years Happ competitions were actually just I.L. Eurosticks that Happ bought bulk in kits. They'd slap their own dustwashers on them and wa'la, Happ competition. Once Happ broke away from I.L. and began manufacturing their own sticks in China, they're quality diminshed notably. But technically the stock stick in the PDP is a Happ competition. Just not the ones the oldschoolers remember.
I just did a swap out of the stick and all buttons on both of my PDP's from Happ to I.L. Its like night and day. a thousand times better.
 
Organelle

Organelle

Mortal
Dark_Rob said:
The stock stick in the PDP IS a Happ Competition. The reason you think its crappier is for years Happ competitions were actually just I.L. Eurosticks that Happ bought bulk in kits. They'd slap their own dustwashers on them and wa'la, Happ competition. Once Happ broke away from I.L. and began manufacturing their own sticks in China, they're quality diminshed notably. But technically the stock stick in the PDP is a Happ competition. Just not the ones the oldschoolers remember.
I just did a swap out of the stick and all buttons on both of my PDP's from Happ to I.L. Its like night and day. a thousand times better.
Click to expand...
I meant to say thanks for the recommendations back in the day. I slapped IL convex buttons with microswitches and the IL eurosticks into both my pdp's and the difference was extremely noticeable. Executing just about any move became easier, especially back forward attacks.
 
Timberwolf

Timberwolf

Noob
Dark_Rob said:
The stock stick in the PDP IS a Happ Competition. The reason you think its crappier is for years Happ competitions were actually just I.L. Eurosticks that Happ bought bulk in kits. They'd slap their own dustwashers on them and wa'la, Happ competition. Once Happ broke away from I.L. and began manufacturing their own sticks in China, they're quality diminshed notably. But technically the stock stick in the PDP is a Happ competition. Just not the ones the oldschoolers remember.
I just did a swap out of the stick and all buttons on both of my PDP's from Happ to I.L. Its like night and day. a thousand times better.
Click to expand...
Well then there you have it. It alarms me to think that there are arcades out there that are actually buying these crap sticks from Happ to use in their arcade machines, but hey, no-one ever said the American arcade industry was doing well-- heck, even Japan's arcade scene is starting to see a bit of a decline, but hopefully this does not end up translating into a decline in Sanwa or Seimitsu's parts if arcades eventually get as bad over there as they are here. :(
 
Dark_Rob

Dark_Rob

Champion
Timberwolf said:
Well then there you have it. It alarms me to think that there are arcades out there that are actually buying these crap sticks from Happ to use in their arcade machines, but hey, no-one ever said the American arcade industry was doing well-- heck, even Japan's arcade scene is starting to see a bit of a decline, but hopefully this does not end up translating into a decline in Sanwa or Seimitsu's parts if arcades eventually get as bad over there as they are here. :(
Click to expand...
I dont think you need to worry about Sanwa. As long as Madcatz keeps pumping out T.E's Sanwa will always have a big buyer. lol
 
Alex_Smith

Alex_Smith

The artist formerly known as blueNINE.
Just have to say thanks to Dark_Rob for this very informative post! I ended up buying iL buttons with Cherry switches from Paradise Arcade Shop, and acquired a Eurojoystick from someone on SRK. I put them in my PDP stick, and I agree that the difference is quite significant. iL parts for the win!

I'd also like to say that Paradise Arcade Shop is an excellent store wtih good customer service. It's also the only place that I managed to find that sells real Cherry brand D44X switches and iL buttons. Mahalo, Paradise Arcade Shop!
 
Dark_Rob

Dark_Rob

Champion
blueNINE said:
I'd also like to say that Paradise Arcade Shop is an excellent store wtih good customer service. It's also the only place that I managed to find that sells real Cherry brand D44X switches and iL buttons. Mahalo, Paradise Arcade Shop!
Click to expand...
Yea Paradise arcade is awesome. They have everything you need so you can junk the Happ parts and go all I.L.

Plus they are the only place Ive seen where you can actually by real cherry microswitches by themselves.
Here are some links to the some of the common replacement I.L parts you would use to swap out the Happs on a PDP

I.L. Eurostick: http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/161-il-eurostick-joystick-yellow.html (you can get em in any color, I just linked yellow)

I.L. concave buttons: http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/263-red-il-concave-pushbutton-psl-l.html (dont forget to select Cherry microswitches at the bottom)

I.L. convex buttons: http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/172-blue-il-competition-pushbutton-psl-l.html

Cherry micoswitches(cuz they are always good to have kicking around): http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/59-50-gram-micro.html
 
BehindTheLight

BehindTheLight

Kombatant
I have 2 PDP sticks and I put in IL sticks and IL Cherry buttons in both and it is without a doubt a good switch. The IL stick is so good.
 
AC1984

AC1984

Kaballin!
Excellent stuff guys, its great to hear that you enjoy the IL parts. BlueNine, I hear you buddy, when I discovered that Arcade paradise have real Cherry switches I was the happiest guy on the planet!!!
 
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