Sanwa ball top actuator: do you NEED one?

Tech Talk
#1

Okay, I was playing KOF 98 the last few days in my Candy cab, and I was NOT able to pull moves off very well, which pisses me off since I play fighters all the time. So, I bought a round actuator, hoping that would help. It didn’t.

Before I continue, all my other fighters aren’t this picky. MOTW, Last Blade… they all work great.

So, finally, I said the hell with it, and took the actuators out all together. The feel is a little looser, and not as strict (obviously), but if I wasn’t pulling moves off faster and at 100% of the time. It was that stupid actuator that was prohibiting my moves from coming out.

My question is this: Do I even NEED the actuators in there? They don’t hold the joystick in or anything, they just restrict movement. Will I harm the stick to use it just as is? I can pull moves off all day long now, but I don’t want to damage my Sanwa ball tops in the proecess. (can’t see how I would/could, but I thought I’d ask)

#2

The actuator I believe refers to the platic part on the shaft which pushes the microswitches in, so yes you need that.

What you are talking about is the gate/restrictor plate. You dont nessesarily need that, but without it the only thing that stops the actuator from moving is the microswitch itself. So if you push too hard in one direction you may mess up one of the switches. Although being that you said you got a circular restrictor I assume you are using a JLW which unlike the JLF, does not have the circuit board with switches soldered onto it. My main concern if you were to remove the plate on the JLF is that the PCB may snap if you pushed too hard in one direction. For the JLW though, there probably isnt much you can do to damage it once the plate is removed.

As for the circular restrictor though, I hear that the area for which the diagonals are picked up are not all equal. I think it was down-right that was smaller than the others, and up-left was a little larger. So this may be the reason as to why you were having problems after putting on the circular gate. Personally I like the octagon gate on the JLF.

#3

Or it could be just that KOF 98 requires insane precision in its inputs.

I dont think I’ll ever understand why that game is considered awesome. I’ll take 2k2 or Garou any damn day of the week over that.

#4

The inputs ARE very very picky, but man… the game’s awesome. To me, it’s worth modding my cab’s sticks to play it well.

#5

You are going to damage your Sanwa stick. You need a Seimitsu LS-32 they are best for NEO GEO.

#6

Why don’t you just mod the restrictor plate to give you the same radius of motion that you have without it? That way it is somewhat of a failsafe against damaging the switches.

And KOF 98 is indeed awesome!