sloppy Defender CT joystick - thoughts?

vintagegamer

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From what research I've done, there are no rebuild kits for Defender CT joysticks.

The player 2 stick feels fine, it's the P1 stick that's shot. Specifically, if you don't hold the stick in the 'down' position, your ship keeps floating to the top and staying there.

Looking for the consensus on how I should resolve this: swap the P1 stick for the P2, since it's usually just me who plays? Tape the bottom of the stick as a KLOVer here has mentioned in older posts?

What say ye?
 
The cocktails are just a joystick with two leaves and two longer blades sandwiched together right? Why not pick up some new leaves and retro fit some pinball flipper eos blades... Also prolly would help to buy a new stick too..

Tape works well in upright 2-way controllers.. I've done it with moon patrol, jousts, and defender in the past.. But have since swapped out with nos or repro.
 
The cocktails are just a joystick with two leaves and two longer blades sandwiched together right? Why not pick up some new leaves and retro fit some pinball flipper eos blades... Also prolly would help to buy a new stick too..

I actually don't know, I haven't 'looked under the hood' yet to see what's going on in there. I will see if I can check it out this wknd.
 
The sticks on the cocktail use simple leaf switches with spring steel between the shaft of the stick and the switch (for self-centering) separated by "fish paper" to keep them from shorting the switch to the spring steel.

It sounds like your player one stick is missing the spring steel so take them off of player two and bring them to any metal shop or machine shop and they can punch out some spring steel replacements easily. They should also be able to punch out fish paper too!

I've done the same thing for multiple Defender cocktail restores. This seems to be a commonly missing piece on these games. I may still even have some lying around. I'll check and let you know.
 
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From what research I've done, there are no rebuild kits for Defender CT joysticks.

The player 2 stick feels fine, it's the P1 stick that's shot. Specifically, if you don't hold the stick in the 'down' position, your ship keeps floating to the top and staying there.

Looking for the consensus on how I should resolve this: swap the P1 stick for the P2, since it's usually just me who plays? Tape the bottom of the stick as a KLOVer here has mentioned in older posts?

What say ye?

This guy sells the parts to rebuild your joystick.

http://www.mantisamusements.com/joystick1.htm
 
Wish someone would do a run of the spring steel pieces, if they work for Joust ct too. I think one of my Joust ct sticks has broken spring steel on one side.
 
From what research I've done, there are no rebuild kits for Defender CT joysticks.

The player 2 stick feels fine, it's the P1 stick that's shot. Specifically, if you don't hold the stick in the 'down' position, your ship keeps floating to the top and staying there.

Looking for the consensus on how I should resolve this: swap the P1 stick for the P2, since it's usually just me who plays? Tape the bottom of the stick as a KLOVer here has mentioned in older posts?

What say ye?

Can you take pics of your joystick assembly?

When you say it is "sloppy" is it sloppy up/down, left/right, or forward/back?

(I did come up with a way to correct slop in my joysticks, but my joysticks are for uprights. I've never actually seen a Williams cocktail joystick from the underside).

As for the spring steel hacksaw blades have been cut to size and used as replacements.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
It's just a basic two way stick.. Here is a pic of what the cocktail controls look like:

DSC03191.jpg



There are plenty of things you can use to rebuild it.. Hacksaw blades, pinball leaves, etc.
 
Williams sticks.

I had the same problem. The metal tensioner piece broke on mine. I couldn't find any reproductions for it so I had to find another joystick assembly.

I attached a pic of the piece that broke.
 

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I've got buckets of pinball leaves that could easily be used for this application.. When I get back from the beach I'll make up a set, just need length.
 
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