Well I received the joystick assembly finally and proceeded to dissect and photograph.
The way it works is there is a "hat" that is common and tilts to make contact with contacts in the base. There are 8 contacts in the base. A spring keeps the "hat" from making contact unless force is applied. There is a center blister switch that closes when the brass shaft is pressed. There is no threading and the brass stick and metal hat are keyed so they don't rotate. It is a simple arrangement.
If you notice, and this is important, the X and Y direction contacts are SMALLER than the diagonals! THIS is why it is too easy to hit the diagonals accidentally as the target is bigger. Now it is bright and shiny clear. I don't know why the switch mfg didn't make the contacts the same size but they didn't kind of dumb. Then GPH didn't know any better so they just threw it in without testing, dumb and dumber.
The fix for GPH would be to orient the assembly at a 45 degree angle to how it is now, then change the wiring so that the now larger contacts correspond to X and Y and not diagonal. This would improve the X and Y control.
*CraigIX you may want to contact GPH and suggest that they do this in future batches, rotate the stick assembly 45 degrees and change the wiring accordingly.*
The mod for the rest of us? Well for those handy with an iron you could cut small thin strips of metal and solder to the X,Y direction contacts. What this would do is both increase the X,Y bias (since the metal would be slightly higher it will be easier and more likely to hit) and narrow the dead zone too. My next mod...
The way it works is there is a "hat" that is common and tilts to make contact with contacts in the base. There are 8 contacts in the base. A spring keeps the "hat" from making contact unless force is applied. There is a center blister switch that closes when the brass shaft is pressed. There is no threading and the brass stick and metal hat are keyed so they don't rotate. It is a simple arrangement.
If you notice, and this is important, the X and Y direction contacts are SMALLER than the diagonals! THIS is why it is too easy to hit the diagonals accidentally as the target is bigger. Now it is bright and shiny clear. I don't know why the switch mfg didn't make the contacts the same size but they didn't kind of dumb. Then GPH didn't know any better so they just threw it in without testing, dumb and dumber.
The fix for GPH would be to orient the assembly at a 45 degree angle to how it is now, then change the wiring so that the now larger contacts correspond to X and Y and not diagonal. This would improve the X and Y control.
*CraigIX you may want to contact GPH and suggest that they do this in future batches, rotate the stick assembly 45 degrees and change the wiring accordingly.*
The mod for the rest of us? Well for those handy with an iron you could cut small thin strips of metal and solder to the X,Y direction contacts. What this would do is both increase the X,Y bias (since the metal would be slightly higher it will be easier and more likely to hit) and narrow the dead zone too. My next mod...
