Lime2K
Host for Orochi
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2004
- Posts
- 762
Episode 2 of Pimp My Stick!!
My store got a Pelican Universal RealArcade stick in about a week ago, and I bought it today, with the full intention of modding it. I don't have pictures yet, but here's what went down:
1) Got home with it. Put SFAC in my ps2, and played with the stick as is for a while. Buttons ar ok, but the stick is the biggest piece of crap on God's green earth. Busted out my custom KOF stick and compared it, thinking I was just rusty with controller motions. I wasn't.
2) Opened it up, and checked it out. Wrote down wire colors to buttons before playing with it (so I could reassemble it easier). Removed two wire harnesses, along with the microswitches soldered onto them. Removed all buttons, and joystick. Upon closer examination, the buttons are clearly of inferior quality to the Happ buttons I usually use -- Lower quality plastic, and a smaller, less springy spring. The stick is worse than the ones that came on my Dynamo cab before I got to it (and those were craptacular, let me tell you) -- it looks like a cheap knockoff of a Happ Super.
3) Installed new Happ Concave buttons and a Happ Competition stick. The buttons in the top row are the classic Neo colors (R,Y,G,B) and the bottom row is all black (They're what I had hanging around, and I may consider giving concave buttons a chance next time I order from Happ). I added a 1P start and a white concave button for Select (they gave me the wrong one when I ordered it, but it looks cool), and left the original Mode button in ('cause I'll only use it like once a year, anyway).
4) Unsoldered the wire harness from the microswitches, stripped them, and added quick disconnects to all the wires.
-- I would like to take a quick moment to give the Good Old American Finger to whoever at Pelican decided that 24 gauge wire was plenty big for theit wiring. Fuck You, Sir or Madam, whomever you are. Thank you, that is all. --
(now back to your regularly scheduled post)
4) (continued) I used a few scraps of wire I had laying around to daisy-chain the grounds, because I didn't feel like trying to strip three-inch lengths of 24 gauge wire.
5) Double checked my connections, hooked it up to my PS2 to double-check the wiring connections (whih were all right the first time, to my amazing suprise), and then closed it up and played some Soul Calibur III. This stick owns, and because it's huge as all fucking hell, I have lots of room to rest my wrists when I play with it.
There's still a couple of things I want to do to it:
First is find/make some cool artwork for it -- maybe something Guilty Gear-ish.
Second is maybe add Lexan to it (but cutting Lexan to match the curve on the front of the stick will be a bitch).
My store got a Pelican Universal RealArcade stick in about a week ago, and I bought it today, with the full intention of modding it. I don't have pictures yet, but here's what went down:
1) Got home with it. Put SFAC in my ps2, and played with the stick as is for a while. Buttons ar ok, but the stick is the biggest piece of crap on God's green earth. Busted out my custom KOF stick and compared it, thinking I was just rusty with controller motions. I wasn't.
2) Opened it up, and checked it out. Wrote down wire colors to buttons before playing with it (so I could reassemble it easier). Removed two wire harnesses, along with the microswitches soldered onto them. Removed all buttons, and joystick. Upon closer examination, the buttons are clearly of inferior quality to the Happ buttons I usually use -- Lower quality plastic, and a smaller, less springy spring. The stick is worse than the ones that came on my Dynamo cab before I got to it (and those were craptacular, let me tell you) -- it looks like a cheap knockoff of a Happ Super.
3) Installed new Happ Concave buttons and a Happ Competition stick. The buttons in the top row are the classic Neo colors (R,Y,G,B) and the bottom row is all black (They're what I had hanging around, and I may consider giving concave buttons a chance next time I order from Happ). I added a 1P start and a white concave button for Select (they gave me the wrong one when I ordered it, but it looks cool), and left the original Mode button in ('cause I'll only use it like once a year, anyway).
4) Unsoldered the wire harness from the microswitches, stripped them, and added quick disconnects to all the wires.
-- I would like to take a quick moment to give the Good Old American Finger to whoever at Pelican decided that 24 gauge wire was plenty big for theit wiring. Fuck You, Sir or Madam, whomever you are. Thank you, that is all. --
(now back to your regularly scheduled post)
4) (continued) I used a few scraps of wire I had laying around to daisy-chain the grounds, because I didn't feel like trying to strip three-inch lengths of 24 gauge wire.
5) Double checked my connections, hooked it up to my PS2 to double-check the wiring connections (whih were all right the first time, to my amazing suprise), and then closed it up and played some Soul Calibur III. This stick owns, and because it's huge as all fucking hell, I have lots of room to rest my wrists when I play with it.
There's still a couple of things I want to do to it:
First is find/make some cool artwork for it -- maybe something Guilty Gear-ish.
Second is maybe add Lexan to it (but cutting Lexan to match the curve on the front of the stick will be a bitch).
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I've been thinkn about doin the same but 1st i need to locate the stick. I was siked about the X-arcade stick for the compatibility to Xbox, PS2 and GC. I'll have to make it a spring project at the rate i'm goin' though.
