Part #6 - Sticks of Joy !
It's been a few days since I posted my last update - largely in part due to being quite busy fixing things for both this and another project I've got going on in the background. As the title suggests and I'd hinted at previously as being my next post, this update is surrounding all things joystick. You may recall from a previous update I posted that in total I have ordered 3 joystick's for this project: 1 x Suzo "The Arcade", 2 x Zip Stik and had 2 supplied with the Amiga: 1 x Quick Shot (now identified as the Apache) & 1 x Slip Stik, missing the fire button.
It's fair the mention not everything has gone to plan with my Joystick repairs - adding some delays, so there will be future updates on this topic but I have got to a position now where I've got a couple of fully functional joystick's I can use when my motherboard gets back and I can reassemble my Amiga 1200
So - let's get onto an update on each:
Suzo "The Arcade"
This was the Joystick I purchased directly from Amiga Scene over in the Netherlands - I've been very excited for this to arrive. I never owned one of these before but whenever I played on one I was always like a kid in a candy shop.
Imagine my delight when this box arrived with the postman:
Much as I would have loved to just rip straight into the box, I was actually very careful - I don't want to break whatever's inside - in all fairness, it was the only thing I'd ordered from the Netherlands so the post mark gave it away - yet until the box is open you never really know what's inside - like Schrödinger's cat. Finally the box was open though and to my delight it was just what I'd wanted.
A thing of beauty to behold. It fit perfectly in my hand and the fire button was quick and snappy to press but unfortunately there was a bit of a problem. Now, I went into this purchase knowing that this was a refurb unit so knew it had been repaired, but I wasn't expecting it to be as stiff as it was. When I pressed in a direction it felt almost as if the plastic was rubbing against itself. It felt sturdy and responsive and tested perfectly fine on the Joystick Tester but that darned rubbing - just made it stiff to move in any direction. Not wanting to have to have to jump straight to contacting the seller to return it, I thought I could take a quick look and see what was going on. Likely it would be a simple fix - and it turned out it was.
One quick disassembly later and it became clear - there was no lubricant around the stick or the internal plastic components where it moved and sure enough, it was slightly rubbing on the plastic when I moved it whilst disassembled. The repairer hadn't thought to apply some grease to it and the result was plastic on plastic rubbing in places. Enter stage right > My large tube of Multi-Purpose grease and a few cotton buds. I took to liberally applying some lubricant to the affected areas - here's a picture for posterity below:
End result? Once reassembled this Joystick now responds like a dream. No rubbing just smooth motion in all directions. Much as I love a Zip Stik, if this play-tests as well as I think it will, it might just become my daily choice. I'm still a little wary of the reliability reports, but my initial impression is very positive. Just a case of waiting to get the Amiga back and assembled to test it out some more now.
Zip Stik's (Two of them!)
You may recall, I purchased two "questionable" Zip Stik's. One was advertised as fully working but had been in a loft for some time, the other was advertised as Faulty. See if you can figure out which is which. Here's a picture of the two side by side:
Well, did you guess ? Yep - the one of the right is the working one. It just arrived looking so much tidier as if care had been taken over it. So - let's give a report on that one first. Overall, this Joystick is in fabulous condition. Before I even looked to refurb it, it tested perfectly fine and was exceptionally positive to movement and button presses. Imagine my further delight when I opened it up and found that the fire button's have already been repaired/upgraded to newer Micro Switches already.
As I'm a firm believer of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" I'll not be doing anything else to this joystick at the minute. It works great and feels just like old times when I hold it in my hand. Once the Amiga is back in operation I will of course be putting it fully through it's paces with the Suzo. I have spare Microswitches so if needs be I can always jump on and swap out anything which doesn't feel just quite right.
Which takes us on to Zip Stik #2. Oh dear, oh dear. Where to start.
Well, firstly - it arrived definitely as advertised - faulty. Up did test ok on the tester but other than that, everything else was dead. Now, that in itself wasn't too big a surprise. I had planned on refurbing and replacing all of the microswitches on this one in anycase - but, alongside it not working it just didn't feel right. Not only was the weight off, but the directions and fire buttons didn't have that familiar microswitch click to them. Now I know different brands of microswitch give different experiences, but this just felt completely wrong.
Screwdriver out - time to disassemble. Imagine my surprise once I had and found this:
Not a separate microswitch in sight. Some kind of weird board with everything integrated. It has embossed upon it "Power Play ISS 4". I can only imagine this was some kind of cheap repair board from back in the day ? If anyone has any further information they can share on this it would be appreciated. I'm really curious as to the origins of this - I can't find any references to it when I've searched google (although Power Play and ISS have quite a lot of results for other things, not joystick related!). In anycase, not only is it faulty but it's completely different to what I was expecting. As it was advertised as faulty I wasn't intending to send it back, so I put my thinking cap on. If this was some kind of cheap repair from back in the day, logic would follow that likely I could return it back to a fully working microswitched Zip Stik ? I had most of the parts so why not give it a bash...
So first things first, I disassembled my working Zip Stik to check it out. This is where I noted a few differences.
1) The screw holes from the base to the top part were in slightly different places. Interestingly, I can actually screw the bases on either joystick, but they don't feel the same when I do.
2) The base on the faulty joystick is missing the plastic parts which hold microswitches in place. This would need to be solved.
3) The joystick "sticks" themselves were different. The working one was black, the non working one was white.
4) The white one sits lower down in the base of the joystick than the black one. This would make fitting an autofire impossible as will become clear later.
5) On the white platform, two of the screw holes I need to use to secure microswitches into place are still blanked off. This indicated to me that that part was either new, or this joystick had never been a microswitch variant. Still, I wasn't going to be deterred.
Now, at the time of writing, this joystick is still a work in progress. I only have black and red wire in my toolkit and as I'm going to need to completely rewire this I'd prefer to do it with correctly colour coded wires so I've gone ahead and orderered some along with some 4.8mm crimps. My plan is to get this Zip Stik as close as possible back to original working order and condition. That said, even without being wired up I have been able to test out the theory to some degree and have temporarily got all of the microswitches secured in place (I did some clever Stanley Knife work to uncover the needed 2 screw holes) and tacked down the fire switches too.
Here's what it looks like at the moment:
As you can see in the picture, because the white platform sits raised the place where the autofire switch board would go there is a pesky microswitch in the way. This may well mean adding auto fire to this joystick is out of the picture - add to the fact I've not been able to source an original replacement circuit board and this doesn't appear to be a standard 555 switch I would have expected. I could maybe figure out where to locate it, but it seems a little overkill at this point as I have a working Zip Stik with Auto Fire.
So - the good news is that even in this configuration (albeit not wired up yet), when reassembled it actually now feels like a Zip Stick when pressing the directions and fire buttons. It returns nicely back to it's start position and is very responsive. From this initial work I've done, there appears to be no issues with adding microswitches back - except the autofire switch problem. I'm quietly confident I'll return this to a fully working micro-switched Zip Stik once the colour coded cables arrive so I can wire this up properly.
I've also disassembled the ISS 4 board originally in it, to remove the cable & auto fire switch. Obviously I'll be using the cable and the auto fire switch will be going in my box of bits to look at again another day.
End result ? 1 fully working Zip Stik (#1) with Auto Fire, 1 Zip Stik(#2) still under refurbishment without Auto Fire - this will end up being effectively a complete interior reconstruction by the time I'm done.
Slip Stik
Not really much to update on this one at the moment. Parts for this were really difficult to source as I mentioned before - which meant I had to get some of them from the US. As of writing, they still haven't arrived yet so I've not done anything of note here yet. The faulty Zip Stik took more of my time than I was intending in any case - but this will be up for repair and upgrade to a microswitched fire button as soon as all of the pieces arrive. Stay Tuned !
Quickshot Apache
This was the joystick which came with the system. Good news - it fully works ! Bad news - just not the joystick for me. This feels very Flight Simulator-y to the touch. When I pull together my first For Sale post this will probably be included on it. For now, I'm going to keep a hold of it - just in case I need to rob it for parts. Highly unlikely - but you never know !
..and there you have it...
I've now got 2 fully functional joystick's for my setup as I mentioned near the start of this update. They are:
1) Suzo "The Arcade" & 2) Zip Stik #1 (Auto Fire model)
Both in fantastic condition and full working order - two is all I need for some great two player action on the all time classic that is Bubble Bobble to play with my better half - and that is what I have.
Next order of business for these is to get them hooked up to the Amiga when it's back and put them through their paces. Let's see which one I ultimately prefer for my Daily Gamer. If it ends up being the Suzo, I'm going to have to build or get a hold of an external auto fire switch (which would actually solve the problem with Zip Stik #2 by having an external auto fire box). Likely if I go through route I'd want a variable control for it - but that's all decisions for another day !
Here's a picture of my two babies to leave you with..
Until next time!
Best regards,
Matt.
