IL (Industrias Lorenzo) is a company from Spain that's been making parts for arcade games for a very long time. They manufactured HAPP Competition sticks before HAPP outsourced to China, making them lower quality. So I ordered a black colored IL Eurostick from Paradise Arcade Shop (good site for arcade-grade parts) and it came in today. So I got to work.
This is the underside of the Eurostick. The actuator is nylon, not rubber or plastic, which will stand up to much more use. They also use Cherry microswitches. The square shape is nice for direct contact.
Compared to the stock X-Arcade stick, with no actuator to speak of, instead using metal clips to make contact with the microswitches, which can be bent and affected by changes in temperature.
So after opening up the bottom of the stick, there was a bit of effort needed to remove the nuts from the base of the stock stick. I needed to unscrew the microswitches to be able to get to those nuts. Removed the old stick, and put the new one in. One problem, the well where the old stock stick sat was a *little* short compared to the new plastic base of the Eurostick. Fortunately, the MDF-style wooden construction of the X-Arcade was easy to work with. I ended up carving out the top and right of the old joystick well (including the corner) with a utility knife, and then the plastic Eurostick base fit in, and then I torqued the nuts by hand so that they wouldn't be so tight in the future.
The Eurostick is now installed. The C-clip was a little bit of a pain to put back in. Now to the wiring. It wasn't difficult as I took a picture beforehand, as well as downloading the wiring schematic PDF from the X-Arcade site.
Fully wired again. Before I put the bottom panel back on, I tested it in MAME, and the performance difference is substantial. Less clicking noise from the microswitches, much smoother circular movements, and faster directional response times.
The X-Arcade is a good entry level stick, but for all the cheap parts (as well as the wood) they used, it's not a bad idea to at least change out the joystick. I know it will serve me much better in the future. I don't mod much, but this was a big successful project for me.
