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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