Student Drawings

Over the years as a guitar and bass teacher, I've received several gift drawings from students. I'm not really sure how it started, but one child did one and when the one went up on my wall, more followed as students came in and saw that their work would be displayed pretty much without fail, up there with the others. So today, I'm going to share a few of my favorites.

Completion!

As easy as the first part was, that's how hard the second half was. To get the JLF to sit flush with the case, it was necessary to grind off the little wings on each side as well as the shafts for the screws and the screws themselves so that there was room for the microswitches to fit underneath the gate. All reports of the difficulty of this portion of the mod were grossly understated. Especially since it seems like the screws holding the metal mounting plate, which I did not need or want were glued in or something. Anyway, the dremel did a good job of making nice deep grooves for a flathead screwdriver to get those little bastards out. Extending the existing wires to make it easier to connect them to the terminals on the stick itself was a little time consuming as well as breaking the grounds on the PCB for the JLF as its only real purpose at this point is to hold all the microswitches in the proper place. Soldering to the stick itself was easier than expected. However upon plugging it in. Nothing worked at all; buttons included. Rewiring, better ground breaking and a process of elimination to narrow down the problem. So many solutions were attempted between each test, it's difficult to determine just what the hell the problem was. Upon completion, I ran several sets with Kane, and when the X button became a little unresponsive, fixing it was as simple as opening the case, find that I'd loosened the disconnect a little too much for that button. Squeezed it shut a little, put it back on and it worked perfectly again.

Buttons Ahoy!

All of my buttons now work. I forgot how totally awful soldering is and only felt confident with it by the time I got them all working, but they certainly do now. I also learned that those quick disconnects are a little tight, so after ruining some, I pried them apart a little with a jeweler's screwdriver. Actually, more frustrating than soldering was the desoldering really. I'd only used the little pen suction thing before and on recommendation was using a desoldering braid. Didn't burn myself like I expected, but I'm sure that's to come when I wire and mount the joystick hopefully later tonight. Each button is wired to a spot on the PCB, while the grounds are daisy chained together.

First Few Steps

So far, everything has gone pretty smoothly. Old buttons and joystick have been removed uneventfully aside from having to pry the little metal c-ring off the bottom of the stick. Widening out the holes to accommodate the extra 2mm of width that the Sanwa buttons have was a snap. Which is how those new buttons went in. Turns out I'm a fucking surgeon with the dremel tool. Next up is wiring those buttons to the PCB. Then the joystick, which the only part that scares the hell out of me. I haven't done any soldering in quite some time, but I brushed back up on it, did some reading and I feel pretty confident. Also, black shit all over my kitchen table now. Mayflash smoke. Don't breathe this.

Buttons & Stick Arrival

Promptly delivered to me by focusattack.com were:

4 Sanwa OBSF-30 (orange)
4 Sanwa OBSF-30 (white)
1 Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT-SK Joystick
1 Sanwa LB-35 Balltop (orange)
Buttload of quick connectors

Hardware is just the color I was hoping for, the stick has a great feel and the balltop might be a little smaller than I thought? But maybe after its mounted and all, it'll feel natural. Also included as a bonus(?) was a UFS card. Some (likely common) card from a fighting game CCG of some sort? Wacky.

Voiding the Warranty

I am waiting (im)patiently for the buttons and stick to arrive. According to the tracking system, they arrived in my city just after midnight, so with any luck, there'll be a second post today unboxing those. Meanwhile, I've carefully peeled off the rubber feet covering four of the six case screws on the button and cracked this thing open. Very easy to open and though I've saved the rubber feet, I'm thinking about putting felt or something on the bottom. I keep the thing in my lap 95% of the time, so the feet do me no good and some softness on my lap would be nice.

Upon opening, I notice it looks smaller inside than the pictures I've seen so far, but that's probably just perspective I guess. Anyway, the button board is not connected via direct soldering like I've seen in other guides. Instead, there is a small ribbon cable connecting the button board to the main PCB, whose soldering connections are covered with a thin strip of what I can only guess is hot glue. While I ponder this conundrum, I pick slightly at the edge of the piece covering connections on the main board and it flips right off. Somebody call the Mayflash plant, the glue ain't holding shit together.

The board is printed with MF-STICK-B1 2009-4-20. So I'll compare to other guides and see if I can get away with not learning anything about how PCBs work and just stand on someone's shoulders. Everything else looks pretty standard, though, I'd like to see what the other side of the PCB looks like to see if there's any way for me to have a PS button on the damn thing so I can respond to fight requests/shit talking.

The model I've been using can access the XBL by pressing start an select together, but that one is a slightly different model from what I can tell and pressing those on mine isnt doing anything Only a single USB for the cord and whatnot. Also, her start an select buttons were remounted with OBSN-30's on the front, so maybe some other wizardry was also afoot there. So we'll see. At the very least I can just keep a pad nearby, but that still won't let me assign my stick to certain ports, so that's a bit of a bummer.

I've also been in contact with several artists who've about getting my artwork put together and they're not making my decision easy. Fortunately, I have time to think about it because I won't need that work done if I dremel this thing into slag, paint it so ugly it doesn't matter, or solder the innards beyond recognition. All of these are likely methods of horrible failure.

Mayflash Unboxing

Today, two things have occurred: the Mayflash PS2/PS3/USB arcade controller arrived today and my order the the replacement Sanwa parts placed.

Is it a horrible piece of shit? You betcha. The stick is clearly cheap and you can practically hear the button board PCB creaking underneath those so-called buttons. Love the weight and compact size though. Having starting to learn playing stick with a modded Mayflash, I wanted to stay close to home.

Sanwa buttons and joystick are on their way. Soldering, dremeling, sanding, priming, painting, and acquisition of a laminate label of original artwork I'm in the middle of are all to come for this thing. It's gonna be sweet. Until the parts come in, I think
I'm going to play with it as is for laughs and perspective.

I plan to chronicle the process of modding this thing here in the hopes that it may be helpful or at least mildly amusing to someone. Even if it's just myself.

To do:
• determine PCB production year
• gather supplies
• widen button holes from 28mm to 30mm
• gut the damn thing
• paint the case, clear coat the case etc.
• get an artist to clean up my design for the face art and print it on a lamilabel at Kinko's
• solder in new buttons and joystick
• learn how to play something with even the slightest hint of skill