ATTN: Jr. Pac. How to climb out of the well. (Reunion stick on wooden panel).

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ATTN: Jr. Pac. How to climb out of the well. (Reunion stick on wooden panel).

When Namco decided to re-release Ms. Pac-Man they had to decide what sort of joystick to use, leaf stick joysticks were no longer available, so they would need to use a microswitch joystick that gave a similar feel and control to the original stick.

Now Namco is a Japanese company and they had their choice of every Japanese stick available. Yet for some reason they chose not to use any of them and instead to contract with Happ/iL to make a new stick for their game. This stick has a diamond gate, medium throw, small ball and short handle much like the original Pac-stick, and it is also just as precise (if not more so).

The handle on the reunion stick is rather short and thus it is only easily installed on metal panels. Bob Roberts sells a longer replacement handle for it, but that lengthens the throw and puts the feel off.

Thus if you find yourself down a well with a wooden panel you can either keep digging with that Japanese stick or you can listen to instructions on how to use the reunion stick and actually get yourself out of the well with a machine that plays correctly.

Now, I spent roughly 3 hours of my own time building this panel, largely just for this tutorial, and I know you are going to ignore it and say that Japanese stick that you have never actually even used "feels fine", but I figured maybe someone else might be able to use this advice, so here goes.

Step. One. Gather supplies.

I have here one sheet of 1/2" birch plywood, 1 sheet of 1/4" birch plywood, one sheet of thin plexi, and the most important part, a reunion joystick.

I used the following tools for this project, but some of the items are optional. Honestly if you are building control panels from scratch you should have all this anyway. 2 screwdrivers, plexiglass cutter, circular saw, jigsaw, router/trimmer with 1/16" slot bit, drill, 5" sander, 1 1/8" holesaw bit.

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I then used my circular saw to cut a 1/2" thick control panel for my machine. If working with a scratchbuilt cabinet be sure to measure your control panel depth on both sides, as your cabinet may not be perfectly square.

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I like to mark my panels left and right so I don't get confused and do anything backwards or upside down.

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Once that is done I cut a second control panel the same size out of my 1/4" plywood and set that aside for now.

Decide where you want your joystick and draw a 2 9/16" square on your 1/2" control panel.

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Cut it out with your jigsaw (I usually use my drill to drill a starter hole) and you should have this.

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Now look, the base fits right in the hole, but the lip keeps it from falling through.

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Now stack your two panels together with the joystick base between them.

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Then remove the 1/2" panel without moving the base, leaving it laying on the 1/4" panel. Go ahead and trace around the base with a pencil.

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Now cut your tracing out with a jigsaw and put your two panel pieces back together. Now you have this.

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Look at that, your joystick fits right in there. Now it is just a teeny, tiny bit above the line of the 1/4" part of the panel.

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So we hit it with the sander and take it down flush with the wood.

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Then I screw my two control panel parts together and go ahead and cut all my button holes. I chose an ambidextrous 2 button layout with 2 start buttons, as I feel that would be good for the 60 in 1 board you would likely be using.

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With the panel screwed together I get my trimmer out and use my 1/16" slot cutting bit to cut a t-molding slot. The buttons are just on there to help hold the wood pieces together as the carriage bolts would have gotten in the way of the trimmer.

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Next I cut a piece of plexiglass the same size as my panel and I go ahead and sandwich it BETWEEN my two wooden panels. I use my standard drill bit to cut my carriage bolt holes (which I then install to help hold it together) and then I use my 1 1/8" holesaw bit to cut the button holes (don't forget to cut 4 carriage bolt holes for your joystick and a 1 1/8" hole directly in the center of the square joystick cutout for the handle).

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Finally, I take it all back apart and put it together the right way with the plexi on top. This is ready for an overlay on top of the plexi (or underneath, your choice).

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And THAT is how to climb out of a well.
 
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Pretty nice tutorial. Thanks for posting it.
 
1) good job on the tutorial.
2) there are many ways to top mount a joystick.
3) if this is for Jr Pac, you wasted your time and he wont listen to it cause its good advice and therefore wont make sense to him

Note: I have a couple of these I was going to use for a project but then a pair of original pac sticks came up. They are fine but really pale in comparison to the vintage pac sticks. Pac sticks are light and lack the hard click of current switch reunion pac sticks. They also have that wonderful diamond gate.

What I want to do with some Aluminum L bar is cut some adaptors to screw in a bracket for leaf switches on this joystick instead of the microswitch ones that are currently on there. I think that it would be a huge improvement for them.
 
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I do like the feel of the original sticks a bit better, however you can't find those new, and I actually think I score better with the new style stick.

You can install the original sticks the same basic way, however you have to be more careful about heights, since you can't shave down the metal base on the original sticks.
 
I probably would have just routed the whole thing out of one thicker sheet of plywood, but I suppose you could do it this way as well.

Then again if it's for a Nintendo control panel I seem to remember the correct thickness of plywood for that isn't really stocked at big box stores? Been a while.
 
Without a router, it's just as easy to buy a sheet of 16-gauge metal from Home Depot or Lowes, drill your joystick and button holes with a 1-1/8" hole saw, add the joystick mounting bolt holes, then some holes for mounting the steel to wood. A countersink bit will allow you to mount the steel directly to the plywood underneath in a way that leaves no bolts through the top (if you care). A grinder/sander can smooth out any screw tops that seem to protrude. Then you just cut out the space in the wood for the joystick body and it mounts directly against the steel for proper height. Paint the metal before applying a cpo and you have no need for plexi (if you don't want it).

Basically the same as your method without the 2nd piece of plywood, which may matter if you care about thickness.

We did this recently for a swiss-cheese ex-Joust panel. It already had a spot beveled into the top for a different piece of steel from the conversion (Arch Rivals), so we used that with a new piece of steel for the next conversion...
 
I could have done that too if I had any router bits other than the t-molding one! For that matter I don't even have a real router, I have a $19.99 trimmer from harbor freight that takes normal router bits.

I figured this wasn't a bad way to show people because it doesn't require any metal and can be done with really basic tools.

I have done the sheet metal top route as well, always thought that was a bit harder.

I probably would have just routed the whole thing out of one thicker sheet of plywood, but I suppose you could do it this way as well.

Then again if it's for a Nintendo control panel I seem to remember the correct thickness of plywood for that isn't really stocked at big box stores? Been a while.
 
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