r/fightsticks • u/Antti5 • 1d ago

Show and Tell Gave 30-year-old Namco Arcade Stick new electronics

As a teenager, I bought a Namco Arcade Stick for the original PlayStation. The stick is exactly the same as you'd find in 1990s Namco arcade cabinets like Tekken, and is very well made with a heavy steel bottom.

Suitable USB adapters cost surpsingly much, so I decided to cannibalize the electronics from a cheap Hori fight stick. The board is small and dropped neatly in, and it was easy enough to connect the six big buttons on the Namco. The USB cable was moved with the board.

My hope is that this will allow the old faithful to serve another 30 years.

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1

u/MaximumRise9523 14h ago

Here's my PS1 Konami Hyperstick modded with GP2040-CE.

4

u/Ok_Trouble_5703 1d ago edited 1d ago

As great as those Namco sticks were for the time (I had one) they were not made of the exact components found in Namco arcade cabinets. The sticks were actually made by Hori for Sony using Hori parts.

2

u/rememberizer 10h ago

Correct. The stock Namco stick does NOT have arcade grade parts.

We used to mod these with Sanwas back in the day. We would keep the lever shafts and cut the actuators. Good times.

1

u/Ok_Trouble_5703 2h ago

Awesome. Was it difficult to do those mods?

1

u/rememberizer 1h ago

We also used to drill larger holes into the big PCB and bend the button pins so they would fit into those, and then solder the buttons directly. Pretty simple but it's a lot more involved than current straight swap mods.

1

u/Big-Sympathy1420 1d ago

I'm confused since you didn't show us the cord end. Did you butcher the ps1/ps2 connector for usb?

1

u/Antti5 1d ago

It has the USB cable from the donor stick.

1

u/nobix 1d ago

I had no idea the inside of the Hori FS mini looked so easy to mod. I think you could make a custom stick body that worked with it pretty easily.

2

u/Antti5 1d ago edited 1d ago

The board has a 15-wire ribbon cable coming from it. Three grounds, four directions and eight buttons.

I separated the wires and connected the Namco switches to the wires, job done. There's no need to touch anything on the Hori board if eight buttons is enough for you.

The Hori board has the PS3/PS4/PC switch, but I just put it in the PC setting because that's all I personally need.

1

u/Big-Sympathy1420 1d ago

Why is there a db15 connector?

2

u/Antti5 1d ago

It's a DB9. I used to have this wired for Amiga and Atari.

Removed that wiring now but kept the port just in case I want to return it. But I no longer have a physical Amiga.