Need Help with a Famicom arcade stick

[koifish | 555]

I have an ASCII Stick for Famicom which has stopped registering down presses reliably. I want to repair it and figured I'd ask for more info.

The insides are really simple; The stick is four microswitches, like an arcade stick. Based on what I can gather, the stick uses four matsushita 76515 microswitches, and the A/B buttons are pushbuttons, mounted into 24mm diameter holes (I believe that makes them 24mm buttons, unless "24mm" refers to the button size, not the mount size).

So, looking around it appears you can pay a handsome sum for NOS of the matsushita switches, or you can buy a modern-day copy. Is that about the lay of things, and is there a specific option that might be better than another?

Secondly, I'm interested in changing out the buttons. I don't really like the way that they feel. Could I simply buy modern 24mm buttons (from seimitsu for example) and replace them? They look to be just clipped in and soldered in two points, so pretty trivial I think. Just not sure how to shop for buttons, besides buying them I'd like to pick ones for which I like the feel.

Pics of the stick, buttons, switches provided. Any insights appreciated, Thanks all.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Those look like the microswitches in my neo geo cabinet.  Not exactly but the form factor, mine are cherry brand if I remember right(and white) but the way it's setup looks right couplings and all.

I mean unless you're some sadist on the wallet if they're that costly, I'd just match up the power requirements and prongs for the clips and just get a bag of whatever works cheap as you should get the same response as it's just a micro switch.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I agree with @Tanooki.  Unless you're just a perfectionist wanting everything to be as original and matching as possible, swap out any/all bad switches with modern equivalents that meet the same power specs and will fit properly, button it up, and call it good.  Chances are that even if you pass it on, nobody will ever know the repair has been done, as nobody will open it up again unless something else breaks, at which point I'd hope that they'd also just look at preserving such a nice piece by swapping in what's available and keeping it in service for as long as possible.

[CMR | 519]

Try spraying some contact cleaner, deoxit, or lacking any of that, WD40 down into the switch first.  Give it some presses to work the stuff down inside of it and see if that helps.  Also take a close look at the wires attached to that switch, and make sure it's not breaking or coming loose.  Those switches are pretty robust.  I doubt any of them are used up on a console joystick.  That thing looks brand new.

If you're feeling really frisky, you could even drill out the rivets and take it apart.

[koifish | 555]

Thanks all for the replies.

On 3/26/2023 at 8:59 PM, Tanooki said:

Those look like the microswitches in my neo geo cabinet.  Not exactly but the form factor, mine are cherry brand if I remember right(and white) but the way it's setup looks right couplings and all.

I mean unless you're some sadist on the wallet if they're that costly, I'd just match up the power requirements and prongs for the clips and just get a bag of whatever works cheap as you should get the same response as it's just a micro switch.

They might be the very same. I saw from further research that SNK used these switches in Ikari Warriors rotary sticks. That's part of where I learned a lot about them last night, reading about people doing rebuilds of those sticks (apparently they are very finicky).

I also learned that the "modern" equivalent is/was from the Panasonic AM5 series, which is now obsolete. I put in a request with Mouser just to see if they could find out if a future part exists, though a note from 2015 states they are discontinued without replacement, so it might just be that way.

 

All that said, I am not totally obsessed with having the right stick parts for the period or anything, I'm more just making sure I don't goof it all up. I'm not the best with electronics. My joke for it is that I'm a machine that turns solder pads into lifted pads. Either way, I only know enough to get myself into trouble, and so I like to get as much info and stay as close as possible to the original stuff.

That said, given the parts are quickly becoming unicorns, I'd much rather just let it be (and let IW fans continue to restore their much more precious sticks). So, I'll try and go for the route of replacing things that are close enough, or first just cleaning it out.

On that note, @CMR is there any particular brand of contact cleaner that you would recommend getting?

And @darkchylde28 , do you have any recommendation on how to identify and search for matching parts? I've seen the parts manual from Panasonic for the AM5 switches I mentioned earlier, as well as a rundown from someone in an Ikari thread on another site about how to pick the exact part model number, but in terms of cross-referencing that information against other switches on part seller sites, I'm feeling more than out of my element. I'd appreciate any pointers you could share.

That page for reference:  https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/has-anyone-here-ever-replaced-the-microswitches-in-an-snk-ls-30-rotary-joystick.297455/

(oh, and I notice now they say right in there that SNK used them for Neo Geo cabs too, nice spot @Tanooki)

Edited March 29, 2023 by koifish
fixed link

[koifish | 555]

And while I'm thinking about it, the controller buttons are working fine, but were never really to my liking. They don't have a good feeling when you press them, if you know what I mean. Hard to describe, but rather than feeling springy and soft, they go straight down with a hard feeling that is rough on the fingers. I was wondering, if I've got it open, then can I do something to make the buttons more pleasurable to press down? the holes appear to be 24mm, and that seems to be a standard arcade pushbutton size, so maybe I could replace them or add something to make them more comfortable to press. If anybody knows about this topic then I'd love to hear it.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

6 minutes ago, koifish said:

And while I'm thinking about it, the controller buttons are working fine, but were never really to my liking. They don't have a good feeling when you press them, if you know what I mean. Hard to describe, but rather than feeling springy and soft, they go straight down with a hard feeling that is rough on the fingers. I was wondering, if I've got it open, then can I do something to make the buttons more pleasurable to press down? the holes appear to be 24mm, and that seems to be a standard arcade pushbutton size, so maybe I could replace them or add something to make them more comfortable to press. If anybody knows about this topic then I'd love to hear it.

Have you pulled the colored plastic off the buttons to clean underneath? Its the microswitches that usually make the “feel”. You might be able to replace the old ones while keeping the original button. 
 

or you could replace the buttons with modern ones if the form factor and depth are right. 

[CMR | 519]

@koifishDeoxit is probably the best for electronics.  You can get it off ebay.  If you don't want to wait, any contact cleaner from your local auto parts store or wal-mart will work.  WD40 also makes an electronics cleaner if you can find it.  Chris Edwards on youtube uses it to clean amiga boards.  Generally all your contact cleaners are going to be safe for plastics. 

As far as new buttons go, you can find some really nice ones with Omron switches on ebay.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165057244796?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20220705100511%26meid%3Dfec3c487c54b4f6396413409dbac72fb%26pid%3D101524%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26itm%3D165057244796%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057%26algv%3DRecentlyViewedItemsV2&_trksid=p2380057.c101524.m146925&_trkparms=pageci%3A00050336-ce99-11ed-a5b4-f292fab4ac49|parentrq%3A3019b6eb1870a60c035144cbffff4b2e|iid%3A1

 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by CMR

[koifish | 555]

On 3/29/2023 at 6:23 PM, CMR said:

@koifishDeoxit is probably the best for electronics.  You can get it off ebay.  If you don't want to wait, any contact cleaner from your local auto parts store or wal-mart will work.  WD40 also makes an electronics cleaner if you can find it.  Chris Edwards on youtube uses it to clean amiga boards.  Generally all your contact cleaners are going to be safe for plastics. 

As far as new buttons go, you can find some really nice ones with Omron switches on ebay.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165057244796?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20220705100511%26meid%3Dfec3c487c54b4f6396413409dbac72fb%26pid%3D101524%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26itm%3D165057244796%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057%26algv%3DRecentlyViewedItemsV2&_trksid=p2380057.c101524.m146925&_trkparms=pageci%3A00050336-ce99-11ed-a5b4-f292fab4ac49|parentrq%3A3019b6eb1870a60c035144cbffff4b2e|iid%3A1

 

 

Ended up getting some contact cleaner from the store, and it did the trick just fine. Controller back to normal function. Quite happy with it again, so thanks for all the help ITT.