Custom joystick

[Retrofan]

Hi:
I was thinking in using an old Competition Pro joystick that I've bought for 15€ and install a good arcade stick inside, and also change the buttons.

A couple of questions:

-Will they fit?
-Brand to search for and buy? Do you feel the difference between Sanwa and chinese ones?

Thanks.

Edit: Ok, it seems it won't fit as it is, but I will modify it ;D. I will try a chinese stick.
This box has the size to be placed over the C-Pro joystick with some cuttings.
Stay tuned

[Jope]

They won't fit. Arcade sticks are quite big..

The competition pro already uses industrial microswitches, like many arcade sticks do..

If you want to use an arcade stick, it's better to design a new enclosure for it.

I've built quite a few custom ontrollers, and you really need a lot of depth to fit an actual arcade stick. My Amiga stick is built from a generic project box and 'american' style arcade parts that I salvaged from an old Street Fighter II cabinet.
The best thing about building my own stick is that I was able to add a few toggle switches for changing the function of the extra 2 buttons that I put in it. For games that only use one button, I switch them to 'up' and 'down' mode. It's especially helpful for platformers and racers.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by Jope

They won't fit. Arcade sticks are quite big..

The competition pro already uses industrial microswitches, like many arcade sticks do..

If you want to use an arcade stick, it's better to design a new enclosure for it.

Thanks. The arcade stick has arrived today. I've seen that the CPro already uses this same kind of microswitches, so it has been just to replace them and that's all, they fit exactly as them in the same places -black one is the first new one in the photo-,



but they are harder, so more noisy, more like like the CPro that Individual Computers sells, but not exactly the same. The original CPro has a rubber that makes the movement softer (I haven't opened the IC's one, but it seems so).

Now I will buy a couple of sanwa buttons -others seem too long- to replace these as they aren't making any noise when you push them, and I don't like that. In fact they aren't using microswitches but just pushing a plate against another.

So, really, the original Competition Pro is very easy to upgrade . It seems that you can actually use arcade stick microswitches and arcade buttons microswitches in the original Competition Pro joystick extremely easy, just replacing them just to have an arcade stick in your vintage CPro.