Lanzer's joystick building guide

Lanzer's Joystick Building Guide

(August-22-1996)
PS - Maximize screen size for best results

Welcome, video game fans! Perhaps like most of you, I'm never satisfied with whatever joysticks are on the market today. Many of us have the arcade game in a home version finally, but could never carry the entire feel over when the main input device is missing ; an arcade joystick is essential for any serious gamer out there.

This guide will guide you almost step by step for building your own arcade joystick with parts from your local arcade dealer, hardware, and electronic store. From the assembly of the casing, varnishing of the case, to soldering the circut board to the buttons.

First of all, note that the prices listed will be in US dollars (it used to be in Canadian). Since I've recently moved out, many of my tools are missing and I can no longer build joysticks for people. :-( Until furthur notice I guess.

Okay, now let's get on with the guide. Enjoy.

1) The idea:

Joysticks can be broken down into 3 simple components:

  1. Casing
  2. Hardware (buttons and joystick)
  3. Electronics (Circuit board)

Major design work of the joystick will be done on the shell, where the outer look and layout of the various buttons take place. I had quite a bit of fun designing various outlooks, and here are what I came up with:

Model one was my first stab at making a joystick. Very basic shell which makes cutting easy, large room inside for weights too. I've got 4 pounds of lead sitting in there!

Model two is the newer slanted design which makes the top corners more responsive, and more arcade like too. The one shown here is "model 3" actually, though model 2 is only a centimeter taller than the one shown here. Why? Because I had to dig a hole on the bottom to leave space for the joystick.

Last but not least is the table design. Found this computer desk in Ikea for around 50 bucks, and it offers this sliding drawer, so an idea popped up, and I transfered my two cheap'o Taiwanese joysticks to the drawer. The button/joystick layout is the same as the joysticks. (I'll be replacing the cheap orange joysticks with black ones pretty soon.)

But if you've got an old table sitting around, this could be a nice alternative since all that work on the casing can be omitted. Just make sure that the table is nice and steady.

2) The tools:

Few ideas can be accomplished without the right tools, though little is required for making a joystick. Here's what you'll need to build one:
(Optional tools will be mentioned along the way)

  1. Drill (perferably variable speed)
  2. 1 & 1/8 inch hole cutter (illustration)
  3. Standard set of drills
  4. 1 1/2 inch long screws
  5. 3/4 inch screws for screwing in the joystick unit
  6. Screw driver (of course)
  7. Saw *
  8. Soldering iron
* If a hardware store can cut the wood in appropriate sizes for you, then a saw will not be necessary.

3) The materials:

Now comes the essential elements of all - the parts of the joystick itself. I've mentioned earlier that there are three major parts to a joystick, plus some little things I think I should mention, and here they are:

1) Outer casing:

Preferably pine wood, others vary in price. You'll usually have have a choice of 16" wide or 12" pine. Order a length of 36" (3 feet). It should costs around $20 at a thickness of 3/4 of an inch. Ask for laminated ones too, the surfaces on those are smoother.

If possible, ask your hardware store to cut out the pieces for you to save time. Dimensions for model one is extremely simple:

  1. 16" X 10"
  2. 16" X 10"
  3. 16" X 3"
  4. 16" X 3"
  5. 8 3/4 X 3"
  6. 8 3/4 X 3"

As for Model 2, this is the dimention that I'm using now. Note that many pieces would have to be slanted, and hardware stores usually do not do this task for you. Hand saw can make slanted pieces but a circular saw is much, much preferred.

  1. 10" X 16"
  2. 10 1/6" X 16" (Top)
  3. 1 7/8" X 16"
  4. 2 3/4" X 16"
  5. Slanted 1 7/8" X 8 3/4" X 2 3/4"
  6. Slanted 1 7/8" X 8 3/4" X 2 3/4"

2) Joysticks & buttons:

Look inside the yellow pages for "Amusement Machine" and find your local arcade distributor. That's where you'll be buying these parts from. I like to buy joysticks from Happs, and buttons don't really have a brand, but I think we can all tell which one's the closest to the ones in the arcade. The joystick usually sells for $15, while a button costs $2 (each buttons comes with its micro switch, the joystick has 4)


This is the brand that me and my local arcade use. Very durable.

3) Electronics:

You'll need a circut for the joystick, in which case I always suggest opening one of the cheap no name brand joypads and directly solder the appropriate button contacts on the pad with the microswitches on the joystick and buttons. Usual joypad cost around $15.

So there you go. The total cost of materials would be around $50 to $70 dollars. Mileage may vary.

4) Miscellaneous:

So what else is there? Well, you'll need some varnish to go on top of the wood unless you're ready for splinters. (^_^) Varnish cost a considerable amount of money actually, expect about $8 of varnish to be used on the casing if you want to make it look *nice*. Then there are small things like the screws and rubber feet for the case. You can find them in hardware stores also.

4) The procedures:

  1. First step would be to saw each piece of wood out if the hardware store haven't already done so for you (you usually have to pay about a dollar per cut). Not much tip for sawing by yourself, it's all common sense, and if you haven't operated any circular saws before, DON'T think it's a easy task.

    Search for books about woodworking in the library and read the entire circular saw manual before trying one out for the first time. It's okay if a hundred boards are ruined if you doesn't know how to operate a circular saw correctly, but one bad cut on the finger is enough to stop you from enjoying video games forever.

  2. Line your pieces of wood up. Now drill holes corresponding to the sizes of your screws, common wood working knowledge.
  3. Sanding: When the pieces have been put together (it takes me 2 hours to reach this point, can't tell, I build more than one at a time) it's now time to sand the surface. First I start with the drum (bottom-left) to eat out any rough edges sticking out on the joints, then I use the sanding pad (bottom-center) to sand the side surfaces smooth, but don't use it to sand the top. Use this or rough sand paper to sand the front corner round for your comfort. Now use a nice sanding pad (bottom-right) and sand the front surface, sanding along side with the grain. (up and down) NEVER sand sideways or you'll make alot of scratch marks.


    * Notice I'm using the word "I", since that's what I do when I make my joysticks, it's not always necessary to follow these procedures.

  4. 1st & 2nd Coats of Varnish: I apply thin coats of varnish for the first and second coat. Not much tips here except to clean the brush as clean as possible by removing as much varnish out of the brush before cleaning. After the second coat dries, the surface should look like this:

  5. Checking up: After each coat, check the front surface for bits and pieces of stuff, especially ends of the brush. Pick them out with a sharp blade then sand the surface a tiny bit with a 600 sand paper if you want to.

  6. 3rd Coat of Varnish: Aside from varnishing the sides as usual, this time you put a nice and thick coat on the top. To do so I just put a thin coat going from left to right instead of applying up and down along the grain. After you're completely sure that you've covered the whole surface, start applying ALOT of varnish with the usual up and down strokes with your dripping wet brush. Results should be similar to below:

  7. Final Sanding: The bottom picture is what things will look like after the third coat dried. Now what I do is that I'll do wet sanding with a "wet or dry" 600 sand paper (right) with lots of water running around and a big, hard piece of sponge as the sanding block. The sponge helps clean the surface also.

  8. 4th & Last Coat: This is the final coat. After the surface is nice and clean, apply another nice and thick coat of varnish to the top surface which I've wet sanded and let dry. The result after the 4th coat dries is very pleasing:

    Wooo. Cool far view. (^_^)

  9. Drilling Holes: Now it's time to drill the big holes onto the front board. Start with pilot holes first (right), then start your way down. Always drill the hole half way from the front and half way from the back. Watch out not to scratch the varnish. I usually have plastic wraps to protect the surface.
    I drill each button to be 4 centimeters apart from center to center. The joystick is about 10 centimeters away from the left most button, but that isn't really essential, just line them up in ways that are the most comfterable for you.

    Various button layouts:
    What a typical layout would turn out.

    The 8 button layout for the playstation can either be set as a rectangle or as shown here, or lined up together just like what you see for model 3.

  10. Soldering: "Last step" would be to put everything together. Screw the buttons in place, and the joystick too, then you'll need to solder everything together. From the diagrams below, you'll see where on the micro switch to solder on.

    First have one long wire which touches one of the contacts of all of the micro switches, that'll be the ground wire. Then you'll need to make tons of shorter wires for connecting to the joypad itself.

  11. More Soldering: When soldering wires to the joypad, you'll first need to find surfaces that are suitable for soldering, which are essentially bare copper serfaces on the printed circut board. Just lead the button contacts to the copper line, take a knife, scratch the green coating away, and solder away.

    Click on any of the pictures for more detailed describtions.

  12. Probably your last step would be to make a small groove for the main wire to run out of the joystick. Either that or you can detach the wire from the PC board, drill a hole somewhere on the joystick, and lead the wire through. Easy task.

  13. Now here comes the extras. You can either add weight to the joystick to add stability, or you can do other stupid things like making a port in your joypad so your joystick can plug into them instead of sacing the entire joystick to go inside. (Though adding those little ports in were very time consuming and they also require maintenance too. A wire or two fall off once in a while and stuff.)
Okay, hopefully this is enough for you to get started on building your own joystick now, and if you have any doubts or questions, just give me a shout. I'll put the answers here. (Though for questions like "how do you solder", you're better off reading a book instead.)

If this guide proves interesting, or actually useful to you, feel free to E-mail me any suggestions or comments! I live for feedbacks. (^_^)

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