The Ultimate Competition Pro Joystick Mod

What this project is all about

Competition Pro joysticks from the eightys are known to be great and durable devices. Compared to their competitors they were great! However, they were by far not as good, as they could have been! The outside of the device was well designed and just about perfect, but the problems are the inner parts of the device:

• Manufacturing tolerances were very high, and so travel for both the stick and the buttons was larger as it should be for a good device. For a good joystick you want a bit less travel and lower forces for triggering the function.

• The first and second generation of these joysticks had a large rubber ring to return the stick into its center position. This ist not the best solution to the problem. Later versions featured a large spring to improve the situation, but did not solve the other problems.
• The one thing that never changed, was the poor selection of switches: The producer not only decided to use microswitches with a very high trigger force, he also did not care much about what switches to install into his products. I have opened a lot of competition pro joysticks, and each had its own brand or type of microswitches inside...

So, being a nostalgic person with a 3D printer, I decided to create a mod for converting this wonderful joysticks to what they could have been in the first place: The best digital Joysticks on earth.

Joysticks this mod should work for:

This mod is based on the second generation (or so - see preconditions below) of Competition Pro Joysticks. Joysticks must fulfill the following requirements:

• It is a genuine Competition Pro Jyostick
• There is a total of exactly 4 microswitches.
• There is a rubber for returning the stick to its center position.

Joysticks this mod will not work for:

 My mod is not compatible with Joysticks fulfilling one or more of the following conditions:

• It is a Competition Pro clone joystick
• There is a spring for centering the stick
• The buttons already have microswitches installed
• There is an autofire feature
• There are more than 2 Jyostick buttons

Also: There is no guarantee that my design will fit your Joystick. I am not responsible for any harm you do to your retro device!

Improvements introduced by this Mod

The mod improves the joysticks performance in the folling ways:

• The rubber for centering the joystick is replaced by a strong and precise spring mechanism.
• The fire button switches are replaced by tiny microswitches with very low trigger force
• The stick direction switches are replaced by top brand switches with very low trigger force
• The flimsy (and often bent!) mounting frame for the microswitches is replaced by a precise and sturdy 3d printed part.
• Cable management (and soldering!) is improved drastically, since the cable can be mouted to an additional strain relief on the 3D-printed main part. The whole inner assembly can be removed from the joystick as one solid part!
• The angle required for the stick to trigger a button has been reduced. (On some joysticks it might even be possible to reduce it more, but unfortunately this is limited by the precision of the stick itself: Try turning it by 360 degrees when looking from below and see how it wobbles. So if the "axis-extension" was too large, one would end up with the stick not releasing a switch when being returned to center. 15.5mm diameter worked fine for me for all of my joysticks).

Preparing all the parts

Printing

Printing the parts should be straightforward. Print one piece of each design, two of the strain reflief clips. Layer height is 0.2mm, perimeters are set to 3. I recommend using PETG for durability. Also chose a nice color, especially if your joystick has a transparent case;

If your joystick is not transparent, then only the "topring" part is visible from the outside.

Additional Parts required

Unfortunately not all parts can be printed. So you will have to get your hands on the following parts:

• Spring 1.5mm x 25mm (diameter) x 35mm (length) I got mine from an ebay seller from china
• 2pcs microswitch DG23-B1LA for the buttons (exactly these, if you want the have a perfect joystick, no others!)
• 4pcs microswitch Cherry D41X for the axis (this one is the best I found - high quality and low force for triggering. Do not use others!)
• 4pcs M2x10mm flathead screws for mounting the small microswitches
• 8pcs M3x16 flathead screws for mounting the large microswitches
• 4pcs M3x25mm (ISO 7380 flat heat - this is important, because others might have heads that are too high!!) for mounting the microswitch brackets
• 2pcs M3x12mm flathead scews for mounting the strain relief

Installing the mod

Step 1: Replacing the joystick axis

Most of the parts on the original axis are replaced by new ones. You will need the spring and the 3D printed parts “topring”, “spring-top", “spring-bottom”, “spacer” and “axisextension”:

Here is a comparison of the original design to the modded stick:

The “spring-top” part is firmly inserted in to the top of the case. Then the topring is pushed through the hole from outside and the spring is paced into the groove:

Installing the stick is simple:

You might want to stop here, because now you already have improved you joystick a lot! For those who want to go the whole way: Be warned, because now you will have to hurt the device and cut away the switches from the buttons. This is the point of no return! So please check out if the 'main-part' fits into the top of your joystick case first. If it does not fit: stop here.

Step 2: Make way for better buttons

If you have completed step 1 successfully and the stick fots your device, then you can go beyond the point of no return and cut away the metal parts and the mounts from the original buttons in order to make way for better buttons:

Step 3: Put together the new button assembly

All the other parts are connected to each other to form the new button assembly. Each part has its place and it should be clear which of the screw to use at what place. Just look at the photos:

Regarding the D41X microswitches: I did score some on ebay that do have additional metal levers attached. Those can easily be removed by pulling them out of the plastic:

Regarding the two smaller microswitches: Please carefully bend over the pins sideways, because they would otherwise collide with the bottom of the case:

Depending on the revision of your joystick the case might be a bit tighter, so that the "main-part" will not fit. Do not force it in! Instead use a cutter to remove the small nipples on the sides of the 3d printed part:

In the end the modified innards should fit into the joystick perfectly. 

Step 4: cable management and soldering:

Now it is time to connect the cable. Fix it to the strain relief first - this will make things so much easier than with the original design:

Now solder on all of the wires. Make sure that they do not interfere with the stick:

Step 5: Put it all together:

Now time has come to insert the new innards into the joystick. It should then look like this:

If there is a gap, don't force it in! Check if there are any cables that prohibit the case from closing completly. If it still does not work, you propably have not used the right screws: Four of the screw heads will slightly touch the bottom of the case.

Then put on the bottom of the case:

That's it:

Disclaimer (again)

Remember, you are doing this mod on your own risk! I have modded 3 joysticks and the mods all worked perfectly fine. But there might have been revisions of the joysticks that are not compatible to this mod.

Source Code

The design has been implemented in OpenSCAD:

The source code is available for download, so feel free to adjust it to your needs!

Happy printing!

If you like this design, then please leave a like and also post a photo as a make in the comments. Also check out my other designs.