Neo stick Build (on the cheap)

Hey guys, just wanted to share my -in progress- Neo stick that i'm hacking together.

It all starts with this;



I got it super cheap, and it's a decent weight and has proper SANWA/Seimitsu joystick/button mounts.

First thing I did was gut it, I took out all the PS3 crap. Removing the artwork was a friggin PITA! I then i removed the Junk Madcatz sticks and buttons. I mounted a JLF and Sanwa Buttons, and used electrical tape to cover the holes. The I wired up a Neogeo AES cable someone had given me (the other end was just loose wires). Worked well






Next Step was getting rid of the PS3 "Control Panel" hole (Top left) and the second row of 4 buttons. I was going to use button plugs but I have a heap of other USB arcade sticks so this was gonna be a dedicated neo stick.

So today I went down to Bunnings and bought some Selleys Knead it, some sanding discs, primer and black contact laminate.

Got home, sanded both sides then taped it down to some cardboard and filled in the holes with the Knead-it.



Then waited about an hour and turned it over and sanded back the Knead it.



All was good except on the back side I forgot the joystick housing has specific cutouts (as you can see in the 2nd pic) so I needed to chisel away certain areas for the panel to fit.



Some of the chiseling was a little rough on the knead it so applied some to the top and bottom to support it and now am waiting for it to cure. Its down to about 10 degree's C here so i'm going to leave it over night. And sand it back/coat it next...



I will continue tomorrow...

(I am using Black contact laminate for now to cover the panel but have made up a image to print to use. Only problem is, Lami-Label type stuff is gonna cost me about $60 here in Australia.)

What I'd like to have for the panel art (eventually);

Rock on with the project. Be cool to see the final product. Keep us posted.

Yagyu Jubei said:

Rock on with the project. Be cool to see the final product. Keep us posted.

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Thanks mate!

Well I ended up giving it over two hours and went and sanded it down.



Tried 3 times with the Black Contact...



Finally got it to look ok



Cut out the stick and button holes;



And then put the stick back together. I should have sanded down parts better but I really couldn't tell until you lay down the contact (Also I hate bubbles). This will do nicely until I can afford to spend $60 on my Artwork


]
(The camera flash makes it look odd, panel matches the black plastic housing IRL)

Feels nice! I will update the thread when I get the art printed.

Pretty good for about $70AUD total (~48USD)

Nice looking project. I've been thinking about hacking together a stick of my own recently, I like the idea of sacrificing an old PS3 stick. Where did you pick up the sanwa/seimitsu bits?

Well done my friend, wish I had the technical ability to do such a thing.

Looks good. I just did a few neo controllers recently and one of them was a PS3 hori real arcade pro v3 I picked up for pretty cheap. Its pretty easy starting with another stick and converting it to the proper button layout, totally worth it in the end. Nice job

egg_sanwich said:

Nice looking project. I've been thinking about hacking together a stick of my own recently, I like the idea of sacrificing an old PS3 stick. Where did you pick up the sanwa/seimitsu bits?

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Thanks mate, I bought the Sanwa parts of a guy local to me. Still wanna replace them all with an LS32 and Seimitsu buttons tho :/

capnd77 said:

Well done my friend, wish I had the technical ability to do such a thing.

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Cheers mate! You should try little bits at a time, there's nothing that special in it

blakeb8111 said:

Looks good. I just did a few neo controllers recently and one of them was a PS3 hori real arcade pro v3 I picked up for pretty cheap. Its pretty easy starting with another stick and converting it to the proper button layout, totally worth it in the end. Nice job

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Thanks mate. Yeah I would have loved to do a HRAPv3 but the WWE Brawlstick was super cheap and decent enough. I really wanna make one out of a HRAP V3SE/VXSE or a V3SA/VXSA and use Seimitsu parts next

nicely done. How do you like the button alignment? I actually prefer it to the way the Oldstyle stick makes you twist your ankle.

I find the top row on Vewlix layouts very comfortable for Neo-Geo. All my friends seem to prefer the layouts found in SE Asia (squeezed into a 6-button layout, ABC along the top, D where short and roundhouse are).

xsq said:

nicely done. How do you like the button alignment? I actually prefer it to the way the Oldstyle stick makes you twist your ankle.

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For 4 buttons layout sticks, nothing makes more sense than your sentence.
I guess some people prefer to use their pointer to shoot A button faster and the pinky for D.

I personally prefer to use my thumb to my ring finger for fighting games.
For games I have to shoot a lot, I just place my pointer on the A button. Most of those ( if not all ) do not use 4 buttons so.. yeah. It's comfortable that way too.

Old style stick layout ftw!

That stick rocks too tho.

Just a friendly tip, anyone applying large area sticker paper, treat it as window tint. Use a 50/50 solution of water/soap. Spray the surface that you are applying it to as well as the adhesive side of the paper then lay it down and use a straight rubber edge to get the air bubbles out. Depending on the heat tolerance of the sticker/contact paper you can use a blow dryer to get all the water out or leave it to dry for a day on its own in a slightly warm room.

That is indeed an awesome project. Kudos for a job well done. Are the start and select buttons on top? That artwork will make the stick look amazing.

Thanks a lot for the nice words guys. Yeah, I like the Vewlix top 4 buttons for Neo. I've sometimes used the 6 button SF Layout for KOF (ACx,BDx) on my Blast City, but i'm really getting used to the neo layout again. Its nice to have all buttons with fingers on them, just retraining my brain.

Thanks for the tip Xian, i'll definitely use that when I get the proper artwork!

Cheers cr8zykuban0 Yeah the start & select I left with the default madcatz (Start/Select) as they are fine for what they are, they are a little small but I don't mind them because they're countersunk.


(Back is Select on the PS3 stick and inverted colours)

that's the best position for them anyway IMO, as they don't get in the way.

Xian Xi said:

Just a friendly tip, anyone applying large area sticker paper, treat it as window tint. Use a 50/50 solution of water/soap. Spray the surface that you are applying it to as well as the adhesive side of the paper then lay it down and use a straight rubber edge to get the air bubbles out. Depending on the heat tolerance of the sticker/contact paper you can use a blow dryer to get all the water out or leave it to dry for a day on its own in a slightly warm room.

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Nice tip! I hadn't looked into that aspect of it so had no idea.

Phexe, nice work on the stick. It provides me a little more incentive to work on the one I've been thinking about.

xsq said:

that's the best position for them anyway IMO, as they don't get in the way.

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Yeah, out of the way is good. But I actually miss having the start button to the right of the normal buttons like on my Arcade Panel/VXSA.

Randomsense said:

Nice tip! I hadn't looked into that aspect of it so had no idea.

Phexe, nice work on the stick. It provides me a little more incentive to work on the one I've been thinking about.

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Thanks Randomsense! Yeah best advise I can give is that I fuffed around for ages but just threw myself into it and got it done. Make sure you post it on the forums for us to see

Nice work Phexe! Stick looks heaps better now and I bet it plays better too!

lachlan said:

Nice work Phexe! Stick looks heaps better now and I bet it plays better too!

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Thanks mate! Yeah definitely plays WAYY nicer than those crappy Madcatz stick and buttons!!

Starting another Neo stick build on the cheap!

Snagged one of these for bugger all with free shipping! (Probably my favourite stick ever, have the KAI version as my main PC USB Stick!)






Ok so lets remove all the Xbox crap! The control panel sticker came off way better than my previous WWE Brawlstick. Only a little glue needed scratching off (As apposed to spending nearly 2 hours getting rid of the artwork and left over glue on the brawlstick!!).





Now, we just need to temporarily wire all the buttons (including the back button on the xbox pcb).





And now, lets re-assemble the stick to wait for parts to arrive!



As you can see I've removed all the Turbo switches and the Xbox 360 guide button. Not sure what to do, maybe cover with some of the black vinyl I have left over from the WWE Brawlstick. Or alternatively, I might fill up the other areas with hot glue and sand it down and paint it keeping only the area for the Back button (Used as Select). Bottom 4 buttons are temp replacements for Button plugs/artwork.

Parts I have in the mail;



Seimitsu LS-32-01-SC-SS (My absolute favourite stick ever, will be replacing the placeholder JLF in the stick atm).




Artwork printed and cut by Tek Innovations (Ignore the Purple stuff, that was to ask if I could only get the top 4 buttons cut.)




Neo Geo extension cables, ordered 3 of these bad boys. 1 for inside the stick and then the other 2 to use as actual extensions!


I'll update with more as I receive the parts!

that's a pretty big stick, but I can see it will look nice once you're done. If you still have the Xbox-button you could keep it and use some diodes to turn it into a Unibios-Button (start+select) just for fun...

Speaking of diodes, how about making a 6 button controller for SamSho out of this one?
A--B--A+B
C--D--C+D
(© XianXi)

xsq said:

that's a pretty big stick, but I can see it will look nice once you're done. If you still have the Xbox-button you could keep it and use some diodes to turn it into a Unibios-Button (start+select) just for fun...

Speaking of diodes, how about making a 6 button controller for SamSho out of this one?
A--B--A+B
C--D--C+D
(© XianXi)

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Thanks mate! Haha that would be kewl, never thought of that. Hmm I'll look into it!

That's a good stick to mod, I did one with the PS3 version of it. Lots of room to work with and it has a nice weight to it. Nice work so far.

blakeb8111 said:

That's a good stick to mod, I did one with the PS3 version of it. Lots of room to work with and it has a nice weight to it. Nice work so far.

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Thanks Blake! Yeah mate, I fell in love with the layout/size/weight of it when I got my original Xbox 360 HRAP VXSA Kai Edition. Gonna leave the JLF in the smaller stick and use the LS-32 in this bad boy, best of both worlds.

Phexe said:

Thanks mate! Haha that would be kewl, never thought of that. Hmm I'll look into it!

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It totally changes the way you play it.

When I made a Neo stick on the cheap I was playing in the cardboard league, shit here's next level.