Mod Noob here: So I finally modded my arcade stick....

[Barracuda Deathwish]

I bought an Injustice Limited Edition that came with the Arcade Battle Stick in that deal Gamestop had a few weeks ago. The other day a few parts came in and I managed to change the thing to a ball top and changed the spring to a stronger one for shorter throws. I'll tell you: doing that scared me more than rebuilding the top end of the 318 in my Barracuda (hence my username).

Anyways, I'd like to change out the buttons on the stick and was wondering if there are any specific parts you guys would suggest or any advice you guys can give. I looked on focus attack and they also have measurements for the buttons. When they say 30 mm does that mean just the button itself or the button and the surrounding shell?

I've always used sticks but I've never delved into the technical aspects of how they work mechanical wise so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[HP Hatecraft]

I bought an Injustice Limited Edition that came with the Arcade Battle Stick in that deal Gamestop had a few weeks ago. The other day a few parts came in and I managed to change the thing to a ball top and changed the spring to a stronger one for shorter throws. I'll tell you: doing that scared me more than rebuilding the top end of the 318 in my Barracuda (hence my username).

Anyways, I'd like to change out the buttons on the stick and was wondering if there are any specific parts you guys would suggest or any advice you guys can give. I looked on focus attack and they also have measurements for the buttons. When they say 30 mm does that mean just the button itself or the button and the surrounding shell?

I've always used sticks but I've never delved into the technical aspects of how they work mechanical wise so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sanwa buttons are what I have in my stick and I love them. I got the Madcatz CE and didn't care for the stock buttons. Also, I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the 30mm is just the measurements for the actual buttons themselves. I think the securing part that holds the buttons in are bigger than 30mms.

 

[The Big Palooka]

So the 30mm buttons should fit in the in the injustice case just fine. You just have to pop them out and replace them with the new ones. The thing is that the stock buttons are slightly longer so you can fit the LED inside, which means the LED won't fit in standard snap-in Sanwa buttons. I've heard that there are ways to fit the LEDs into Sanwa screwbuttons, and I believe there are tutorials online for that.

If you're looking to swap the joystick it's gonna be a bit harder. They don't use the basic Sanwa JLF hook-ups in the stick, so it's not just a matter of swapping the whole stick like you would with a Madcatz stick.

http://www.focusattack.com/sanwa-tp-ma-pcb-assembly/

From what I've heard you just switch the Joystick PCB with the Sanwa one linked there to get a better feel and responsiveness from the stick. Normal balltops and dustwashers should still be compatible.

Before you go swapping the Joystick PCB I would research it a bit more. I've heard that with the Injustice stick specifically it will sometimes be finicky and won't register your inputs occasionally, so if you don't mind the way the stock stick feels I'd just replace the bat-top and the dustwashers. You could also get a higher strength spring if you want a little more resistance for your inputs.

Let me know if you need anymore help, or if anything I said is unclear!

 

[Matix218]

I bought an Injustice Limited Edition that came with the Arcade Battle Stick in that deal Gamestop had a few weeks ago. The other day a few parts came in and I managed to change the thing to a ball top and changed the spring to a stronger one for shorter throws. I'll tell you: doing that scared me more than rebuilding the top end of the 318 in my Barracuda (hence my username).

Anyways, I'd like to change out the buttons on the stick and was wondering if there are any specific parts you guys would suggest or any advice you guys can give. I looked on focus attack and they also have measurements for the buttons. When they say 30 mm does that mean just the button itself or the button and the surrounding shell?

I've always used sticks but I've never delved into the technical aspects of how they work mechanical wise so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Being that I also work on cars as a hobby (turbo RX7 s mostly) I can promise you that sticks are much less scary to work on lol

One mod besides buttons that I would recommend is an 8-gate for the stick ( so your stick has an octagonal movement area instead of square) makes many inputs much less ambiguous (specifically dashing) and it is a very cheap and very easy mod. I also bought that injustice stick when game stop was closing them out for 40 bucks! It was an awesome deal!

 

[Barracuda Deathwish]

Hatecraft and Big Palooka: Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll definitely look into the stuff you guys mentioned. Right now the stick does feel a whole lot better than the way it came. I do hear Sanwa being thrown around a lot but the honest truth is I only play enough to be decent at the games but not good enough to notice the difference between Sanwa and non Sanwa. I guarantee you put me in a Pepsi taste test challenge with a normal stick and a Sanwa, I won't know the difference. What I would like is to have more durable buttons as the ones that came on the Injustice stick feels fragile.

Matix: That deal was awesome wasn't it? I appreciate the octogate advice but I've always been a squaregate guy. I started out with Street Fighter and most of the machines and sticks I played on all used squaregates so I've always been used to that.

Side note: In all fairness, I've seen those rotary engines and it's like learning a completely different language. I have a buddy with an RX8 and if he has no idea how to fix it he brings it about 20 miles out of his way to a guy that specializes in those engines. The 318 in the Barracuda and the 383 in the Road Runner is grade school stuff. That rotary engine is like college stuff. =)

 

[Matix218]

Hatecraft and Big Palooka: Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll definitely look into the stuff you guys mentioned. Right now the stick does feel a whole lot better than the way it came. I do hear Sanwa being thrown around a lot but the honest truth is I only play enough to be decent at the games but not good enough to notice the difference between Sanwa and non Sanwa. I guarantee you put me in a Pepsi taste test challenge with a normal stick and a Sanwa, I won't know the difference. What I would like is to have more durable buttons as the ones that came on the Injustice stick feels fragile.

Matix: That deal was awesome wasn't it? I appreciate the octogate advice but I've always been a squaregate guy. I started out with Street Fighter and most of the machines and sticks I played on all used squaregates so I've always been used to that.

Side note: In all fairness, I've seen those rotary engines and it's like learning a completely different language. I have a buddy with an RX8 and if he has no idea how to fix it he brings it about 20 miles out of his way to a guy that specializes in those engines. The 318 in the Barracuda and the 383 in the Road Runner is grade school stuff. That rotary engine is like college stuff. =)

Yeah that stick deal was too good to pass up!

Yeah rotary engines are different. Basically a big 2 stroke in regards to how they operate. But in reality they are in some ways simpler than a conventional piston engine (only 3 moving parts, no cylinder head etc). Only issue they have is they MUST be tuned properly especially when they are turbo charged. It only takes a slightly lean fuel curve under boost for your motor to go bye bye lol

 

[The Big Palooka]

If you're looking for something more durable I would recommend the new Kuro buttons that Hori put out. They are the same price as the Sanwa buttons, but supposedly last twice as long. I haven't tested this myself, but I trust Hori in general.

GamerFinger also released new buttons that use mechanicl keyboard parts so they can take a lot of abuse. They even sell replacement switches to change the resistance. These can also be used so you don't have to replace the entire button. The problem is that they're almost twice the price, and I would only recommend them to people who want top of the line.

http://www.focusattack.com/gamerfinger/

The Hori buttons only come in black I believe, and the GamerFinger ones come in black, grey, white, or clear.

Hope that clears some stuff up.

 

[Barracuda Deathwish]

Big Palooka: Thanks for the link. Those buttons look SWEEEEEEET! Hey, is there anyone out there that makes buttons with the LED lights? I saw a video on how to take the LED lights out of the ones that come with the Injustice stick and put them into a set of buttons that originally didn't have them. I seriously don't want to fuck that up but I also hate to lose them and would like to keep them if at all possible without doing a transplant operation.

Matix: This is getting off topic fast but I like talking to fellow gear heads especially gear heads of cars that I don't really know too much about. I've always been an old school 60's - 70's car guy and never had the chance to learn about tuners. Whenever I meet a tuner guy I usually like to pick their brains to see if I can learn something new.

You're definitely right about the turbo charged part because when my buddy installed his he was confident it was done right but still got second and third opinions on it before he let it rip in the streets. It's definitely only a very select few that are very knowledgeable in the rotary engine- at least in my area. I remember him trying to explain how the whole thing worked to me and I just couldn't process it in my head until he installed his turbo and showed it to me part by part.

So after the turbo what kind of power are you pushing out of that thing?

 

[Icy Black Deep]

The thread for this stick on SRK* has some gruesome details of swapping Sanwa guts into the stock parts, but it is a bit of a leap of faith to start in on that sort of thing. (Even being somewhat comfortable, I'd probably rather try cutting plastic to mount a stock Sanwa than do the surgery they describe.)

Some of the posts there have a bit of a snobbish attitude that the stick is crap and you HAVE to do this swap, but if the stick works for you then let it rock. You can update parts as needed as something breaks, or if you go to a tournament and try someone else's stick you may find that you really like Seimitsu parts and decide you want to get some of those to put in.

*Hypertext too subtle: http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/comment/8092176/#Comment_8092176