Joystick Sadness (Sadstick?)

A few weeks ago I spotted a job lot of three joysticks on eBay for a very reasonable price. I was only really interested in one of them, and at the price I paid, the other two were a bargain.

Or so I thought.

The first of the additional sticks was a Cheetah Annihilator. If you are interested in retro gaming in any form then you will probably already know that this particular joystick could be described as the worst joystick in the history of mankind. If this was the last joystick in existence and I had to choose between the eternal fires of Hades or playing Sensible Soccer for an hour with this joystick then I'd be reaching for the suntan oil.

Imagine my (non)surprise when I realised it was broken. The handle didn't centre properly, the fire buttons on the top of the handle didn't do anything and the handle itself wasn't screwed together properly. Once I undid the screws in the handle it became apparent why. The previous owner had deliberately screwed it together in such a way as to grip the shaft of the joystick (no sniggering at the back) thereby semi-concealing the fact it's buggered.

The second joystick is very much an el-cheapo generic joystick from the cheap end of cheapo land. This one at least seemed to make no pretence at being anything other than cheap. Did I mention it's cheap?

I tested both of them on my Amiga and, sure enough, the fire buttons didn't work on the handle of the Annihilator but the base fire button did. The directions all worked but nothing could hide the sagginess of it. El Cheapo worked but the shaft twisted rather unnervingly but that's for another post.

So, do I bother doing anything with the Annihilator? Of course. 

Opening the handle revealed two wires connected to two random pieces of metal. Also inside was a 'z' shaped piece of black plastic and another chunk of the interior. After puzzling over the bits for a while it suddenly became obvious what I needed to do. Bin it...just kidding.

Comprehensively Broken

The two pieces of metal formed the 'switch' for the fire buttons and the 'z' piece held them in place. The only snag was that one side of the area that holds the 'z' piece had snapped off. To solve this I used a tactic normally reserved for large, heavy parts of Warhammer models. PIN IT! Basically, drill a hole from the exterior of the handle through to the inside. I actually did two holes. Then, superglue the broken piece back where it should be and let it set. Once set, I got the drill out again and extended the two holes into the superglued part. Finally, two pieces of stiff wire (a paperclip) were cut to length and superglued into the holes and left to dry. Job done.

Two tiny holes betray the pins

Re-instating the switch was straightforward after that. The only tricky bit was ensuring that the pieces were the right way around. The way the switch works is this. If the top button is pressed the button pushes the spring metal down onto the other piece completing the circuit. If the trigger is pressed the the button presses the metal where it makes contact with the other piece, completing the circuit. Cheap and nasty.

Next up, in the base, the switches used for the directions are of the 'dome switch' type. These are the same as used in the original QuickShot and QuickShot II joysticks. In this case they were covered in a huge sticky sheet of clear tape that was also covered in what looked like sawdust. I had to remove the tape (yuk) and carefully take the domes of the sticky side. I cleaned them with isopropyl alcohol and re-attached with a few small pieces of sellotape. Easy. (Apologies there are no photos of this - phone camera let me down.)

The next problem was that the handle just rotated around the shaft because the plastic lugs inside the handle which normally slot into the joystick shaft had snapped off. This was solved relatively easily with a couple of bolts. I drilled a hole on each side of the handle and inserted bolts long enough to slot into the shaft. 

New anti-rotating bolt fitted

Finally, how to make it a bit less sloppy. This was more difficult but I had an idea of using a spring of some sort under the shaft. As luck would have it, I had a few single battery boxes used in small projects. The spring contact from one end of one of these boxes was just the right size and strength to fit under the main shaft. The result was more than acceptable and a darn site better than it was originally. Again, apologies for the lack of photos on this bit - I did it at the same time as the dome switches and, for some reason, no photos came out..

So for this joystick, the only signs of anything being 'different' are a couple of tiny holes on the handle near the fire buttons, and what looks like a couple of screw heads at the bottom. A small price to pay to make it work.

All repairs done - re-assembly in progress

Re-assembly complete and all tested

It's still a steaming pile of crap though...