Busted Atari joystick!
The old broken Atari joystick. A common fault, I guess, of the design itself.
That’s the trouble with Ebay… you buy something in good faith and when it arrives you find that the item’s description is not exactly 100%…
The ring that holds the pads which press the switches on the joystick’s board is often the weak point of the joystick. Who knows how they break? I blame Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, for it was this game on the ZX Spectrum which usually led to us all breaking our first joysticks. More often than not we’d plug in the only 9-pin D type stick into our Kempston interface on the old Speccy and waggled away until that horrible clicking sound heralded the SNAFU that was a broken Atari joystick.
How to fix???
So – I’ve got a couple of these broken white ABS stick-inners. What to do? Throw them out? No, I can’t do that! Have replacements made or dare I say it buy another? No, can’t do that either! I considered 3D printing some, but the cost of outlay of a printer versus the cost saving was just not on. Even having them printed out (yes, there are design files out there for replacement sticks/shafts and directional discs etc for the joystick), but again the cost outweighs the justification.
So – I’m going to go old-school again and try to melt down some plastic to make a directional pad and somehow make it fit the broken item.
I’m thinking perhaps that I can fashion four bungs that can go into the four voids underneath, probably screwing it into place and securing it from wobbling by use of silicone filler. From there, I can screw in the disc with its new lugs for pressing the directional switches:
I’ll have to see if that works… I’ll give you an update when I’m closer to a solution!
Update: Feb 7, 2016:
OK – so I’ve been measuring the stick shaft dimensions. I’ve cut off the lugs of one of my busted stick shafts too.
What I have found is the following (all built in PowerPoint this time):
I need to cut the disc to shape then drill a 10-12mm hole out and then 4 slots to bypass the supporting fins inside the stick. Once I’ve done that, I think it’s a case of filling each of the four voids with epoxy and leave to set, then screw in from the side and underneath to secure the new disc. I’m melting out some deodorant can tops – trying 200C first as that melts them down a bit. May need to increase the temperature slightly to make them flow better.
Now – what shall I use to make the nubbins that press on the switches? As the plastic disc will be quite thick, it’ll result in a slightly tighter movement (more accurate or too fiddly? I don’t know). I think the nubbins will need to be smaller than the originals either way. I may just use small screws – as cheese-headed as I can find – covered over with thick tape, perhaps, to prevent excessive wear & tear.
Ordered some white acrylic sheet, which I think should work easier than melting stuff down! I’ve worked with acrylic before and it’s very easy to shape and form. I even built a paddle for my C64 back in the day from some sheeting that my work had acquired as off-cuts from a sign manufacturer.
Update: Feb 26, 2016:
So the sheet has arrived, but I also ordered some 3D printed stick replacements. Perhaps I can take some ideas from those? Maybe…
Want to see the printed versions? Ok then…
My original idea was to use a simple circle cut out of the acrylic. I’ve now thought I could use the shape from the stick base instead… A bit more of a bugger to cut out, but may prove better to use.
I’ll report back here when I’ve done that… now, what to use as a filler agent for the cut-off stick I’m going to repair???