Arcade joysticks/buttons/encoder Reccomendations

Sorry for the late post, just found this forum, didn't realise A&R had set up a cab building section.:D

In case you haven't already forked out for something, steer clear of the generic stick and button packs. I've built a few cabs now and there's no comparison between them and more reputable brands. You really do get what you pay for, and the cheaper stuff will annoy you after a while, meaning a re-fit job to swop it out for new stuff. The joysticks are poor enough quality, you'll miss inputs on them occasionally, and they're a pain to adjust switches on etc, and the buttons are noisy, hollow and cheap.

The cheaper sticks use different switching systems to the better stuff, and the cheaper buttons use cheaper springs and much cheaper switches that are noisy and not rated for as many thousands of presses as the better stuff, so will fail earlier, meaning more maintenance work.

Sanwa or semitsu sticks are some of the best choices. Most fighting game fans use sanwa JLF sticks, which have built in PCB's and just plug in by means of a connector and work. Normally fighting games require very accurate and reliable hardware, so what works for them works well for most other kinds of game too. The JLF sticks are quite light, not a very heavy spring in them, so depending on your preference you can mod them or maybe go for a semitsu with a heavier spring, but really that's just personal preference.

Restrictor gates are an important consideration too. A restrictor is a piece of plastic that either snaps on or is in-built into the stick, and governs whether it's restricted to a circular, octagonal, or square pattern when you rotate it 360 degrees, whether you feel corners etc, and how heavy the corners are. Different people like different gates, but as a rule of thumb, most people in europe apart from high end fight game players are used to circular or sometimes octagonal restrictors. Most of the cabs you've ever played in an arcade will have American style circle gates on them.

Buttons wise, my personal preference would be happ ultimates, they are fairly light concave buttons that last a long time. A lot of players, particularly fighting game players again, like sanwa OBSF or OBSN or happ competition pushbuttons. These are very light touch, fast response buttons, with a very shallow deadzone, so as soon as you touch them you activate the switch. They're also convex, meaning that they are a "bubble" shape under your finger, rather than the usual concave type which is a little dip that your finger sits into. Again, it's personal preference, but the sanwas are better for games where you'll need a lot of rapid response accurately timed button presses, because they are light, and fast. Concave buttons are probably better for all rounder play.

My current machine, which is a bartop all rounder with a mix of different games on it, has sanwa JLF sticks with octagonal restrictors, with added extra springs to make them a little tougher and harder wearing, and happ ultimate concave pushbuttons as they are nice all-rounders. I use a sanwa JLF with a square gate, and sanwa OBSN buttons in another stick which i use specifically for fighting games on consoles.

Personally i'd go with the ultimarc encoders too. They are more expensive but much better and simpler than anything on the market. I've used lots of them over maybe 10 years, and i've never had a single problem with any of them. An ultimarc ipac or minipac is a good starting point.

On sticks and buttons, the best thing to do is try as many out as you can to get a feel for what you like. Once you stay away from the cheap lower end stuff, above a certain quality level it's all down to personal preference and what you like the feel of.