For those happening upon this, I'm a full time dad that is clinging on to his youthful pastime of gaming. My 2 and a half year old currently loves playing Street Fighter 4 with me, as well as Pac-Man to her mother's disdain. That's not to say she doesn't enjoy some games with me, she simply has no taste for several genres that I've always been into. FPS, Fighting and RTS to name a few big ones off the top of my head.
That sums up most of it, so back to the reason for this. Lately I've been experiencing some rather alarming pain in my left thumb when playing, specifically on a d-pad. An all niter of SF4 started this current bout, and it's been a thorn since late February. I laid off of it for a week in a splint taking over the counter anti-inflammatory medicines. After a month and a half I visited a hand surgeon who basically gave me some harder prescription stuff and some rather unhelpful advice - basically he'd never run into anyone with these kinds of issues. I'm finishing up the meds and going for a second opinion later this month.
Well with that out of the way, I decided it was best to take matters into my own hands if I wanted to continue ever playing in the fighting genre. I've been a long time reader of Shoryuken.com, I've simply never joined the fighting forum as I've never had any real intentions to become a tourny level player. However, with the revival of the genre as of late I'd been keeping up with the Tech Forum and the custom stick makers had piqued my interest. Instead of waiting around with the rest of the world to plunk down $150 for an official Tourny Ed stick, it seemed I could make one myself for half that price. Thus began the current journey.
I'm an old time SF player, from back when the original hit our small town arcade with the red and blue smash buttons. When SF2 came out, I was a die hard player for life. Ken was my main, and when super came out I was known as "lime green Ken!" by a few of the locals. Glory days aside, I've been playing fighting games ever since. Thus when SF4 came out, my wife(there's not a better one out there) surprised me that afternoon with a copy and an official Ken fightpad.
As much as I appreciated it all, I knew I was going to have to buy a stick to get back into it. After getting into the tech forums on srk however, I decided to build one myself. I grew up on Happ parts as most American players did. With that said, having the old thumb woes I figured it might be time to change to less resistance and learn on a Sanwa stick this go around. A few weeks later(thanks to Ponyboy of SRK) I got my JLF, OBSN-30's and 24's in. Picked up a cheap solder iron(big mistake) from Home Depot and some other misc. tools I was going to need. The case solution eluded me still, as people are charging insane prices or are simply too backed up to even take your order. Then there was the pcb itself, which having never used a solder iron I was reluctant to pick up a cheap madcatz to ruin it out the bat. So instead, I turned to older joysticks and then finally decided on the Dreamcast.
Here's a machine that was way before it's time. Not to mention the fact that all the best fighting games were on it. Soul Caliber, SF3 Third Strike, MvC, MvC2 and the list goes on. So with some help from slagcoin.com(greatest resourse out there) I found the pcb diagram and went to work. It was definitely an experience, with a lot of swearing :) . Having finished it and wanting quick results, I scanned our home for a suitable box to gut. I quickly started some rather stupid guesstimations on placement and ruined the Sennheiser box.
Finger placement was way off, I slowed down and went back to slagcoin and printed up some of the layouts found there. Next up was the old PS2 box. Strangely enough it held up rather well after I was done with it all. It was certainly ghetto, the jlf was held together in there by some old screws put in through the top and held inside by...another sliver of cardboard hah. At that point I didn't care, I just wanted to get it together and see if my solder job was up to snuff.
Yeah I know, I have some huge mitts hah. Here's a quick shot of the insides, the styrafoam actually held the entire thing together nicely. All things considered I was rather pleased that it turned out as well as it did for a first prototype.
It's since been dismantled and chucked to the four winds. My soldering turned out to be shotty on a few buttons, which I went back and redid twice. That taught me how much I really needed a good case that I could open and close to work in, as well as enough space to lay it all out. Man what a pain pulling all that stuff out and back in - you see how large my paws are. A few more tries and I got it all working and put in a few good games of Third Strike. If you're ever thinking
about doing this, know you can't do much worse than I. For the most part I ran into a long running list of 'things I still needed'. Quick Disconnects, Butt Caps, 24 gauge wire strippers; it was a long list as the week went by. Quickly my 'make it for half that' project had reached $80 in parts. And this was only the beginning :( .Things to keep in mind if you give this a go. Sit down and really double check all your parts before you start, then check it all again. Never underestimate how much wire you need, it can always be cut shorter. And lastly, really look for a decent size work space case to start out on - it will make a huge difference in your work as well as your patience.
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